Artificial meat: Dutch lab

Scientists in Dutch have used stem cells to produce strips of muscle tissue with the plan of producing the first lab-grown hamburger later this year. The price of producing the hamburger will be £200,000 but the opinion of Professor Post is that once the standard has been established, production techniques will be enhanced and costs will come down.

According to Prof Post Lab-grown, meat could ultimately become more capable than producing meat the old fashioned way. Professor Post's team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands has grown small pieces of muscle about 2cm long, 1cm wide and about an mm broad. But the opinion of David Steele, who is president of Earthsave Canada, is that the similar benefits could be achieved if people ate less meat.