Vegetarians, pay attention! Scientists produce meat for you

Sounds like science fiction? But it's not. Indeed, there are already ten companies that have been dealing with this issue in the long term. Several of them presented themselves at the Future Port Prague festival and one of them even put into circulation the “chicken” nuggets, which were also fried on the spot by a Hawaiian chef.

Food worth all the money

You would hardly believe that they were not nuggets from McDonald's. However, the appetite passed not only when we tasted it, because if it were not for the flavorings, it just tastes like a faint chicken made in oil, but also when they said the provisional price. $100 for that little piece! One hundred dollars!

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Loft 3+kk na prodej s terasou, Praha Modřany, Praha 4

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"The companies we have here estimate about two to three years before the economy of production reaches a level that is able to market products at the prices of normal meat products, as we are used to today,”

Martin Holečko, the organizer of the Future Port Prague festival, explained the exorbitant sum.

Work in laboratory

Moreover, working in a laboratory is really challenging. Scientists must adapt the harvested cells to the laboratory environment, multiply and persuade them to become edible meat. Anyway, the results are in the world and even working on varieties for which the consumer normally pays an awful lot of money. Like Japanese beef Wagyu, which is one of the most expensive beef in the world. Once the meat matures in the lab, and it will be produced in bulk, it will cost a few crowns and the Japanese family business will cry over lost earnings.

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No more death to animals

Every day, 160 million animals are slaughtered in the world for consumption. Approximately 70 billion livestock are kept for food every year. The number of pigs for meat production is 110 million in the United States, 300 million in Europe and 680 million in China. In addition, global meat production is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than all the trains, cars and aircraft in the world combined.

“Once the meat grown from stem cells becomes commercially available, it will turn the meat industry upside down. There will be no reason for the current way of its production. Not only in terms of ethics for killing animals, but also purely economically and ecologically - you don't need any antibiotics for artificially grown meat, save half the energy, 5x less water, 100x less land, and produce 10x less greenhouse gases,”

says Martin Holečko.

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So we have something to look forward to, we are curious how the world population will take it and especially if it will like it. Because going to a luxury dinner at a restaurant where they serve you the lab stuff... well, we'll see.