Pork Grown in a Lab

Is your pork factory-farmed, free range, or from a petri dish? Scientists in the Netherlands have grown pork in a laboratory for the first time, using cells from the muscle of a live pig to create the meat. The product was described by the Times of London as “sticky muscle tissue,” which, like real muscle, requires exercise in order to grow bulk and texture. “You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals,” said Mark Post, professor of physiology at Eindhoven University who is leading the Dutch government-funded research. Now, he says, “we need to find ways of improving it by training it and stretching it, but we will get there.” Another perk of this new pork is that it has the potential to reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gasses that farm animals emit each year. “This product will be good for the environment and will reduce animal suffering. If it feels and tastes like meat, people will buy it,” says Post, who himself has yet to sample the product.