Where’s the beef? Try the lab.

Already in the United States, “the present system of producing food animals ... is not sustainable and presents an unacceptable level of risk to public health and damage to the environment, as well as unnecessary harm to the animals we raise for food,” said a report from the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production late last month.

Such warnings have scientists working on a meatmaking process that starts with just a single cell taken painlessly from an animal. The likely candidate, a muscle stem cell, would be placed in a mix of amino acids, sugar, salt, water, and proteins that act as growth factors.

Over time, the cells would divide and produce millions of daughter cells, which then are placed on a scaffold. After the cells attach themselves to thin grooves in the scaffold, they are bathed again in the growth mix while being periodically stretched and contracted. This movement creates tension so that the cells form fibers, as happens when muscles are exercised.

After several weeks, a thin sheet of real muscle tissue develops that can be pulled off the scaffold and processed: stacked, rolled, or ground up. Fat cells for flavor and connective tissue for added texture could be grown along with the muscle or grown separately and added later.

The nutritional value could be precisely controlled as well. “With cultured meat, you could have a hamburger with the fat profile of salmon,” Matheny says, adding that a healthy form of fat could be used instead of the less healthy version that naturally occurs in meat.

Bioengineered meat might seem incompatible with vegetarian, vegan (no dairy products or eggs), or organic, low-tech lifestyles.

But cultured meat would be aimed primarily at those not ready to give up the sensory pleasures of meat’s flavor and texture. “We don’t expect the whole world to go vegan overnight, and in vitro meat can provide a way to eat ethically while still providing a meat-fix that people are looking for,” says Lindsay Rajt, a spokeswoman for PETA.

“We’ve been trying to get people to become vegetarians for centuries, and it hasn’t worked very well,” says Elizabeth DeCoux, a vegan and an assistant law professor at Florida Coastal School of Law in Jacksonville who teaches and writes about animal rights. “I think people who love animals and haven’t been able to give up meat-eating are probably going to be a big, big market [for cultured meat].”

More exotic uses might be found for the technology, too, Matheny says, including what he calls the “Jurassic Park scenario.” Meat could be produced from the DNA of extinct animals or endangered species, sparing dwindling stocks that are now hunted for meat.

But “the real market for something like this is the people who like the taste of meat and are buying their KFC or McDonald’s chicken nuggets and want a product that is safer and healthier,” he says.

Whether consumers would reject cultured meat as unappetizing “Frankenfood” remains to be seen, but Matheny says the challenge can be met.

“Bread is a bioengineered product. It doesn’t grow on trees, and we accept it,” he argues. Yogurt is cultured in factories that look like pharmaceutical plants. Ultimately, he says, “consumers accept products that have really pronounced benefits.”

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