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venerdì 12 agosto 2011

In vitro meat: you eat it?

BY - Alessandro Gilioli


A Dutch scientist creates steaks multiplying stem cells in the laboratory. Objective: to reduce the disastrous ecological impact of intensive farming of cattle. But the resistance there

Cattle and pigs, you know, are poor converters of protein they consume a lot more to life then than they offer in the form of meat. In fact, among the most serious arguments of vegetarians there is the desire to reduce their consumption of livestock and fertile land.

The issue was already the subject of an essay by Jeremy Rifkin in '93 ("Beyond Beef"), but the problem is likely to explode by 2050, when (WHO estimates) the demand for meat will double in the world than today, both for the growth of both Asian giants change their food consumption (less rice and more steaks).

Yet "a vegetarian with the SUV is more environmentally friendly cycling of a carnivore," says Mark Post, professor of medicine at the University of Maastricht, which set itself the goal to stop the juggernaut of mass breeding. Not forcing everyone to eat vegetables, but through stem cell research: it says the scientist, can help us produce beef cattle from cells multiplied in vitro to create real burger.

Will it work? Of course many will be the cultural resistance to accept food produced by animal cells in the laboratory. But that is a utopia of Post pragmatic worth to note, because the humanity of the future - if you do not want to be vegetarian - can only be "invitrotariana".


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