Stem Cell Burgers- The Future Of Meat

 “Schmeat” — or “cultured beef” as the patty’s progenitor, Mark Post, a professor of physiology and biomedical technology at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands, calls the culinary product of stem cells harvested from a cow’s shoulder and laboratory-nurtured into strips of muscle — is hailed by its proponents as a potential solution to several juicy existential problems. The demand for cheap meat has been met at a high price to the environment, human health and animal welfare. - Time Magazine

The present and the future of meat are unpredictable. Fast food companies claim to serve the finest selections of chicken, beef, fish and ham. In reality, they are serving meat byproducts which can include grinded bones, mucus, animal intestines etc. The average consumer has no idea as to whether the “meat” that they are ingesting is diseased or pumped full of hormones. Think Mad Cow Disease. Some consumers seem to have blind faith in the restaurant industry and supermarkets.

The animal population is not multiplying quickly enough to fit the population growing demands so the meat industry get creative and engineers meat from cow stem cells. Genetically engineered stem cell meat is the future of the meat industry. The article describes this futuristic meat as the humane approach to animal slaughter. This has yet to be seen.     

The article describes the "meat" as tiny hoops of greyish-white protein suspended in a gel-like growth medium that contained antibiotics an a serum extracted from cow foetuses.