World’s first artificial hamburger is created

Yesterday in London, the first beef burger created out of stem cells in a lab, was cooked and tasted.

Volunteers praised product’s consistency and highlighted that it had less fat, a different flavor to the real meat and not much juice as a natural beef burger. In addition, the lab stem cell based meat was white at first so a natural red beet dye was added in order to make it more realistic.

Hanni Rützler, an Austrian food researcher, volunteered to try the first stem-cell burger.

The process for creating the beef burger was achieved within three weeks, with over one million stem cells, which were distributed in small containers where they fused to form muscle strips. The strips then were frozen until they reached 20,000, then they were thawed and compacted into a beef chunk.

The proposal, although extremely expensive at the time, aims to be the first step in creating a food that could end hunger in the world. However, the marketing of the product would not be achieved for another ten to twenty years.