A cell-based meat company has resurrected an extinct woolly mammoth — in the shape of a lab-grown meatball.
the The woolly mammoth was chosen by a vow Because extinct mammals are a symbol of loss and climate change, a video released by the company explains.
The product was unveiled on Tuesday at Nemo, a science museum in the Netherlands. The ‘famous’ meatballs were chosen because of their worldwide popularity ‘for centuries’. vow said.
“It’s an accessible dish, easy to make and affordable,” their website says. “Exactly what we hope to achieve for cultured meat products in the future.”
Georges Bibeau, co-founder and CEO of Vow, Written in the 2021 article The food technology company believes that the animals domesticated by our ancestors are “not the best possible meat we can produce using new technologies”.
woolly mammothResearch indicates that climate change, not humans, is the cause of the woolly mammoth’s extinction
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According to the GuardianVow has used DNA from 50 animal species to date, including a variety of fish, alpacas, buffalo, crocodiles, kangaroos and peacocks, with energy from renewable sources.
Another goal, said Vow co-founder Tim Noakesmith, is to shift billions of meat-eaters away from traditional animal proteins to eating cell-farmed “cultured” meat that is both flavorful and nutritious.
How was woolly mammoth meat made?
Scientists used a key protein that gives red meat its taste, mammoth myoglobin, along with the DNA of the woolly mammoth’s closest relative, an African elephant, to fill in missing sequences and create a mammoth muscle protein, according to researchers at Vow and the Australian Institute of Bioengineering at the University of Queensland.
In collaboration with the creative agency Wonderman ThompsonVow took the elephant and giant DNA sequences and put them into stem cells from sheep to replicate the cells used to grow “the world’s first meat made from the extinct woolly mammoth”.
More than 20 billion cells were used in the creation All meatballs.
Can you eat it?
The giant meatball isn’t ready to be consumed, and no one has tasted it — yet, according to the company’s website.
“Since we are dealing with an extinct protein, it will be some time before we can guarantee that mammoth meat is safe and healthy,” the website says.
Cultured meat products can only be purchased and consumed in Singapore, which is the first country to approve the commercial sale of cultured meat in 2020.
Worldwide, legislation prohibits the sale of cultured meat products in supermarkets or restaurants, according to Vow.
This year, Singaporean diners will have the opportunity to try the first farmed meat sold in restaurants: Japanese quail.
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Camille Fine is a popular visual producer on the USA TODAY NOW staff.
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