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Sausage without the Squeal: Growing Meat inside a Test Tube

A Dutch laboratory tries to produce pork without the pig

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PROTOPORK
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PROTOPORK

A flask filled with bovine growth serum and embryonic stem cells from pigs. One day, this might become bacon.

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BRENDAN BORRELL
IN THE OVEN
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IN THE OVEN

Bernard Roelen of the University of Utrecht opens the incubator where stem cells are being cultured.

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BRENDAN BORRELL
TESTE TUBE PORK
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TESTE TUBE PORK

Roelen peers into the vat of pig semen.

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BRENDAN BORRELL
STEM CELL PORK PROJECT
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STEM CELL PORK PROJECT

A view of stem cells from a digital camera hooked up to Roelen's microscope.

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BRENDAN BORRELL
A SCIENTIST AT WORK
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A SCIENTIST AT WORK

Roelen, on his building's steps

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BRENDAN BORRELL
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11 Comments

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  1. 1. Cosmic 11:08 AM 3/31/09

    I don't eat pork because it is cruel and harms the environment so I would at least try this if it is "green" enough.

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  2. 2. Jonah Gruber 11:58 AM 3/31/09

    Chalk up "In Vitro Meat Symposium" as another thing that I'll probably never be able to go to in my lifetime.

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  3. 3. noahwilliamgray 01:09 PM 3/31/09

    For the radical green environmentalists, this will hardly satisfy their concerns. The amount of laboratory consumables used to produce these in vitro meat products, while likely to be less impactful than herd animal maintenance, will still ruffle some feathers...

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  4. 4. falafax 08:06 PM 3/31/09

    This method will never work. It's costly, and it will take massive amounts of marketing to sell. In addition, the green environmentalists hardly care about farm animal breeding. For them, it's using tap water and swapping out incandescent light bulbs for florescent. Either way, it's pig muscle cells. Where you get it, how it got there, or what happened on the way there isn't of concern. The ends will very well justify the means, although in-vitro meat probably won't be on my grocery list.

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  5. 5. noahwilliamgray in reply to falafax 08:41 PM 3/31/09

    "...the green environmentalists hardly care about farm animal breeding. For them, it's using tap water and swapping out incandescent light bulbs for florescent. Either way, it's pig muscle cells. Where you get it, how it got there, or what happened on the way there isn't of concern."

    Well that kind of misses one of the major themes of the article, but whatever...

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  6. 6. sinamj 03:51 PM 4/8/09

    I have always wondered why God changed things to allow the consumption of meat by humans. Probably what will help now to find a suitable substitute for meat from live animals and prevent the killing of billions of them each year is prayer and for the help of God to do so.

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  7. 7. Amandine 06:47 AM 6/29/09

    "...the only problem is that it's derived from cow blood."

    The irony makes this article somewhat entertaining.

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  8. 8. ThisGuy in reply to sinamj 08:42 PM 8/10/09

    huh?

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  9. 9. cheche 07:29 PM 12/22/09

    ooooh well well well http://www.ilovemeattube.com

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  10. 10. randomvoices 04:05 AM 3/27/10

    You can grow a liver for it like the ears they grow on mice right?

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  11. 11. jrvz 11:27 AM 5/20/11

    Is raising pigs more cruel than battery chickens or battery calves or feedlot cattle etc? Is any of this less harmful to the environment?

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