THE new good-for-you meat won't be pork or grass-fed beef, and it won't be made of soy. If the efforts of a few future-minded scientists succeed, it will taste and look like old-fashioned meat -- only it'll be raised in a lab, not on a farm.
Several groups of scientists are cultivating edible meat in dishes from animal muscle cells. The technology, which involves choosing the right starter cells, stimulating and fine-tuning their growth for taste, texture and nutrients, has a way -- a long way -- to go before meat could hit supermarkets. But these researchers insist it will be a more efficient way to produce a staple of the American diet -- and will make meat healthier to boot.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday June 16, 2006 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
Petri meat: A May 22 Health article about attempts to grow meat in the laboratory said that chicken heart muscle was grown in a flask for more than 30 years. In fact, scientists later concluded that the culture was probably contaminated with new cells.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Monday June 19, 2006 Home Edition Health Part F Page 7 Features Desk 1 inches; 44 words Type of Material: Correction
Petri meat: A May 22 Health story about attempts to grow meat in the laboratory said that chicken heart muscle was grown in a flask for more than 30 years. In fact, scientists later concluded that the culture was likely contaminated with new cells.
Growing lab meat, they say, will mean scientists can control levels and types of fats (such as omega 3 fatty acids), protein and other substances and produce a product less likely to be contaminated with such food-poisoning culprits as \o7E. coli\f7.
"Suddenly a McDonald's breakfast sausage patty could protect you from heart disease instead of giving you heart disease," says Robert Lawrence, director of the Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.
But scientists who study the old-fashioned kind of meat are skeptical. "It'll never be practical," says Yu Bang Lee, professor of animal science and muscle biology at UC Davis. It is just too technically and financially difficult, he says.
Meat, after all, is not simply a mass of muscle cells; it's a complex tissue comprised of fat, nerves, blood vessels and connective tissue. Each cell type plays a role in the flavor and mouth-feel of a chicken cutlet, club steak or fillet of fish, says John Killefer, associate professor of meat science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Mimicking this structure is crucial if you want your product to be palatable.
Producing meat in a lab dish is far from a new idea. In 1912, French scientist Alexis Carrel placed chicken heart tissue in a flask of nutrients. The muscle cells grew for more than 30 years -- outliving Carrel himself.
In 1932, Winston Churchill wrote that by the 1980s people would "escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken" by growing only desired parts -- like breasts and wings -- in the lab.
It was not his finest prediction. Only recently have resources been devoted to growing flesh; in July 2005, the basic methods being used were summarized in the journal Tissue Engineering.
