Cultured meat

The dinner plate of the future might include some beefy rice. No, not beef and rice. Beef rice. In a new study, researchers in Korea say they’ve created rice infused with muscle and fat cells from cows. The hybrid grain purportedly contains more protein and fat than typical rice, and the team argues that it should be cheaper and more environmentally friendly to produce than beef and rice combined.Denis Villeneuve Had a Blast Building the Dune LegoThe study authors were inspired to create their novel food as a means of…

Cultivated meat could eventually have major climate benefits, says Hanna Tuomisto, an associate professor at the University of Helsinki and the lead author of the 2011 study. Tuomisto recently published another study that also found potential climate benefits for cultivated meat. However, she adds, the industry’s true climate impacts are yet to be determined. “There are many, many open questions still, because not very many companies have built anything at larger scale,” Tuomisto says. Till the cows come home Scaling…

That sounds like a lot, but in the grand scheme of food production, it’s pretty tiny. Large commercial meat facilities produce millions of pounds of meat each year—and that’s the sort of scale Upside is targeting for its first commercial facility, said Eric Schulze, VP of global scientific and regulatory affairs at Upside foods, in an email.  Eat Just’s cultured meat subsidiary Good Meat runs two demonstration facilities, one in the US and one in Singapore. Those facilities use large reactors with capacities of 3,500…

Image: Upside FoodsThe lab-grown future of food starts now as two California companies—Upside Foods and Eat Just—have received final approvals from the United States Department of Agriculture to begin hocking lab-grown chicken.Does Beyond Meat’s Plant Have a Mold Problem?Upside Foods and Eat Just announced the news in respective press releases, following the USDA’s approval of each company’s labels earlier this month. That regulatory rubber stamp means that the two brands can begin commercial production ofthe synthetic…

We started with a plant-based burger from Impossible Foods. Founded in 2011, the company makes meat alternatives from plants. The special ingredient is heme protein, which is cranked out by genetically engineered microbes and sprinkled in for that meaty flavor. I took a small bite of the Impossible burger, and if you ask me, the taste was a pretty good approximation of the real thing, though the texture was a bit looser and softer than beef. (If you’re based in the US, you may have tried this one already yourself. In…

The cultivated meat company Vow has produced a meatball from a mammoth muscle protein in an effort to show off the numerous benefits of sustainable meat. It’s probably a harmless gimmick, but I’m not a fan of advertising this mostly sheep meatball as genuine mammoth, and I’m skeptical that the stunt is going to sell anyone on cultivated meat.Does Beyond Meat’s Plant Have a Mold Problem?First, calling this mammoth meat is a stretch, for the same reasons that recent efforts to “de-extinct” the thylacine and the dodo won’t…

Manmade meat is marching ever-closer to your dinner plate. A second company has received a critical safety green light from the Food and Drug Administration, and can now move forward with next steps towards selling its lab-grown chicken substitute to U.S. consumers.Good Meat, the sister-brand of Just Egg and a subsidiary of company Eat Just, completed pre-market FDA review earlier this week. The agency’s reviewers “have no questions at this time,” regarding the safety of Good Meat’s “cultured chicken cell material,”…

One of UPSIDE Foods’ chicken products on display, in all its glory. Photo: UPSIDE FoodsLab-grown meat is one big step closer to grocery store aisles and your dinner plate. The Food and Drug Administration announced its first-ever rubber stamp for a cultured meat company on Wednesday. UPSIDE Foods completed the FDA’s pre-market consultation process, and the agency found no reason to doubt the company’s safety claims.Though technically not an “approval process” the FDA’s assessment of UPSIDE amounts to a green light for the…