Rise of 3-D Printed Meat

These are meats printed with the interest of having similar, or even better taste, texture, smell and flavour. This creates another option for vegans and vegetarians as it uses no animal substances, making it healthier. It also allows people to eat meat without the drawback of caring about the fat intake, which could lead to heart and other diseases.

There are many similarities between real meat and the 3D printed alternative. It acts the same as real meat, cuts the same and cooks the same. This is produced by printed layers of tissue and fat, from differentiated stem cells. They can be printed in different ways for the desired marbled effect or by how much fat or muscle is wanted by the chef. Chefs are able to convert entirely using this type of meat. A chef who has already started to use 3D printed meat is Michelin Chef Marco Pierre White.

The meats are 3D printed using plant-based ingredients. It stacks layers of living cells to produce the tissue cells and the blood vessels that could be found on regular meat. These cells are stem cells that can be differentiated to create the certain types reducing sugars and amino acids, which makes the signature meat flavour when cooked. ‘The living cells are incubated on a plant-based matrix for it to grow, to create the same qualities of real meat. The first record of 3D-printed meat was from an Israelian Institute, which was a rib-eye steak. Then in Japan, they were also successful in 3D-printing meat, it was a cut of Wagyu Beef, which is a completely different structure and could be considered harder, because of the marbling and the fat content and the muscle.

More than 14% of all made-man greenhouse gases, (including methane) are by livestock. Methane is 34x more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. As cattle produce more methane than poultry, this makes them one of the major factors to climate change and the heating of the atmosphere. Livestock makes up 7% of all greenhouse gas emissions, and takes up 26% of all land on earth. By eating more red meat, especially cows, it increases the carbon footprint, due to the production and transportation, not only the farming process.

By using less red meats there will be a decrease of greenhouse gases. However the transition of eating real meat to fake meat, may make people feel uncomfortable - so although it is the better option for health, they is still be reluctancy to switch.

Demira Govind 11F