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Comment and Technology

Let's stop making lab-grown meat weird

The lab-grown meat industry needs to perfect and normalise the staples, like chicken and beef, before jumping to exotic alternatives like mammoth, argues Brian Kateman

By Brian Kateman

11 October 2023

New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

Michelle D’urbano

PICTURE this: it’s 10 years from now and you are deciding what to get for lunch. You’re stuck between a raptor meatball sub or a dodo chorizo burrito. It is a delicious problem to have – or maybe a creepy one. Or both.

It can be stunning to take a step back sometimes and realise that we are living in the future. Technologies that seemed fantastical in movies last century are fast becoming part of our regular lives. The food tech sector is no exception, with start-ups making cell-cultivated meat – real meat grown from animal cells rather than slaughtered…

Article amended on 12 October 2023

The name of the company behind the “mammoth meatball” has been updated.

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