By Israeli-based Aleph Farms says it’s figured out how to create the structure of real beef from animal cells in a petri dish — so that it actually feels like you’re biting into a piece of meat, rather than just tasting it. WSJ’s Jason Bellini visited the company’s headquarters in a technology park on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, for a taste of what Aleph Farms says is the first lab-grown steak in the world. Aleph Farms is among several companies in a race to grow meat in a lab using clusters of cells from animals, without actually killing them. “In theory, we’re talking you could be eating bison meat without killing bison. You could be eating whale without harming whales,” says Jan Dutkiewicz, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University. Regulators in the U.S. are still evaluating whether cultured meats are safe for consumers, and whether they should even be called meat. While proponents say these new meats can be produced at a fraction of the environmental costs that come from traditional, large-scale farming, at this early stage of development, producing a pound of meat from cells is still far more expensive than that from an animal. In this episode of Moving Upstream, we visit with entrepreneurs, scientists, cattle ranchers, and more, to understand how cell-cultured meat is made, and what the future of meat might look like. Copyright ©2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Israeli food science company Aleph Farms said it had created the world’s first lab-growth steak after reproducing the structure of beef from animal cells. The meat was produced by a team led by Professor David Cohen at Tel Aviv University, who has been working on cloning for more than 20 years. Development costs were currently high but supporters of the product have said it could be made at a fraction of the environmental cost of traditional cattle farming.