This animation shows how cultured beef is being grown by scientists at Maastricht University using stem-cells from a dead cow. Read more... A slice of history was served today when the world's first test-tube burger, made from lab-grown meat, was cooked and eaten in London. The experiment was the brainchild of Mark Post, a medical physiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. He believes it could herald a food revolution, with artificial meat products appearing in supermarkets in as little as 10 years. First the stem cells are cultivated in a nutrient broth, allowing them to proliferate 30-fold. Next they are combined with an elastic collagen and attached to Velcro "anchor points" in a culture dish. Between the anchor points, the cells self-organise into chunks of muscle. Electrical stimulation is then used to make the muscle strips contract and "bulk up" - the laboratory equivalent of working out in a gym. Finally the thousands of beef strips are minced up, together with 200 pieces of lab-grown animal fat, and moulded into a patty. Around 20,000 meat strands are needed to make one 5oz burger. Other non-meat ingredients include salt, egg powder, and breadcrumbs. Red beetroot juice and saffron are added to provide authentic beef colouring. Today's burger sample was tasted by two volunteers who commented that it lacked flavour due to the absence of beef fat in the patty. Get the latest headlines www.telegraph.co.uk/ Subscribe to The Telegraph www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=telegraphtv Like us on Facebook www.facebook.com/telegraph.co.uk Follow us on Twitter twitter.com/telegraph Follow us on Google+ plus.google.com/102891355072777008500/ Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Daily Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.

Be the first to comment