Synthetic tea? Lab-grown meat? Artificial milk? Nutrients and vitamins in a protein shake? Sci-fi movies like the Matrix, Star Trek or The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy showed us a glimpse of the future of eating disconnected from Mother Earth. Some innovative solutions are already here, promising an option for alleviating the overstraining of natural resources and still providing food for millions of humans.
For example, researchers of the Cultured Beef Project remove muscle cells from the shoulder of a cow and feed the cells with a nutrient mix in a Petri dish, and then they grow into muscle tissue. From a few starter cells, one can derive tons of meat. The Netherlands-based company, Mosa Meat introduced their first hamburger in London in 2013, and they promise to bring artificial beef to the masses in the next 3-4 years. Two Israeli start-ups, SuperMeat in Tel Aviv and the Modern Agriculture Foundation (MAF) in Ramat Gan joined the quest to mass-produce cultured meat, working on cultivating chicken meat in their laboratories, while Silicon Valley-based Finless Foods is promising to produce real fish meat out of stem cells to create more sustainable seafood.
Another San Francisco-based company, JUST Inc., formerly known as the controversial food enterprise, Hampton Creek, is developing cultured foie gras, synthetic chorizo, and artificial nugget. Its researchers are also working on cultured meat, and they promised to introduce their version at the end of this year. A Japanese company, Integriculture Inc., could mean a competitor for JUST in the field of cultured foie gras. CEO Yuki Hanyu says their lab-grown product could hit the shelves within the next four years. What do you say? Would you be open to trying artificial nuggets with synthetic foie gras?
Source: www.gizmodo.com