Test Tube Meat, Mmmm!

Now that sounds just too good to be true. Protein derived from an unusual source. Protein passing itself off as meat butchered from animal stock. We already have something like that, protein posing as 'bacon bits' derived from soy products. Resemblance to the real thing is illusory. Some people don't mind the illusion, others spurn it.

But here's something to think about; food is growing scarcer on this Planet. We're using some of it - cereal grains specifically - for ethanol production. Now that's pretty perverse. Using food as an energy source because we're attempting to wean ourselves off conventional fuels, particularly fossil-based fuels like petroleum products. The solution of ethanol use is pathetic.

After all, due to climate change there are widespread droughts in the world. Where crops cannot be grown, and agriculture is failing. So how can we in good faith deprive people of grains while we use them to energize our mechanical devices? This is a truly unintelligent use of food, but it conforms to the priorities of the Kyoto Protocol.

Canadian production alone of ethanol from wheat and corn removes grain from the global food supply that would feed over 30 million people. And that's the about number in the Horn of Africa currently said by the United Nations to be on the verge of starvation as a result of grain scarcity and drought-related agriculture failures.

And then there's the issue of meat. To pasture cows and feed them to produce high-grade meats, grains are consumed, hugely. The global livestock industry according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization is responsible for 20% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. Cattle consume 80% of the Globe's farmland, 10% of its fresh water.

So what if test-tube meat could be produced? What if in-vitro meat grown from stem cells in a plant-based mixture of nutrients could eventually provide an alternate meat source to service the growing hunger for meat in India and China, let alone elsewhere in the world where meat is normally consumed?

A food scientist, Vladimir Mironov, has finessed a process to produce what he calls in vitro meat through a biological technological process. PETA funded postdoctoral biological engineer Nicholas Genovese to work with Dr. Mironov. The U.S. isn't keen on funding this research, likely because of effective lobbying from its animal meat producers.

But the Netherlands has been funding similar research. It is extremely costly to produce at the present time, particularly when infused with "neutraceutical" benefits. Its inventor feels that commercially viable product is about a decade into the future. But he also feels that this is the way to go to feed the world population.

"We can have food that makes you happy, reduces your appetite and has fantastic taste because we can design taste, composition and texture." Dr. Vladimir Mironov.