Lab grown meat thirty thousand times cheaper than 18 months ago
[Via Next Big Future]
Dutch Professor Mark Post, the scientist who made world’s first laboratory grown beef burger
believes so-called “cultured meat” could spell the end of traditional cattle farming within just a few decades.
A year and a half ago the professor of vascular physiology gave the world its first taste of a beef burger he’d grown from stem cells taken from cow muscle.
It passed the food critics’ taste test, but at more than a quarter of a million dollars, the lab quarter-pounder was no threat to the real deal. Now, after further development, Dr Post estimates it’s possible to produce lab-beef for $80 a kilo – and that within years it will be a price-competitive alternative.
A small piece of muscle you can produce 10,000 kilos of meat.
Now the cost is $11 for a quarter pound lab grown patty.
[More]
Things are going to change a lot in the next few years. We may well have ways to make and prepare meats without needing to raise the livestock directly.
There are still many barriers to overcome, but I expect someone will figure it out. Then combine this with 3D printing and the Star Trek replicator will be here.
Image: fdecomite
A Man With A Ph.D. 