Not too long ago, a photograph of rice left me confused. The rice itself regarded tasty sufficient—fluffy, effectively shaped—however its oddly fleshy hue gave me the creeps. In line with the scientists who’d developed it, every pink-tinged grain was seeded with muscle and fats cells from a cow, imparting a nutty, umami taste.
In a single sense, this “beef rice” was simply one other instance of lab-grown meat, touted as a technique to eat animals with out the moral and environmental impacts. Although not but commercially accessible, the rice was developed by researchers in Korea as a nutrition-dense meals that may be produced sustainably, not less than extra so than beef itself. Though it has a extra brittle texture than regular rice, it may be cooked and served in the identical manner. But in one other sense, this rice was fully totally different. Lab-grown meat goals to duplicate typical meat in each dimension, together with style, diet, and look. Beef rice doesn’t even attempt.
Possibly that’s a great factor. Lab-grown meat, additionally broadly generally known as cultivated meat, has lengthy been heralded as the way forward for meals. However to this point, the purpose of completely replicating meat as we all know it—toothy, sinewy, and typically bloody—has proved impractical and costly. As soon as-abundant funding has dried up, and this week, Florida moved towards changing into the primary state to ban gross sales of cultivated meat. It appears unlikely that entire cuts of cultivated meat can be displaying up on individuals’s plates anytime quickly—however possibly one thing like beef rice might. Essentially the most promising way forward for lab-grown meat might not appear to be meat in any respect, not less than as we’ve at all times recognized it.
The promise of cultivated meat is that you would be able to have your steak and eat it too. Not like the meatless choices at your grocery retailer, cultivated meat is meat—simply created with out killing any animals. However the science simply isn’t there but. Firms have roughly found out step one, taking a pattern of cells from a dwell animal or egg and propagating them in a tank stuffed with a nutrient-rich broth. Although not cheaply: By one estimate, making a slurry of cultivated cells prices $17 a pound or extra to supply.
The subsequent step has proved prohibitively difficult: coaxing that sludge of cells to mature into differing kinds—fats, muscle, connective tissue—and arranging them in a construction resembling a strong lower of meat. Normally, the cells want a three-dimensional platform to information their progress, generally known as a scaffold. “It’s one thing that may be very straightforward to get fallacious and onerous to get proper,” Claire Bomkamp, a senior scientist on the Good Meals Institute, a nonprofit supporting meat alternate options, informed me. To date, just a few firms have served up proofs of idea: In June, the USA accredited the sale of cultivated rooster from Upside Meals and Good Meat. Nonetheless it’s just about inconceivable to return by now.
The essential science of lab-grown meat can be utilized for extra than simply succulent rooster breasts and medium-rare steaks. Cells grown in a tank perform primarily like floor meat, imparting a meaty taste and mouthfeel to no matter they’re added to, behaving extra like an ingredient or a seasoning than a meals product. Hybrid meat merchandise, made by mixing a small quantity of cultivated-meat cells with different substances, are promising as a result of they might be cheaper than complete lab-grown steaks or rooster breasts however meatier than purely plant-based meat.
Already, the start-up SciFi Meals is producing what has been described as a “fatty meat paste” that’s meant to be combined with plant-based substances to make burgers. Solely small quantities are wanted to make the burgers beefy; every prices lower than $10 to make, in response to the corporate—nonetheless significantly greater than a standard beef patty, however the costs ought to come down over time. Possibly it sounds bizarre, however that’s not so totally different from imitation crab—which doesn’t include a lot or any crab in any respect. The same premise underlies the plant-based bacon laced with cultivated pork fats that I attempted final yr. Was it meat? I’m unsure. Did it style prefer it? Completely.
Meat will be a lot greater than what we’ve at all times recognized. “We don’t should make meat the identical manner that it’s at all times come out of an animal,” Bomkamp stated. “We is usually a little bit extra expansive in what our definition of meat is.” Beef rice, which primarily makes use of rice as a miniature scaffold to develop cow cells, falls into this class. It isn’t significantly meaty—solely 0.5 % of every grain is cow—however the scientists who developed it say the proportion might change in future iterations. It’s framed as a technique to feed individuals in “underdeveloped international locations, throughout conflict, and in house.”
Finally, cultivated meat might impart a whiff of meatiness to blander meals, creating new, meat-ish merchandise within the course of which can be extra sustainable than common meat and extra nutritious than crops. Beef rice is one choice; meat grown on mushroom roots is in improvement. Even stranger meals are doable. Bomkamp envisions utilizing the expertise to make skinny sheets of seafood—combining parts of salmon, tuna, and shrimp—to wrap round a rainbow roll of sushi. On this state of affairs, cultivated meat in all probability received’t save the planet from local weather change and animal struggling. “It wouldn’t serve its authentic perform of being a direct substitute for business meat,” Daniel Rosenfeld, who research perceptions of cultivated meat at UCLA, informed me. However on the very least, it might present one other dinner choice.
In fact, it’s within the curiosity of the cultivated-meat trade to counsel that cultivated meat isn’t simply outright doomed. Little doubt some vegetarians would cringe on the thought, as would some devoted carnivores. However contemplating how a lot meat People eat, it’s not onerous to think about a future wherein cultivated cells fulfill individuals looking for a brand new type of meat product. Think about the salad you could possibly make with rooster cells grown inside arugula, or bread baked with bacon-infused wheat. However ought to these show too troublesome to supply, I’d fortunately take a bowl of beef rice, in all its flesh-tinged glory.