While UTC admittedly has a tough time getting to grips with the whole vegan thing, he nevertheless still has a deep and heartfelt interest in all things environmental. Or so he keeps telling us.
So he was fascinated and slightly baffled by a strange press release from a company called Aleph Farms that claims to have successfully grown a steak in space. Or something along those lines.
The experiment took place on the International Space Station and was “the first slaughter-free meat experiment in space”.
Getting slaughtered is a thing of the past for the auld boy so this was right up his street. Apparently, Aleph “grows cultivated beef steaks” and has a mission to “to provide sustainable food security on earth, and beyond, by producing meat regardless to availability of land and local water resources”. Keeping up so far?
So the company has just managed to “produce meat” in space by “mimicking a natural process of muscle-tissue regeneration occurring inside the cow’s body, but under controlled conditions”. In other words, it has ‘bioprinted’ muscle tissue which could, allegedly, be the first step towards “sustainable food production methods that don’t exacerbate land waste, water waste, and pollution.”
UTC apologises in advance for the fact that reading this article has taken a minute of your life that you’re not getting back. But remember where you read it first when Gregg’s launches its first bioprinted steak slice. Which cannae be any worse than its veggie sausage rolls, to be fair.
