Science Saturday: The Other, Other White Meat

I Can't Believe it's Not Cow!

now that is some gourmet shit.

Breakthough of the (past) week
Earlier last week the first synthetic hamburger was taste-tested for the first time.

Why did they do it?
Because the meat industry is effed up! Where to begin? As a biologist I must start with the antibiotics. Herd immunity is proven to be a good thing and about 50 years ago cattle farmers took notice. They started feeding their cows with antibiotics in order to prevent disease and thus raise profits. No problem, right? Well now cattle are raised by the tens-of-thousands and pumped with so much unnecessary antibiotics that it's leading to superbugs which cannot be treated by any medicine that exists. This of course ends up in our food supply and makes everyone else sick.

 Second is cost, and I'm not just talking about money. When you think about it, a lot of time and resources go in to raising a cow. Water, food, medicine, land. What if all that could be cut out? There are also loads of ramifications on the environment when it comes to raising cattle, methane pollution (cow farts) being one. Third is animal cruelty. I think each one of us has seen more PETA commercials than we like, so how about I just say that synthetic meat cuts out this problem, end of conversation.

How did they do it?
Stem cells are taken from a cow, which are then nourished in a lab to become muscle cells that are grown until they become mature enough to eat!

How does this affect my life?
The meat we eat in the future will be synthetic, deal with it. Unless your super rich and can afford "the real stuff" meat is simply going to become too expensive given the costs of land, water, medicine and feed to raise a whole cow. This is mainly caused by an exponentially rising human population with a taste for western cuisine (cheeseburgers). Also if you're playing by the letter of the law this food is fair game for vegetarians (but not vegans (that's right I know the difference between that BS)).

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a paper to write..

Had to get a spongebob reference in there

Love,

Nate