Rumour has it that lab grown meat could be coming to your nearest store soon...
And so it begins, the battle between what's real and what isn't! We probably all thought the idea of lab grown meat was just a theory and wasn't going to happen in our lifetime. However, it's here baby!
It's been the talk on the street for years but no one actually thought it would come about so soon and now it's definitely here. The first meat that has been grown in a lab is officially going on sale in Singapore in the form of chicken nuggets. Can you imagine that?!
Read: Raw meat 'comes alive' on chopping board in terrifying footage
Apparently the US-start up company - Eat Just has been approved to start selling their nuggets in Asian countries first. The meat is said not to be vegan because it's actually grown from animal cells in a laboratory, but you can rest assured that it is harm-free meat.
Josh Tetrick, Eat Just chief executive, said:
For the first time, meat from real animals that hasn't required a single animal to be killed or a single tree to be cut down can be sold.
Well, Singapore is definitely ready to go. The meat has been approved by Singapore Food Agency for sale and the company is expecting the product to be on the shelves in the 'near future', it will be sold at 'premium chicken' prices. So it should be easy on your pockets.
Eat Just of course hopes the meat will soon go on sale in America, but he admits that Singapore is well in front of the US in terms of its attitude towards the product. We cannot say we're surprised!
Mr Tetrick said:
I would imagine what will happen is the US, Western Europe and others will see what Singapore has been able to do, the rigours of the framework that they put together, and I would imagine that they will try to use it as a template to put their own framework together
It is said that the nuggets have the same nutritional value as their real-life counterparts. The meat is made from animal muscle cells that are grown in a huge 1,200-litre bioreactor and then combined with plant-based ingredients.
Eat Just chief executive added:
I think the approval is one of the most significant milestones in the food industry in the last handful of decades. It's an open door and it's up to us and other companies to take that opportunity. My hope is this leads to a world in the next handful of years where the majority of meat doesn't require killing a single animal or tearing down a single tree. If we want to serve the entire country of Singapore, and eventually bring it to elsewhere in the world, we need to move to 10,000-litre or 50,000-litre-plus bioreactors
The future is most definitely here!