Labomatic

In a few years I might buy Jean-Robert's new restaurant and rename it "Labomatic" to reflect the new menu.


...researchers in the Netherlands and the U.S. expect to perfect a scalable process to produce cost-effective, in vitro (lab-grown), processed meats within five years.

If suitable growing media are perfected, Matheny says factory-grown meat could compete with meat from animals. After all, farm animals, due to maintenance requirements, convert little of what they're fed into what we ultimately eat. In vitro meat would have no waste, bones or offal to dispose.

“We've managed to make meat production much more efficient in terms of labor, but it wouldn't be as efficient as just one person pushing a button on an enormous incubator,” Matheny says. “There are also inefficiencies caused by meat production's unpredictable nature — the problems caused by biology and weather. It would be much more efficient economically if we found a way to decrease all that variability and bring the whole thing into a controlled setting.”

“Control is the main advantage,” Matheny says. “While we've gotten pretty good at controlling marbling in live animals, it could be done much more accurately in vitro. We could precisely control how much fat there is, its location, even the ratio of omega 3 to omega 6 fatty acids.