Imagine going into a restaurant and being asked if you want chicken, fish or a $100 animal-cell-cultivated-in-a-bioreactor burger.
If that sounds like the storyline of a cheesy, sci-fi B-movie, it’s not. This is happening right now.
According to the New York Post, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration have given approval to two companies, UPSIDE Foods and GOOD Meat, to sell their lab-grown meat products in the U.S.
Instead of being sourced from slaughtered animals, this meat is created through a process involving live stem cells taken from the muscle and skin of real animals. These stem cells are then cultivated in a bioreactor, which replicates the conditions inside an animal’s body and provides the necessary nutrients for the cells to grow into meat.
Now if that description hasn’t given you a hankering for a nice juicy stem cell steak, here’s some more information from Bon Appetit to whet your appetite.