Thursday, November 17, 2011

IVF Meat - The Cost vs Taste Hurdle

"Right now, the artificial meat consists of little more than muscle tissue grown from stem cells. An actual piece of meat is substantially more complex, as the muscle fibers have integrated into a coherent tissue and built up through use. Associated tissues, like blood and fat, also contribute to taste, appearance, and texture.

It might be possible to overcome these hurdles. Stem cells for blood and fat have been identified, and culturing them and getting them to differentiate into mature tissues is probably not much more complex than getting muscle fibers to grow in a dish. But this comes back to cost: getting any cells to grow into mature tissues is ferociously expensive, and adding additional cell types will increase the complexity and cost."


- More Here

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