From Petri Dish To Dinner Plate
Imagine a world where steaks and other meat products were produced without having to raise, then slaughter animals. That world is the one scientists of lab-grown (cultured) meat are aiming for. The revolutionary food production could provide a more ethical, and more sustainable, alternative to large-scale meat production. Of course, like most things are, it’s easier said than done.
The two biggest challenges to getting lab-grown meat to the market, to eventually make it onto peoples’ dinner plates include:
- How to make it taste and feel like real meat
- How to produce it in large quantities
To begin with, researchers focused on the experience of eating lab-grown meat. It has to be as close, if not identical or better, to the real thing as possible. That is the most important, after all. Nobody is going to want to eat a plate of flavorless mush, even to save the world! It’s already strange enough knowing the meat came from a laboratory. However, if the person can’t tell the difference, then it’s easy to forget.
Gelatin Scaffolds
A group of Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) researchers have devised a solution to the texture challenge. They made edible gelatin scaffolds that have the texture and consistency of real meat. Then, they grew rabbit and cow muscle cells on this scaffolding. The research demonstrates how realistic meat products are possible! It has been published in the journal NPJ Science of Food.
Kit Parker, senior author of the study and the Tarr Family Professor of Bioengineering and Applied Physics at SEAS, was inspired to take on this project after having judged a competition show on the Food Network. He said:
The materials-science expertise of the chefs was impressive. After discussions with them, I began to wonder if we could apply all that we knew about regenerative medicine to the design of synthetic foods. After all, everything we have learned about building organs and tissues for regenerative medicine applies to food: healthy cells and healthy scaffolds are the building substrates, the design rules are the same, and the goals are the same: human health. This is our first effort to bring hardcore engineering design and scalable manufacturing to the creation of food.
Real Animal Meat
Skeletal muscle and fat tissue make up most of what is animal meat. It grows in long, thin fibers. If you’ve ever shredded pork or chicken, then you know about the fibers. In the realm of bioengineering meat, it’s these fibers that are extremely difficult to reproduce.
Luke MacQueen, the study’s first author and a research associate at SEAS as well as at the Wyss Institute for Bioinspired Engineering, explained:
Muscle cells are adherent cell types, meaning they need something to hold onto as they grow. To grow muscle tissues that resembled meat, we needed to find a ‘scaffold’ material that was edible and allowed muscle cells to attach and grow in 3D. It was important to find an efficient way to produce large amounts of these scaffolds to justify their potential use in food production.
Parker and his Disease Biophysics Group developed a technique to produce the scaffolding. It’s a fiber-production system inspired by cotton candy known as immersion Rotary Jet-Spinning (iRJS). It enabled the team to spin long nanofibers of a specific shape and size using centrifugal force. So, they spun food-safe gelatin fibers, creating the base upon which cells could grow.
Natural muscle tissue is composed of an extracellular matrix, which is the glue that holds the tissue together. It contributes to the texture of the meat. The spun gelatin fibers mimicked this extracellular matrix and therefore provided the texture to make the lab-grown meat realistic.
When the team seeded the fibers with animal (rabbit and cow) muscle cells, they anchored to the gelatin scaffolding and grew in long, thin structures, similar to real meat. To examine in contrast the texture of their lab-grown meat to real beef tenderloin, bacon, prosciutto, rabbit, and other meat products, the researchers put the artificial meat through mechanical testing.
MacQueen said:
When we analyzed the microstructure and texture, we found that, although the cultured and natural products had comparable texture, natural meat contained more muscle fibers, meaning they were more mature. Muscle and fat cell maturation in vitro are still a really big challenge that will take a combination of advanced stem cell sources, serum-free culture media formulations, edible scaffolds such as ours, as well as advances in bioreactor culture methods to overcome.
Our methods are always improving and we have clear objectives because our design rules are informed by natural meats. Eventually, we think it may be possible to design meats with defined textures, tastes, and nutritional profiles — a bit like brewing.
The team has proven that fully lab-grown meat, which has a texture similar to the real deal, is possible! Now, their goals are taste, nutritional content, affordable pricing, enhancing the feel, and figuring a way to mass-produce it. Parker says their ultimate aim is to reduce the environmental footprint of food. They believe that if it looks, feels, and tastes like the real thing, it will be easy for people to overcome their squeamishness about lab-grown food.
If alternative meat was affordable and available, would you choose it over real meat to help save the world by reducing your environmental footprint?
