ottawa foodies

When you work in a stem cell research lab, these are the things you see posted on the bulletin board :-)

www.telegraph.co.uk

Muscle stem cells – which multiply to form other muscle cells – are taken from an animal such as a cow or pig in a relatively simple procedure which avoids the need to kill or seriously harm it.
In the lab these cells are put in a culture and fed with fetal serum, the plasma left behind in the blood after clots are formed, drawn from a foetus.

This helps collections of cells grow into small, muscle-like strips of tissue which are stretched daily to mimic the exercise that helps real developing muscle to grow.
However, the lack of blood and iron in the meat gives it a pale appearance nothing like a fillet of beef or pork.

Researchers hope that by stimulating the production of myoglobin, the iron-bearing protein, in the tissue they can give it a more meat-like appearance.

One problem the team of experts led by Prof Mark Post at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands has yet to overcome is the fact that pig muscle stem cells can only multiply 20 or 30 times in culture before they stop growing.

But researchers from Utrecht University have shown that it is possible to take different stem cells from pig muscle, known as muscle-derived progenitor cells, which can grow from a thousand to several billion in the space of a few months.

The other difficulty is that reulgations prevent the lab-grown meat from being tasted, because it has been grown using fetal serum which could contain contaminants that are dangerous to humans.

University of Amsterdam researchers are currently working on a synthetic alternative based on a type of water-based bacteria, which could solve the problem.

If artificial meat can be perfected, the costly process could eventually be moved to plantlike facilities where it can be produced far more quickly and efficiently.

With the price of animal feed rising steadily, it could even become a viable alternative to beef, pork and chicken in the years to come.

I've seen horror movies that start like this.

I would have thought that electrocuting living creatures then killing them by firing a bolt through their heads was more the stuff of horror movies than scientists creating a product in a lab. I'm not a vegetarian, but if there were a way of eating meat without killing animals to do so I'd be all over it.

Johnny English, I once had a friend who raised two pigs every year to slaughter for his own use. He once told me, "I've grown rather fond of this one. I wish I could just give him a local anaesthetic and take off a few slices of bacon once in a while"

This reminds me of The Merchant's War by Fred Pohl, where this is this gigantic blob of 'chicken' that workers have to keep slicing pieces off of.

Great book, BTW. A sequel to The Space Merchants.

My brother in law has become a farmer back out east and among other things he has pigs. WHen he was sending them to slaughter last year there was one big obstinant one which would not get into the trailer, so he was given a by. And then my brother in law got attached to him - I'm told he's now massive 500 or 600lbs and is a bit of a pet - goes for walks with my BiL much like a dog would. I guess he's been saved the gallows - unlike his compatriots :-)

Blubarry: That reminds me of my second-favourite joke:

www.humorbin.com

(Obviously my favourite joke is The Aristocrats.)

Zym: Arnold has been saved from the gallows only until the next slaughter. Apparently, Arnold is on the menu for Christmas. ;)

@Momo: Remind me again how the Aristocrats joke goes ...

It goes like this: [CENSORED]

Like a bookmark.