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SALT LAKE CITY -- An international coalition of scientists wants the meat on your plate to come from a petri dish.
Well, not really a petri dish. But nevertheless, the concept of growing animal body parts in a lab is gaining both momentum and, if these scientists have their way, money as well.
Cultured meat, sometimes called in vitro meat, is grown in a lab rather than in a farm and is never part of a fully functional living animal. Rather, some part of an animal, (or even a human, theoretically) is grown all by itself -- a lone liver or lung or larynx -- independent of any other part. Whether using the material for studying or replacing malfunctioning parts -- or eating -- no complete being of any kind needs to die.
It may seem like a strange idea, but according to Stellan Welin, professor in biotechnology, culture and society, at Linköping University, "Several ethical problems would be solved, especially concerning animal welfare issues."
This may make animal rights activists very happy. The implications for vegetarians and vegans, however, is not immediately clear.
Scientists in the last year have grown organs, skin, and intestine tissue from various animals, and now they are getting the hang of muscle tissue.
Muscles, the kind of tissue we are used to eating, have been grown before. But in the absence of a body or any pressure to form properly, the muscle was amorphous, and a little slimy -- more like a blob of flesh than the steak we are used to seeing at dinnertime.
But, scientists working at Eindhoven Technical University in Holland recently figured out how to solve, at least somewhat, that problem. They simply attached the cultured meat to Velcro and stretched it out until it developed striations and blood vessels, just like regular muscle tissue, Until it became recognizable and ordered.
So, eating cultured meat is now a step closer to actually being appetizing.
Last week, scientists and ethicists met in Gothenburg, Sweden, to further codify the implications and practices of cultured meat. For instance, they decided that cultured meat should only receive nutrients from renewable sources -- sources that can be produced using photosynthesis, which essentially means blue-green algae.
They also took the time to extoll some other virtues of cultured meat, like a 96 percent reductions in greenhouse gasses compared to farms, 96 percent less water usage, 99 percent less land usage, as well as never having to kill an animal.
Though you are not likely to see cultured meat on a menu anytime soon, if these researchers get the money they called for, your chef could someday be wearing a lab coat.
Email: [dnewlin@ksl.com](<mailto: dnewlin@ksl.com>)
