Taste testers have sampled the world’s first lab-grown burger in Riverside Studios, West London, where the event marking the launch was held.
The tasting event was broadcast online via streaming video. The burger was cooked in the presence of reporters and taste-tested by Chicago-based author and food writer Josh Schonwald and Austrian nutritionist Hanni Rutzler.
Both the tasters noted that the burger tasted 'almost' like a conventional one. While Rützler said that it is close to meat, but not as juicy, Schonwald said the product tasted like an animal protein cake.
The lab-grown burger is the result of a research project by the team led by biologist Mark Post at Maastricht University in the Netherlands.
The project was funded by the Dutch government and a donation of more than $330,000 from Google co-founder Sergey Brin. Although the research spanned over a period of five years, it took the team only three months to grow the burger.
In order to produce artificial meat, the stem cells were placed in a broth containing serum from a cow foetus and vital nutrients, through which muscle cells were allowed to grow and multiply up to 30 times.
The meat is combined with 200 strips of fat tissue developed in a similar manner and chopped finely, to develop a hamburger. Scientists expect the meat to be sold to public in ten years.
Scientists expect the mass production of meat in the laboratory to cut down the number of cattle farmed for food, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address the growing global demand for meat as each animal would be able to produce a million times more meat, compared to the traditional process of slaughter.