Chicago, IL (FOX) Recipes that not so long ago were the stuff of science-fiction are getting close to our real dinner plates. A scientist in the Netherlands is cloning meat.
For now it's all in test-tubes, but he expects to have a sample clone-burger ready for cooking by the middle of next football season.
The ultimate goal is to ditch the world's meat farms.
A scientist at Maastricht University took stem cells from a cow and replicated them to build a strip of muscle tissue - basically a tiny piece of meat.
By October, he plans to make a few thousand strips, mash them together like ground beef, and make a burger patty.
Supporters of change said the current meat production system is unsustainable.
They said 30 percent of all the land on earth is used for meat production, either for housing and grazing livestock, or for growing crops to feed the livestock.
The earth is running out of room. Meanwhile, demand for meat is rising.
On a parallel track to meat-cloning, is research into meat substitutes, which are products that will be just like meat, but are made from plants.
The research could take aim at dairy farms too.
Scientists in California doing this work are backed by a group of private investors.
Meat and dairy substitutes made from soy and tofu are already popular. New recipes could make them even more so.
In case you're wondering, cloned food is legal in America.
The FDA has said food from cloned animals and their offspring is just as safe as food from animals that are bred in the conventional manner. Cloned food requires no special labeling.
An interesting mix of activists, capitalists, and scientists are driving the research into new forms of food.
The cloning work in the Netherlands is said to be funded by an anonymous investor who seeks to protect the environment and feed the world.
Similar research being done in Missouri is funded by the group PETA, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals
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