"A Lab-Grown Burger Gets a Taste Test"

Fountain, Henry. "A Lab-Grown Burger Gets a Taste Test." The New York Times. The New York Times, 05 Aug. 2013. Web. 30 May 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/science/a-lab-grown-burger-gets-a-taste-test.html?action=click&module=Search®ion=searchResults&mabReward=relbias%3Ar&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DSectionFront%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3Dscience%26t%3Dqry336%23%2Flab+grown+meat&_r=0>.

A project that took nearly 2 years and at the price of $325,000 was finally completed. This project was the development of a lab grown cow muscle hamburger. Yes you heard me precisely,

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it was cultured meat produced from about 20,000 tiny strips of muscle fibers. First the scientist took tissue cells from a cow shoulder muscle, and placed them in a nutrient solution where they, then multiplied. After multiplying the scientist took the cells and placed them in a small hamburger sized petri-dish. The cells became muscle cells and formed tiny strips of muscle fiber. The burger was about five-ounces with 20,000 of these strips and was cooked containing breadcrumbs, salt, and coloring.

Meat grown in the lab-grown meat has the quality of high-protein, which is needed greatly in the society we are in today. Although sustainability of meat production and animal welfare would be improved. Doctor Post a scientist in the field of this research, estimated that it would take 10 years for cultured meat to become commercially viable and would also cost an estimated $30 a pound even with production scaled up.

The article introduces the variety of benefits from cultured meat, some of these are the water, land, energy, emissions to methane, and other greenhouse gases reductions compared to the meat production of livestock. A comment made by Jk, stated that, "This romantic idea that everyone eat free-range, humanely raised animals isn't viable in a world filled with fast food restaurants. Instead, rain forests will continue to be slashed to feed cattle--unless we start serious production of true factory meat. " this pretty much sums up, the realistic effects this will have on our society.

The fast food giants will continue, while the development of technology such as this will not be pursued on a mass production scale for decades to come, that is the realistic and sad truth. However, this research has proved to us the sophisticated and incredible things we can do with stem cells. The spin-offs and things we can do with stem cells are continuing to grow.

Although, this was a very informational article it exaggerates how much this will really help us. But helped us understand the feat that these scientists have accomplished. The author talked way too much about the taste of the burger rather than how it will help us and what will come of this. At one point the taste was important, but it felt very repetitive and useless information after a bit. Hopefully this has proven the strengths stem and benefits that will come of stem cell research.