Burger of the Future | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

uh, I'll pass

If you're a planet-conscious carnivore, you've got a dilemma on your plate. Should you stop eating delicious animal parts just because the food industry is contributing to the slow destruction of Earth? Anyone who's had a bacon cheeseburger will understand why going vegetarian is a tough decision — even when the meat industry's impact on the world is undeniable.

A study from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations projected, by 2030, the average person is expected to consume around 45 pounds of meat annually — a number that rises substantially in the United States. The strain that will put on the planet is extreme, to say the least. But according to developing lab science, soon you can have your burger and eat it too.

Scientists are already on the slow road to 3-D printing human organs. If you have the equipment to print human muscle, you have what you need to grow edible meat. All you need is DNA from the animal you want to print.

Lab-grown meat, also known as in vitro meat or cultured beef, is the product of animal cells taken from a living creature, placed in a petri dish and fed until they multiply and create new muscle tissue for human consumption. That's the theory, at least, of Mark Post, a professor of tissue engineering at Maastricht University in the Netherlands and the father of the sub-$12 bioengineered burger. Post found he could take 20,000 strands of meat cells to create a regular patty.

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