Please read and consider the following article and questions.
Be ready to discuss. It's more fun that way!
Look up any words you don't know on the second read.
See you on Tuesday! I'm on vacation ! (You should read this for Thursday, Oct 9.)
Test-Tube
Burger Served Up For First Time
The world's
first test-tube burger, costing a whopping £250,000 to produce, has been
unveiled in London.
The 5oz patty - made from lab-grown "cultured beef" - was
dished up by its creator, Professor Mark Post, before journalists in
Hammersmith, in the west of the capital. The scientist-turned-chef made the
most expensive beefburger in history from 20,000 tiny strips of meat grown from
cow stem cells over a three-month period. The billionaire co-founder of Google,
Sergey Brin, put £215,000 of his own money towards the research, saying he was
doing it because it could be "transformative for the world".
Chef Richard McGeown fried the burger in sunflower oil and a knob of
butter before it was sampled by Josh Schonwald, author of The Taste of
Tomorrow, and food scientist Hanni Rutzler. Ms Rutzler said it was "close
to meat" but she was expecting the texture to be softer and it wasn't very
juicy. Mr Schonwald said the "absence is the fat ... it's a leanness to it
but the bite feels like a conventional hamburger". "This is kind of
an unnatural experience in that I can't tell you over the past 20 years how
many times I have had a burger without ketchup or onions or jalapenos or
bacon."
Prof Post believes his artificial meat - known by the rather
unappetising title "in-vitro meat" - could herald a food revolution
and appear in supermarkets within the next 10 to 20 years. After trying his own
creation for the first time, he said: "I think it's a very good start, it
proved that we can do this, that we can make it and to provide a start to build
upon - I am very pleased with it." He said he was not worried about the
verdict on the taste and added that in a couple of months they should be able
to add fat into the product.
The burger could help save the planet by cutting the billions of tonnes
of greenhouse gases currently released by livestock, and may also be deemed
ethically acceptable by vegetarians because it would dramatically reduce the
need to slaughter animals. But its success or failure will ultimately depend on
how much it resembles the taste, texture and price of real meat.
The demonstration was originally planned for October last year, with
celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal cooking the burger for a mystery guest. There
was pressure from journalists in the audience who wanted to try the burger but
they were told there was not enough to go around. Up until now, the only
outsider known to have eaten the synthetic meat was a Russian reporter who
snatched a piece of cultured pork and stuffed it in his mouth during a visit to
Prof Post's lab - before it had been passed as safe to eat. He was reportedly
unimpressed by the pork, describing it as "chewy and tasteless".
Prof Post's team at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands
conducted experiments which progressed from mouse meat to pork and finally beef
- the most environmentally destructive meat. "What we are going to attempt
is important because I hope it will show cultured beef has the answers to major
problems that the world faces," he said. "Our burger is made from
muscle cells taken from a cow. We haven't altered them in any way. For it to
succeed it has to look, feel and hopefully taste like the real thing."
The ingredients don't sound like something a chef would boast about on
a menu - half-millimetre thick strips of pinkish yellow lab-grown tissue, each
the size of a rice grain. But Prof Post is confident he can produce a burger
that is almost indistinguishable from one made from prime beef. He points out
that livestock farming is becoming unsustainable, with demand for meat
rocketing around the world.
The industry accounts for nearly 20% of all greenhouse gas emissions -
even greater than transport - with 228 million tonnes of meat produced each
year. And the environmental problems are only likely to get worse, with the UN
forecasting that world demand for meat will double by 2050, largely driven by
an increased demand from a growing middle class in China and other developing
nations. Added to this, around 70% of all farmland is devoted to meat
production, and cattle consume around 10% of the world's freshwater supplies,
making meat farming a very costly, planet-damaging business.
Experts say 1kg of meat requires up to 10kg of crops to produce, making
it a highly inefficient method of turning plants into human food, whereas
synthetic meat uses about 2kg of feed. Research by Oxford University scientists
in 2011 estimated that cultured meat needs 99% less land than livestock,
between 82% and 96% less water, and produces between 78% and 95% less
greenhouse gas.
The burger launched today has cost £250,000 to produce, but the
Dutch team are hoping to dramatically slash the cost by industrialising the
laborious process. The Food Standards Agency said that before going on sale, synthetic
meat would need regulatory approval, with manufacturers needing to prove that
all necessary safety tests had been carried out.
By Alex Watts, Sky News Online - Monday 05 August 2013
Discussion Questions
With your partner, discuss the following questions.
Feel free to ask any follow-on questions you like.
1. What
are your initial thoughts on this story? Is this a good idea?
2. Do you think you could get used to eating
artificial meat products? Will it become popular?
3. Do you think artificial meat will be “transformative for the world”? In
what ways?
4. Can you think of any possible negative side
effects if artificial meat catches on?
5. If we all start consuming artificial meats,
what will be done with all the farmland that will no longer be needed? What
would you like to see done with it?
6. What
other technological advances would you like to see in your lifetime? Why?
7. Does
it bother you that animals must suffer and die so you can enjoy the taste of
meat?
8. Have
you ever considered becoming a vegetarian?
If you are a vegetarian, would you eat artificial meat?
9. Are
you a fussy eater? Explain.
10. What
is the strangest thing you have ever eaten?
