Scientists grow first Hamburger in Lab
The first hamburger created by scientists in a lab has been recently presented in London. The burger, which cost over 300,000 dollars to cultivate, originates from stem cells that were taken out of the shoulder of a cow. The result was revealed in front of food and health experts and televised across the Internet.
It took food scientists three months to raise 20,000 tiny pieces of meat to create one single hamburger. Stem cells were reproduced and, over a period of time, created their own muscles. Mark Post, scientist at a Dutch university and responsible for the project, has been researching this method for a long time. He says that the job was a tricky one because it is important to keep the cells healthy and not let any pollution get into them.
Food experts who tasted the new hamburger said that it felt like meat but it was very lean and without fat which normally changes the taste. Biting into it felt like a real burger, but it wasn’t as tasty because salt and pepper were missing.
The experiment showed that creating food in a lab is a possible solution for the world’s food problems. Large quantities of meat could one day be made artificially without raising millions of animals around the world. Those who welcome such a method say that we cannot produce enough meat in the future and such a new method could be an alternative.
But even if the new method catches on it will be a long time before consumers get to taste such a new hamburger at McDonald’s or elsewhere. It would have to be made much cheaper and the time it takes to cultivate such a hamburger would have to be drastically reduced.
Scientists are hoping to get food companies to invest in this new technology. But many question marks remain. Taste and flavour which was put aside in the first prototype must be improved to give a consumer the taste of real meat.
Cultured meat could be a way of producing enough food for our growing population without killing animals. In addition, reducing livestock reduces greenhouse gases. Animals produce about double the amount that we humans create.
By the middle of the century the human population is expected to rise to 9 billion and the demand for food, especially meat will rise.
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Words
- artificially = by humans
- catch on = is successful
- century =a hundred years
- consumer = a person who buys something
- create = make
- cultivate = grow
- cultured meat = meat that is produced in a lab
- demand = the amount we need
- drastically = very much
- elsewhere = somewhere else
- especially = above all
- greenhouse gas = gas that causes global warming
- improve = make better
- in addition = also
- invest = put money into
- lean = not fat
- livestock = animals that farmers feed and sell for food
- muscle = piece of flesh that you use to move your body
- originate = to come from
- pollution = making things dirty
- population = the people who live in a certain place
- prototype= sample
- put aside = here: not regarded; not put in
- quantity = amount
- question mark = questions , the answers of which are not clear
- raise = grow
- recently = a short time ago
- reduce = go down, lower
- remain = stay
- reproduce = duplicate; produce again
- research = study a special topic
- responsible = in control of
- reveal = show
- scientist =person who is trained in science
- shoulder = upper part of the front leg
- solution = way out; method to solve a problem
- stem cell = certain type of cell in your body that can divide in order to form other cells that have a special function
- taste = flavour, aroma
- tasty = to taste good
- technology =method of producing something
- televise = broadcast, show on television
- tricky = complicated, not easy
- welcome = to be in favour of