Question: there is a new method in making a beef burger, they make them in a lab using stem cells and muscle from a cow ? and is really expensive! will this be sucsessfull in the future do you think? and how exacly are they made, as i only know the bare basics (:

Leila Battison answered on 12 Mar 2012:

At the moment, engineered meat, or ‘in-vitrio’ meat is expensive because the technology is still being developed and there are still concerns over if it is safe or environmentally friendly.

There are two ways of making artificial meat, both using stem cells. The first just grows loose muscle cells that can be knitted together to make a sort of processed burger – more like a beef burger. The second way makes whole muscles grow as if they would if they were in a cow, with blood vessels and fat around them to make them the right shape – this is more like an artificial steak.

The artificial meat is a good idea because you don’t need to clear big areas of land for cow ranches (most of why the Amazon is being cleared), but some people are worried about how environmentally friendly the ‘meat factories’ will be, or if the meat will be safe to eat. I think though, that as the world’s population increases, it will be used more and more to feed poorer people.