Score one for the techno-optimists. Dutch researchers, funded by Google gazillionaire Sergey Brin, have managed to move lab meat from the test tube to a taste test—a high-proflle one in London. Two intrepid critics, a food scientist and the author of a book on food’s techy future, found it, well, almost meatlike. Here’s the Washington Post:
Rützler [the food scientist] gave the chef an appreciative nod. “It’s close to meat, but it’s not as juicy,” she said. “I was expecting the texture to be more soft. The surface was surprisingly crunchy.” She added: “I would have said if it was disgusting.” Schonwald [the author] said the product tasted like “an animal protein cake.”
Okay, that last phrase doesn’t exactly pique the appetite, but you have to admit, it’s not a bad showing for a product that came not from a cow grazing a lush meadow, but rather from tissue derived from bovine stem cells and grown in “nutrient solution.”
News of the successful tasting excited some food system researchers. Responding to enviro writer Andy Revkin, University of Minnesota scholar Emily Cassidy tweeted, “Why is #culturedbeef important? Shifting away from grain-fed beef could feed over 350 million more people.”