Researchers at McMaster University have developed a new alternative to traditional meat from animals using a method that promises more natural flavor and texture than other methods.

The researchers have devised a way to make meat by stacking thin sheets of cultivated muscle and fat cells grown together in a lab setting.  The technique is adapted from a method used to grow tissue for human transplants.

The sheets of living cells, each about the thickness of a sheet of printer paper, are first grown in culture and then concentrated on growth plates before being peeled off and stacked or folded together.  The sheets naturally bond to one another before the cells die.

The layers can be stacked into a solid piece of any thickness and “tuned” to replicate the fat content and marbling of any cut of meat which is a key advantage over other alternatives.

The new method creates slabs of meat and consumers will be able to buy meat with various percentages of fat, just like they do with milk.

As explained in the journal Cells Tissues Organs, the researchers proved the concept by making meat from available lines of mouse cells.  Though they did not eat the mouse meat described in the research paper, they later made and cooked a sample of meat they created from rabbit cells.

It felt and tasted just like traditional meat from an animal.

There is no reason to think the same technology would not work for growing beef, pork or chicken, and the model would lend itself well to large-scale production. 

The researchers were inspired by the forecast meat-supply crisis in which worldwide demand is growing while current meat consumption is already straining land and water resources.

Long term, conventional meat production is not sustainable.  So, there has to be an alternative way of creating meat.

Producing viable meat without raising and harvesting animals would be more sustainable, more sanitary, and less wasteful.  Unlike other cultured meat production alternatives previously developed, the McMaster methodology has a greater potential for creating products consumers will accept, enjoy, and can afford.

The researchers have already formed a start-up company to begin commercializing the technology.