Researchers say that in the face of an ever-increasing population and insufficiency of livestock to feed everyone, the world’s first test-tube hamburger marks the first stage in a food revolution that might be able to solve the problem.
They believe the product, beef mince grown from stem cells, could pave the way for eating meat without animals being slaughtered.
The scientists are currently developing a burger that will be grown from 10,000 stem cells extracted from cattle, those are then left in the laboratory to multiply more than a billion times to produce muscle tissue similar to beef, reports the Daily Mail. The product is called ‘in vitro’ meat.
Mark Post, professor of physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who is behind the project, told Scientific American magazine that he thinks-- the first burger could be made within 12 months.
Holland is currently leading the world in the production of artificial meat and the Dutch government has put £1.5 million into the research.
Researchers at Utrecht University have calculated that an initial 10 stem cells could produce 50,000 tons of meat in two months.
An Oxford University study found that this process would consume 35-60 per cent less energy, 98 per cent less land and produce 80-95 per cent less greenhouse gas than conventional farming.
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