The world’s first laboratory-made meat kebabs have been offered for sale, which tastes exactly as the real meat one can buy from a butcher.
An Israeli company has developed the meat from beef cells in which no animal is slaughtered. Aleph Farms Ltd. has cultivated a ribeye steak using three-dimensional “bio-printing” and real cow cells.
The firm’s technology prints living cells that are incubated to grow, differentiate and interact to acquire the texture and qualities of a real steak.
The process is similar to the vascularization that occurs naturally in tissues. It allows for the passage of nutrients across thicker tissue, resulting in a steak with a similar structure of a traditional cut of meat before and during cooking, according to Aleph Farms.
The company said the stack was made by mixing the cells of the two animals in a lab which is not a painful process for animals. This is artificial but real meat, especially for people who can’t see animals being slaughtered and avoid eating their meat.
Manufactured 3D kebabs are expensive due to a lack of resources but will be gradually reduced in price. Earlier, the chicken was prepared in a laboratory in Singapore was offered for sale.
Demand for alternatives to regular meat is surging due to concerns about health, animal welfare, and the environment. Plant-based substitutes, popularised by the likes of Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, and Quorn, increasingly feature on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus.
Read more: Singapore approves sale of lab-grown ‘chicken’ meat
The so-called clean or cultured meat, which is grown from animal muscle cells in a lab, is still at a nascent stage given high production costs. Singapore currently only produces about 10 percent of its food but has set out ambitious plans to raise that over the next decade by supporting high-tech farming and new means of food production.
Globally more than two dozen firms are testing lab-grown fish, beef, and chicken, hoping to break into an unproven segment of the alternative meat market, which Barclays estimates could be worth $140 billion by 2029.
