Australian cell-based meat company Vow has created a new product that has turned heads in the food industry – a lab-grown meatball made from the prehistoric animal, woolly mammoth. The company unveiled the unique product at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in the Netherlands, displaying it as a symbol of innovative technologies that could change the future of food.
Why Woolly Mammoth?
The woolly mammoth was chosen for the project by Vow as a symbol of loss and concern for climate change. The company believes that we can use new technologies to produce better meats than those domesticated by our ancestors. Also, the woolly mammoth meatball was chosen because the meat has been popular worldwide for centuries, making it a familiar and affordable option.
How It Was Made
To create the mammoth muscle protein, Vow collaborated with the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Wunderman Thompson, a creative agency. They used the DNA of an African elephant (woolly mammoth’s closest living relative) and placed it in stem cells from a sheep. As a result, they were able to create woolly mammoth myoglobin protein. The meatball’s safety certification is underway due to extinct protein used in its production.
The Broader Message
Vow’s creation strikes more than just curiosity in people’s minds; it sends a message about investing in our future. With climate change and food shortages on the rise, Vow touts lab-grown meat as our best bet to keep feeding ourselves without causing harm to the environment. Compared to traditional animal foods, cultured meat requires fewer resources like land and water during production, thus producing less pollution while reducing emissions of greenhouse gases.
The Future of Food
With this product, Vow intends to transition meat eaters to “cultured” cell-grown meat, which they find more flavorful and nutritious. Vow has already used renewable energy to produce lab-grown meat from over 50 animal species, including fish, alpaca, buffalo, crocodile, kangaroo, and peacock. The company believes that this is a sign of a more exciting future that’s better both for us and the planet.
A Meatball for Museum Display
The woolly mammoth meatball in question isn’t quite ready for consumption yet. Still, it still caused quite a buzz due to its unique nature. While there is speculation about whether humans can stomach mammoth meat (and concerns about potential allergies to the 5,000-year-old protein used in this trial), it’s an exciting step forward in the world of lab-grown meat. The woolly mammoth meatball is now on display at Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in the Netherlands as part of their collection.
In conclusion, Vow’s lab-grown woolly mammoth meatball might not be ready for consumption yet, but it certainly has people talking – not only with its novelty factor but also as a symbol of our future food choices. With resources dwindling and climate change consequences growing more severe every day, it’s essential to think outside the box when it comes to what we put on our plates. The creation of lab-grown meats could be the answer we have been seeking all along – and this particular effort by Vow only underscores that promise.
Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
