Lab-grown stem cell burger will cost mystery diner $350,000

Next month, an unidentified diner will be served up hamburger specially-made for them in a laboratory in the Netherlands, and this special-order meal is going to cost them roughly $350,000.

Why is the burger so expensive?

The burger patty is what's being called 'in-vitro meat', which was grown strand by strand, in the laboratory of Dr. Mark Post at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, using stems cells from a cow. Once each strand was grown, it was flexed using Velcro to keep it from wasting away (as muscles will do if you don't exercise them). To make the burger patty, it will take a total of 3,000 of these 3 cm long strips, to which Dr. Post only plans on adding a bit of salt and pepper to.

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Even now, just with the meat itself and no fat or seasonings, Dr. Post says it "tastes reasonably good," according to the New York Times. Since a hamburger patty typically contains some fat content as well as meat, similar strands of fat can be grown from stem cells to add to the ground-up meat.

The event, to be held in London on August 5th, is apparently a 'proof of concept', to show that it can be done, and that the meat can taste just as good (or maybe even better than) meat taken from a slaughtered animal.

The high cost is just a temporary thing, too. If the event goes well, and the diner gives his thumbs-up for this stem-cell burger, the process could be automated, which would drive down the price considerably.

One of the reasons to do this is to address the environmental impacts of eating meat, which Dr. Post talked about at a conference in 2011.

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Will this kind of meat catch on, even if it's the same as the meat taken directly from a cow? That remains to be seen.

Even if the unknown diner gives it rave reviews, there's probably going to be at least some resistance of the 'ick' variety to this idea. However, given two samples of meat, which are indistinguishable from each other and cost roughly the same (if mass-production does, indeed, lower the costs significantly), it's doubtful that anyone would know the difference in order to turn their noses up at it.

Also, for those vegetarians and vegans who specifically don't eat meat due to the ethical concerns about raising and slaughtering animals for our dinner-tables, this 'in-vetro meat' would give them the ability to add meat back into their diet (if they should ever feel the desire to do so).

The biggest benefit of this would be for the environment, not only to reduce the amount of methane greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but also to reduce the amount of forest that is being cut down to raise livestock. Those lands can then be replanted with trees, or reclaimed for crop production instead.

I look forward to seeing the results of this. To the mysterious diner, bon appetit, and to Dr. Post, bonne chance.

(Photo courtesy: Maastricht University)

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