Scientists from South Korea's Yonsei University have invented what they believe to be a sustainable, high-protein food in the form of "beef rice", made by growing cow cells in grains of rice.
Tinged a pale pink from the cell culturing process, the hybrid food contains more protein and fat than standard rice while having a low carbon footprint, leading its creators to see it as a potential future meat alternative.
The beef rice was made by inserting muscle and fat stem cells from cows into grains of rice and leaving them to grow in a Petri dish.
The hybrid "beef rice" is made by growing cow muscle and fat cells within rice grains
Because the rice grains are porous and have a rich internal structure, the cells can grow there in a similar way to how they would within an animal. A coating of gelatine ? in this case, fish-derived ? further helps the cells to attach to the rice. Although beef rice might sound like a form of genetically modified food, there is no altering of DNA in the plants or animals. Instead, this process constitutes a type of cell-cultured or lab-grown meat but with the beef grown inside rice.
In a paper published in the journal Matter, the Yonsei University researchers explain that their process is similar to that used to make a product already sold in Singapore ? a cultured meat grown in soy-based textured vegetable protein (TVP).
Soy and nuts are the first foods that have been used for animal cell culturing, they say, but their usefuln...