Mammoth Meatballs
Beginning:
Cultured meat. This meat is not made from any animal or bird in a natural way, but completely artificially made in a lab. There is no need to kill animals for this meat. Meat is easily produced in the lab with the help of DNA.
Scientists have been working with this cultured meat for a long time. And as part of that effort, in March of this year, they made not meat, but a whole giant meatball from ancient mammoth DNA.
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| The meatball is made using a single gene, myoglobin, from mammoths; Image Source: Unilad |
The incident happened in the Netherlands. Australian cultured meat company Wow Which has long been working to introduce people to another source of natural meat. However, the company also knew that something completely different was needed to get people's attention. According to scientists, the mammoth has become extinct due to climate change. So they made the meatball using the single gene myoglobin of mammoth with the priority of keeping the climate right. It is also on public display at a science museum in the Netherlands.
Myoglobin determines the taste, color and smell of meat, said Tim Nokesmith, founder of Wow Which and chief scientist James Ryall. So there's no way artificial mammoth meatballs will taste any different than real mammoths. However, they used African elephant DNA in this project to fill in some gaps in the mammoth DNA sample. Generally, animal blood is used in the preparation of cultured meat. But mammoth meatballs don't require any killing at all. We all know the reason why it was not used.
The mammoth meatball, with the smell of crocodile meat, cannot be eaten right away. A lot of experiments are needed before that.
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| Rare animal mammoth skeleton; Image Source: International Business Times |
“The protein itself is about 4,000 years old. We haven't seen the thing in days. So this meat has to go through many more tests before being marketed.” said Nokesmith.
However, this entrepreneur is sure that once cultured meat adoption starts, it will respond to the entire European market. What do you think? If this artificial meat is really available in the market, would you consider putting it in food?