Bloomberg Covers Cultured Meat

Interesting identical articles published in Bloomberg.com and Business Week that gives a nice little background of in vitro cultured meat.  As you can tell from the title, Meatloaf From a Petri Dish Is Innovator’s Goal for the Masses, the article focuses on Jason Matheny's role in bringing cultured meat to the masses.

I learned a few things that may be interesting to you:

1.  Bloomberg reports that cultured meat is making great technological progress:

"Mark Post, a professor of tissue engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands, may be close to realizing New Harvest’s vision. Post’s lab is producing 2-millimeter-thick strips that are almost an inch long and a quarter-inch wide. Jam enough of them together, and you have a meal. "

2.  Livestock's Long Shadow, a UN study that found that 18% of all GHG emissions are caused by livestock production, was instrumental in procuring funding for cultured meat research in Denmark. (Read full study here.)  This just reaffirms how connected the goals of cultured meat and environmentalism are, as well as why it is important that agribusiness not be allowed to discredit the environmental impact of livestock production.

"In response to the environmental threats, the Netherlands is funding a national effort to develop so-called cultured meat from laboratories"

3. Various terms were used through the article for 'cultured meat'.  The article  first two are descriptions rather than names: 'meat from petri dishes' and " this process is like (growing) hydroponic vegetables, in a way.”  The term cultured meat is used, without explaining that this is the name for it, and then in vitro chicken is also used, without an explanation of what in vitro chicken is.   I've never seen an article with such inconsistent nomenclature.  Odd, no?

4.    The article included what looks like a picture of cultured meat.  The meat was much larger than I have ever seen.  Here is the photo: