Scientists Reveal World's First 3D-Printed, Marbled Wagyu Beef (interestingengineering.com) 107
Scientists from Osaka University have manufactured the world's first 3D-printed Wagyu beef by using stem cells isolated from Japanese cattle, according to a press release. The product looks like a realistic steak piece containing muscle, fat, and blood vessels. Interesting Engineering reports: Because of its high marble content, Wagyu (Japanese cow) beef is one of the most sought-after and expensive meats in the world. Marbling, or sashi in Jaoan, refers to the visible layers of intramuscular fat that give the beef its rich flavors and distinctive texture, and because most cultured meats produced thus far resemble mince composed of simple muscle fibers rather than the complex structure of real beef steaks, 3D printing Wagyu is an extremely difficult feat.
The researchers used two types of stem cells, bovine satellite cells and adipose-derived stem cells, insulated from Wagyu cows, according to the paper published in the journal Nature Communications. Then, they incubated and coaxed the cells into becoming the various cell types required to generate individual fibers for muscle, fat, and blood vessels. These were piled into a 3D stack to resemble the marbling of Wagyu. Then, the researchers adapted a technique inspired by the one used to produce Japanese Kintaro candy, an old traditional sweet formed in a long pipe and cut into slices. The stacks were sliced perpendicularly to form lab-grown beef slices, which allowed a great degree of customization within the complex meat structure. This was how they were able to mimic the famous texture of Wagyu. According to the researchers, the synthetic meat "looks more like the real thing" and the process can be used to create other complex structures.
The researchers used two types of stem cells, bovine satellite cells and adipose-derived stem cells, insulated from Wagyu cows, according to the paper published in the journal Nature Communications. Then, they incubated and coaxed the cells into becoming the various cell types required to generate individual fibers for muscle, fat, and blood vessels. These were piled into a 3D stack to resemble the marbling of Wagyu. Then, the researchers adapted a technique inspired by the one used to produce Japanese Kintaro candy, an old traditional sweet formed in a long pipe and cut into slices. The stacks were sliced perpendicularly to form lab-grown beef slices, which allowed a great degree of customization within the complex meat structure. This was how they were able to mimic the famous texture of Wagyu. According to the researchers, the synthetic meat "looks more like the real thing" and the process can be used to create other complex structures.
Does this (Score:3)
Generate less greenhouse gas than raising a real cow?
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Depends upon how the cells are "fed" and if the workers are lactose-intolerant.
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Deeelicious!
the true test (Score:2)
There is only one path forward for this meat. Until Guga blesses it, we disciples will leave the Frankengyu alone.
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I'll just stick to dead animals myself, thank you.
Re: Does this (Score:2)
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Environment or not, once this process is perfected, high-quality meat could be vat grown in vast quantities. "The real" will still be expensive, but "the fake" will be maybe $20/lb or less.
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A) the process will be perfected
B) the result will be high quality
c) that the process will be cheaper than growing a cow. This is highly suspect, just look at the total cost of printing something on a 3D printer.
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just look at the total cost of printing something on a 3D printer.
Compared to having a custom product made instead? You shouldn't compare 3d printing to mass market items, but one offs, as that is what is being printed.
https://rexplastics.com/plasti... [rexplastics.com]
According to that site, custom injection molding costs $1-5k, my custom printed thing compares pretty nicely to that at around $500 including the printer.
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Compared to having a custom product made instead?
No, as compared to an off the shelf product or, in the case of meat, a commodity product. And, in the case of this specific type of meat, something that is prized for being from a specific kind of animal with very specific qualities, a cheap imitation of the real thing.
You shouldn't compare 3d printing to mass market items
But, that is exactly what this product is. Meat, even wagyu meat, is a mass market item. With this one statement, you have made my argument for me.
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You are assuming that :
A) the process will be perfected
B) the result will be high quality
c) that the process will be cheaper than growing a cow. This is highly suspect, just look at the total cost of printing something on a 3D printer.
Perhaps the clearest indication of hype for the end-product is the total lack of a photo of the finished product. If "the synthetic meat 'looks more like the real thing'", then that should not only be obvious with a single photo, but it would be really convincing. The lack of that photo says a lot.
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As to A) and B), it's an engineering problem in the end. Tell them it can't be done, and watch as they do it anyway. As to C), the price of meat is growing rapidly as demand outstrips the supply of land/water/feed needed to raise cattle. That's what is driving interest in 3d printed meat. It's about keeping animal protein in the diet without resorting to plant-based substitutes (especially soy).
Re: Does this (Score:1)
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I'll still stick with real dead animals.
I see no reason to go with "Soyulent Cow".
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They're expensive, that's why. The ubiquity of available meat in the diet of the American is a triumph of American Exceptionalism(tm). Losing that would be a major backslide.
I'll take 3d printed meat over soy substitute. Thank you. "My betters" can have their $600 tough-as-nails steaks from real cows, or $4000 filet mignon.
Re: Does this (Score:2)
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$20/lb for 3d printed Wagyu of good quality would be an amazing deal.
Re:Does this (Score:5, Interesting)
interesting fact about the cattle CO2/methane issue
For millions of years there have been ruminates on Earth, sometimes with populations that matched or exceed today's number of cattle, for example just the Bison in the USA had populations ranging from 30-60 million head before they almost got wiped out in the mid 1800s. And yet during all that time the CO2 and methane levels in the atmosphere were fairly stable.
And yet somehow cattle are now to blame for a large portion of the CO2 and methane being added into the atmosphere annually [cornell.edu]
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Re:Does this (Score:5, Insightful)
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"If the Juju had meant us not to eat people, he wouldn't have made us of meat." A quote from The Reluctant Cannibal by Flanders and Swann.
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They're blaming the cattle and all the CO2 produced to feed them, care for them, slaughter/butcher them, and then ship them to market.
Field of corn -> people is less CO2 than 3 fields of corn -> cows -> people.
Re: Does this (Score:1)
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Cattle are bad for the environment if you're slashing and burning to create a manmade cow field. Environmentalists who have a cow over cow farts and burps are being idiots, though. Any plant matter a cow eats is already part of the natural carbon cycle, and would've eventually rotted and released methane regardless of whether or not it ultimately became a meal for a bovine.
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and released methane
You only get methane if it decomposes in a low-oxygen environment. The vast majority of what a "wild cow" would eat would decompose on the surface if it wasn't eaten, and so be reduced to CO2 instead of methane.
Re: Does this (Score:2)
Re:Does this (Score:5, Informative)
Lol that's an op-ed piece you linked to. He doesn't offer any real data to back his claim. Also cattle are fed corn because it's cheap when they evolved eating grass. Adding some seaweed to a cow's diet can reduce their methane emissions by 82%. https://www.smithsonianmag.com... [smithsonianmag.com]
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According to Our World In Data [ourworldindata.org] livestock and manure make up only 5.8% of total greenhouse gases.
So cows alone cannot help, whether people advocated going vegan, or feeding them seaweed.
Other sectors have much more share, and therefore addressing them for GHG reductions, will have more impact: examples are: energy and transportation.
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For millions of years there have been ruminates on Earth
So what?
And yet during all that time the CO2 and methane levels in the atmosphere were fairly stable.
Cows are different.
New things can be different.
HTH, HAND
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Then humans discovered oil. CO2 and methane levels would never be stable again.
Re: Does this (Score:1)
The question is important, but not even the most critical. Even if carbon footprint would actually be lower (which I don't believe - not if you're looking to make the same quality meat as nature without cutting corners), it would still be a bad idea to continue down this path.
The problem is much deeper: right now our planet literally grows all the food we need, inclusing essential proteins in the form of meat.
If you feel like it, and you have even a few square feet of a yard, you can grow meat, e.g. chicken
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Many people do not have a back yard. Others who might have a yard still don't grow their own meat. They already get it from Big Ag or similar.
Re: Does this (Score:2)
Yes, that's true. And sad, as this already degrdes the quality of food, on global average. The mere existence of Big Ag is already a problem. Verical Farming hobbies in urban areas are starting to become a thing for a reason.
But this doesn't invalidate my argument. Just imagine what the world looked like if *only* Big Ag would have any possibility to exist. And then extrapolate and guess how Meat-InA-Lab, Inc. would look like, and whether it would be Big or not.
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Yes, that's true. And sad, as this already degrdes the quality of food, on global average. The mere existence of Big Ag is already a problem. Verical Farming hobbies in urban areas are starting to become a thing for a reason.
It's actually fun to grow your own food. My wife and I carry on my parents annual ritual of canning food. Some is grown by us, some is purchased. Corn for instance, needs more space than we have. And we have a provider that let's us get corn picked at dawn, blanched and into the can or some frozen within hours.
Same with sausage, bacon, and various charcuterie. We don't do our own butchering though.
But it's a hobby for certain. And you must adhere to some pretty strict sanitation protocols.
That last is
Re: Does this (Score:2)
Seems like we're largely on the same page here.
But for love of me I can't understand where your trust in food industry comes from. By definition they're out to cheat you at the very essentials of life - eating. After all, they need not only provide you with food, but also themselves with profits.
But let's forget about motivation and watch the track record: we have massive issues with monocultures and with soil erosion precisely because of the food industry and industrial farming. Same with over fertilizatio
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Seems like we're largely on the same page here.
But for love of me I can't understand where your trust in food industry comes from. By definition they're out to cheat you at the very essentials of life - eating. After all, they need not only provide you with food, but also themselves with profits.
It isn't that it's trust. It's just that I strike a compromise ground between the folks that always eat out and are consuming gawd knows what, and a total subsidence farming life on the other end of the scale. I do what I can, buying local - although you still gotta check the creds, we have a lot of "Amish" farm market sellers that drive to and from their stands, and their daughters that help out occasionally don't get all their makeup removed. Food stand theater!
So I do what I can, coming from a family
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For most of us, we live in a world where only Big Ag has any possibility to exist.
No farm to table/locally produced.
No homegrown.
Just Big Ag.
For that audience, vat grown animal flesh is not going to be a downgrade. If the printing tech becomes sufficiently ubiquitous, you can "grow" your own with feed stock and the proper blueprints, which will probably be leaked online soon enough.
Re: Does this (Score:2)
I understand your hope, but I'm highly skeptical. Pretty much like you don't make your own baby milk, although all you need is cow milk amd a pyrolithic installation.
Growing a sack of potatoes or enough tomatoes to get you through most of the season on a balcony is alreay easy enough. All you need is literally 1 sqft of ground and a few gallons of dirt. It doesn't get any easier than than. Yet most of the people you refer to don't do it.
Guess we'll live and see.
Re: Does this (Score:5, Interesting)
If we can start to grow meat in the lab (and later factory) without raising the animal, the meat could actually become less expensive relative to its current cost.
The reason for this is two fold. One, when we raise an animal there is a fair bit of it that is thrown away (certain organs for example) or not edible at all (most bones for example). Yeah some of this gets used in other ways but some just ends up going to waste entirely - this makes the meat more expensive as feed still goes in to the animal to produce these parts that we do not - or cannot - eat.
Second, the cost of meat is also dependent on the cost of animal feed. We all hear about how many crops are raised just to feed animals. Meat produced in a lab or factory won't need the same nutrition as an entire animal, which will make more crops - and crop lands - available for human consumption. Again this can eventually bring down the cost of producing meat as we can scale up processes to produce the serums that we need for that.
Re: Does this (Score:1)
I understand the arguments, I just don't trust them - on several levels.
First, the energy argument: how much exactly do you need to grow, say, a goat? Most of it is plants that grow using 100% renewable energy, no downsides whatsoever. Been using for millenia. Energy that is harvested and converted by bacteria and biochemical processes optimized by evolution for millenia.
We also know how sensitive the quality of meat already is to factors like quality of animal food, space in which the animals grow etc. Mo
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*reeks of buzzword-bingo style of cheap marketing.
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Most of it is plants that grow using 100% renewable energy, no downsides whatsoever.
Except we don't have those animals graze on wild pasture land. We farm the food, with tractors and fertilizer and such, which isn't done with renewable energy. Then we also ship that food to the animals. Again, not renewable.
Plant -> human is also more efficient than plant -> goat -> human. Goats do things like "produce heat" and "move", so a lot of the calories from the plants are lost before the meat ends up in your fridge.
(Obviously plants for human consumption would be different than plants
Re: Does this (Score:3)
Except we don't have those animals graze on wild pasture land. We [...] Again, not renewable
Agree to all of that. But then that is our problem, and we should try to fix that, instead of trying to come up the cluster fuck of even more industrial food preparation, with a myriad more problems of its own.
Plant -> human is also more efficient than plant -> goat -> human.
Yes, and photosynthesis -> human is even more efficient, only limping on the minor detail that we're not cut out for photosynthesis. We're also not cut out for a plant-only diet. We can go a long way, admittedly (a lot longer anyway than on photosynthesis), but we're meant to eat meat, too.
Goats do things like "produce heat" and "move", so a lot of the calories from the plants are lost before the meat ends up in your fridge.
They als
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Agree to all of that. But then that is our problem
Then you vastly increase the energy required for transportation of the herd. Which today is not going to be a months-long cattle drive across the country, it's gonna be a semi.
Also, not enough prairie if you want to actually feed everyone.
Yes, and photosynthesis -> human is even more efficient, only limping on the minor detail that we're not cut out for photosynthesis.
No, the "minor detail" is you can't collect enough energy from the sun and do things like "think" and "move". A large tree collects about 200 calories a day.
More to the point, bringing up impossible hypotheticals doesn't change that removing the produce an animal step is
Re: Does this (Score:2)
You keep parroting things which are simply not true and base your arguments on them. Here's one example:
Also, not enough prairie if you want to actually feed everyone.
Show me your numbers.
Back of the envelope calculation tells me: 1 cow feeds 10 people a year. 10 bn pepole, 1 bn cows, 1 hectare per cow, makes about 10 mio sq km for the entire world population. Make it a factor of 2, 3, 5x that if you need to, but you don't have to.
As to the transport problems: way to go in building up denial. See, nobody forces you to put all the cows in one place, and all the people s
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Do you really think that humanity isn't largely reliant on corporations for food now? Do you really think the average New Yorker knows a god damn thing about raising a chicken, or growing vegetables?
Re: Does this (Score:2)
Yes to the 1st question.
No to the 2nd: the typical NY'er doesn't know how to grow a chicken, but I assure you that, appart from internal psychological reservation regarding killing said chicken, a 5 min youtube video can teach him everything he needs to know. Make it 1 minute if you're in a hurry. Make it 10 seconds if your life depends on it. (Actually, if your life really depends on it, you'll figure it even without anyone telling you by noon; pro tip: of a chicken, you can eat everything your teeth are s
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Real meat...fake meat...fake real meat... (Score:3)
it all ends up the same in the end...
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So science needs to cut down on tailpipe emissions.
Winston Churchill (Score:2)
According to Wikipedia, back in 1931 Winston Churchill wrote an essay titled Fifty Years Hence that had the following excerpt
âoe We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium. âoe
So far it has been a challenge though. Theoretically it should be totally possible, but probably needs a few billion dollars in research.
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Mediums are a terrible place to grow a chicken. Now a witch-doctor however.
The most important question (Score:3)
As always:
How does it taste?
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Re: The most important question (Score:2)
"You know.. I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth; the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy, and delicious."
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The taste of meat obviously depends upon a number of factors, but I'm betting one of them is whether or not the meat has the correct combination of muscle fiber and fat. If that combination is already well-understood, then it may be possible to bioprint meat in such a way that every cubic centimeter of it has those properties in the perfect combination and amount.
The seasoning and cooking will still be upon us to not screw up though.
I'll wait for 4D version (Score:3)
Franken Food (Score:1)
Re:Franken Food (Score:4, Informative)
If you try real Wagyu beef, you'll never want to go back to a porterhouse steak. It's really that much better.
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But the price is ridiculous.
Re:Franken Food (Score:4, Insightful)
Good food isn't cheap, who would have thought...
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But the price is ridiculous.
It costs a lot to give those moocows their daily massage, high quality food, and beer.
Which always makes me wonder how waigu fits in with vegan philosophy. Those cows have a much better life than most humans. Cut a little short, but still.
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It's ridiculous if you have to import it from Japan. Inside Japan, the price is rather reasonable.
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Um
https://www.snakeriverfarms.co... [snakeriverfarms.com]
*cough*
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And that's for Oregon Wagyu. Now move on up to Hokkaido Wagyu [wagyushop.com], and you get some real eye-watering prices. You can see the difference in the marbling between the two though, which is why there is a difference in price and reputation.
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If you happen to be in Japan, you can get good Wagyu at most supermarkets for a reasonable price.
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The point being
You can have your porterhouse and Wagyu in one piece. Be it Oregonian or Hokkaido.
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Every time I've ever had American Wagyu, I've regretted it. Avoid that stuff.
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There are Wagyu porterhouse steaks.
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Thanks
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Is that due to taste or tradition? I'll never understand why food with an incredibly high fat content, especially anything exotic and expensive, is supposed to be delicious.
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Due to taste, I never had a tradition before I tried it. Do you like bacon?
In Japan (Score:2)
the beef wags you.
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IN SOVIET RUSSIA, the meme alters YOU!
(by the way, well played).
Whatever that thing is... (Score:3)
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Compared to much of the available astronaut food though it's probably quite welcome for future Mars settlers.
This is an encouraging step towards high quality synthetic meat that could allow us to eat lots of it and meet climate change targets. Of course it needs work but it shows that it's at least possible to produce something approaching high quality beef in a lab.
No, the cat does not "got my tongue." (Score:2)
You can leave out the blood vessels, wtf.
Fat, however, is a necessity. Cooked meat itself is rather pointless without it. Try making a hamburger from steak tartar. You'll be running for a slice of cheese in anger.
Raw (like the steak tartar), or rare meat, is a different story, though the latter benefits from warmed fats too.
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In Germany we eat raw pork mince on beat too. It's called "Mett", and isn't lean at all. But it's delicious! (Eat with lots of raw onion on top, and butter below, on a nice crispy bead roll half.)
So I can confirm that fat in raw meat is tasty too.
And we can do that without worry, by the way, because by law, every piece of meat has to be inspected by a veterinarian (e.g. for hook worms) before it is allowed to be sold. Called "Fleischbeschau', That became law after people died from trichinosis I think it is
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You can leave out the blood vessels, wtf.
Fat, however, is a necessity. Cooked meat itself is rather pointless without it
Ain't that the truth. My MIL was trying to eliminate as much fat from her diet as possible during the days of "All fat is Bad!!"
There was a thing to do where you cooked and crumbled hamburger down to not quite the browned stage, drain the fat, and than put it in a colander and pour boiling water over it to remove the rest of it.
I sampled some. Cardboard tastes better than that.
I read "looks real" (Score:2)
But what I care about is "tastes and feels real". The story does not mention either. Because if it is only about looks, this can be printed from something else entirely.
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It reminds me of a freeze frame from one of the blob movies. It does not look like a steak at all.
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You are right on that one.
Wagyu beef is people! (Score:2)
Wagyu? I barely know yu.
Celebrity meat (Score:1)
Um I'll have the Brittany Burger please http://bitelabs.org/ [bitelabs.org]
Processed (Score:2)
I don't know which is more highly processed: computer-generated beef or all-vegetable so-called "Impossible meat". In either case, highly processed foods are unhealthy.
As my brother once asked: "If we are not supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"
Lab grown 3d printed beef slices (Score:2)
The description sounds yummy
Includes blood vessels? (Score:2)
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