Grow your own meat
Mark Post has been given €300,000 to make a hamburger, in one year. Easy money, you might think, but try doing that without using meat that has come from an animal.
Professor Post is one of the few people on the planet who can. As head of the department of vascular physiology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, he is in the vanguard of a new wave of research to create a way of producing meat that cuts out the need for animal husbandry altogether.
Instead of getting meat from animals raised in pastures, he wants to grow steaks in lab conditions, directly from muscle stem cells. If successful, the technology will transform the way we produce food. "We want to turn meat production from a farming process to a factory process," he explained.
Prof Post is not the first to dream this dream. In the mid 20th Century, Dutchman Willem van Eelen - back then a budding medical student - dreamt of creating meat without killing animals, by using stem cells.
A stem cell is a special type of cell capable of replicating itself many many times and differentiating into specialised cell types, such as muscle cells.
Dr van Eelen pursued his dream for decades, but made little progress. Then in 1999 he was granted a patent on the idea and slowly the world started to take notice.
In 2002, NASA took a passing interest in the idea and funded Morris Benjaminson at Touro College, New York, to investigate making meat from muscle cells as a way to feed astronauts on deep space journeys.
Dr Benjaminson removed a sample of cells from the muscle of a goldfish and managed to grow it outside the fish's body. The fillet was marinated in garlic, lemon, pepper and olive oil and deep-fried. A panel of testers inspected the fillet and said it smelt and looked just like the real thing, but they weren't allowed to eat it because of US laws prohibiting consumption of experimental products.
Test Tubes Used For Spices - News
In 2005 Dr van Eelen finally convinced the Dutch government to support research into test tube meat to the tune of €2 million. A series of projects were set up. One explored how embryonic stem cells could be coaxed to become muscle cells,
I added 1 tablespoon concentrated tomato paste from a tube (2 tablespoons regular tomato paste) and a bunch of spices: 2 tablespoons chili powder, 1 tablespoon cumin, 2 teaspoons ancho chili powder and 1/2 teaspoon oregano. Cooked that for a bit with
This spicy snack is from the test kitchens of Bon Appetit magazine. The seeds can be made 5 days ahead of serving and stored in airtight container at room temperature. To prepare oven, baking sheet: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
It is like being in intensive care in the hospital, all these tubes running in there,” said Ritins regretfully. Another example of lost heritage is the carrot. “Everyone thinks that the carrot is orange, but it's not the truth. Carrots could be white,
From what I can gather from Isaacson's account (it wasn't entirely clear to me) Jobs refused a nasogastric tube when he needed it and as a result aspirated gastric contents when he was sedated, developing a severe postoperative aspiration pneumonia