A group of Korean researchers at Yonsei University discovered that it was filled with beef. The lab-grown rice grains are infused with cow muscle and fat cells, so they’re part plant, part meat. The rice is also an appetizing bright pink color, which is often the case when meat enters the picture.
The team hopes to eventually provide a cheaper, more sustainable source of protein with a much lower carbon footprint than real beef.This is also a time saver for those who like to eat beef rice bowl – rice yes Beef Bowl.
Here’s how they achieve this culinary delight. The researchers first coated each grain of rice with fish gelatin to help the meat cells attach. Next, they inserted bovine muscle and fat stem cells into each grain and cultured them in a petri dish. Rice grains have a porous but organized internal structure that actually mimics the “biological scaffolding” found in meat cells. Thus, rice grains provide a shell that allows cells to grow and thrive, as well as molecules that provide nutrients.
Meat cells grow both on the surface of the rice grains and inside the rice grains themselves. After about ten days, you can get the finished product.The study was published in matter, Saying the orzo tastes like beef sushi makes sense considering the ingredients.
“Imagine getting all the nutrients we need from cell-cultured protein rice,” said lead author Sohyeon Park. “Rice already has a high nutritional level, but adding cells from livestock can boost it even further.”
The team even envisions a day when livestock could be eliminated from the process entirely. They hope to develop cell lines that can continue to divide and grow for long periods of time so they can harvest cells from that cell line rather than from actual cows. “Then we can create a sustainable food system,”
Apparently, this is still in the research stages, so pink beef rice won’t be appearing on restaurant menus anytime soon. The team is improving the growing process to produce rice grains with more nutritional value. They also hope to further improve taste, texture and colour. “One day, it could serve as food relief for famines, military rations, or even space food,” Parker said in a press release.
This is just one part of a global effort to combat the ongoing ecological disaster of meat production. Livestock destined for slaughter emits 6.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every year, accounting for almost 12% of all human carbon emissions.
To do this, lab-grown meats need to be produced that are both delicious and economical, from steaks grown using beef to the aforementioned beef rice.The number of insects also increased
