via dailymail:
- To create cultured meat, researchers take small amounts of tissue from animal
- After isolating individual cells,they’re put in flasks and fed nutrients, oxygen
- When grown on plastic, cells will divide until they exist on all of available surface
- To get an organized structure like steak, you need vessels and connective tissue
The meat you eat, if you’re a carnivore, comes from animal muscles. But animals are composed of a lot more than just muscle.
They have organs and bones that most Americans do not consume. They require food, water, space and social connections. They produce waste.
Farmers spend a lot of energy and resources to grow complex organisms, creating waste in the process, only to focus on the profitable cuts of meat they can harvest.
It would be easier, more humane, less wasteful, to produce just the parts people want.
And with cell biology and tissue engineering, it is possible to grow just muscle and fat tissue. It’s called cultured meat.
Scientists provide cells with the same inputs they need to grow, just outside an animal: nutrients, oxygen, moisture and molecular signals from their cell neighbors.
So far researchers have cultivated bunches of cells that can be turned into processed meat like a burger or a sausage.