14 DAY TRIAL // Should the folks at BiteLabs succeed in their latest endeavor, it might not be long until ordinary folks can go to a local grocery store and buy salami made from Kanye West, Jennifer Lawrence or whatever other celebrities they feel like taking a bite out of.
Thus, this company aims to get into the business of growing meat in laboratories and using it to make salami, maybe even other culinary delights that ordinary people usually crave for, Grist reports.
What's interesting is that, instead of growing meat from tissue samples collected from animals that the food industry is all too used to turning into salami, burgers and whatnot, BiteLabs wishes to make meat from cells willingly donated by celebrities.
On its website, the company details that the first step to making food from celebrities would be to get them to donate so-called myosatellite cells, i.e. a type of stem cells found in adult muscles whose job is to regrow and repair damaged tissue.
In order to obtain edible meat, these myosatellite cells would have to be allowed to develop and multiply in a control environment. While in this environment, the cells would be exposed to nutrients and growth factors.
With the help of a support structure, the cells would eventually come to form actual muscles, and would therefore be ready for collection.
At this point, the lab-grown meat would be removed from the controlled environment, ground to the desired consistency and then mixed with spices, fats and oils.
After this, the resulting ground meat would be turned into salami, and left to dry and age in yet another controlled environment. The final step would be distribution, BiteLabs explains.
For the time being, the company is unable to offer any information concerning the nutritional value of such delicacies.
However, it is fairly confident that, all things considered, having their products replace traditional salami, sausages and whatnot that people currently feast on would yield major environmental benefits.
“Celebrity meat production requires less than 1% of the amount of land needed for traditional farming. Currently, 70% of the world’s farmland (almost 30% of the entire earth’s surface) is used for raising animals,” BiteLabs explains.
“Meat production today is simply unsustainable: unless a radical change is made, the price of meat will eventually rise out of control. Lab grown meats are the future,” it goes on to argue.
Presently, the company has its eyes set on making salami from Kanye West, Ellen DeGeneres, Jennifer Lawrence, and James Franco. However, it is open to suggestions, should people think that meat products made from other celebs would agree with their stomach better.
Truth be told, odds are BiteLabs' announcement that it wants to make salami from celebrity meat is just a publicity stunt.
If this is the case, then it's hats off to them for coming up with this innovative way to draw attention to lab grown meat and how it can help make the food industry a tad more environmentally friendly.