Good news: Japanese boffins 3D print what looks like marbled Wagyu beef. Bad news: It's tiny and inedible

Scientists in Japan have 3D printed an approximation of one of the nation's delicacies, Wagyu beef, in an experiment involving bovine stem cells. A team at Osaka University extracted bovine satellite cells and adipose-derived stem cells from formerly live cows to grow muscle, fat, and blood vessels in a laboratory. After …

[Pascal Monett]

"there's the edibility problem to overcome"

Obviously, if only for space exploration, it will be necessary to provide a way to grow meat without having a lumbering four-legged creature bumbling about the cabin and sending cow pats floating everywhere.

3D printing the meat ? Not exactly a requirement, but hey, why not ?

Edibility, though, is a requirement. I hope they get that fixed.

[Chris G]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

Edibility doesn't seem to be a problem for the majority of fast food outlets, they seem to be able to sell ship loads of indeterminate, mostly organic mush.

A few weeks back I was out with friends who invited me to a Mac of some description, whether or not the patty had been a part of a formerly live cow was not discernable by taste, true also of the 'fries' with regard to potatoes.

[Neil Barnes]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

'fries' with regard to potatoes.

Getcher luvverly extruded 3/8" reconstituted potato analogues, get 'em while they're 'ot!

[Evil Auditor]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

..."friends" who invited me to a Mac...

Fixed that for you.

[martyn.hare]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

At least the fruit bags contain real Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

Edibility schmedibility, I get folks to eat things that may or may never have been even in the same time zone as actual food. Even better is they PAY ME to obtain the stuff! Now if you'll excuse me I need to go scrape the walls for some more of the ingredients to my "mystery meat" pies.

Signed, CMOT Dibbler.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

Heyap Dibbler-San, you got s'more of youse luverly pork pies?

I must say, your Rat-onna-stick simply is superb, and is very good for a quick snack on the go, whilst skewering people who ignore distancing guidelines in the eye or the ear. Simply great stuff!

Oh, DMH Dibhala send his warmest greetings, he gots a 3D printer printing out lots of 100 year old eggs, people never notice the difference, they just glomp 'em down.

[Muscleguy]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

The fries are very largely just skin, there is almost no filling to speak of. Which is why they are not very filling. When you take a potato stick that thin that is what you end up with. It’s not far off those potato sticks you get which are like crisps. The fast food frie is pretty much just a hot crisp receptacle for sauces.

They are the stick thin bony supermodels of the chip world. Mine’s the one with the buffalo chips in the pocket. That’s what I make at home, air fried in my Ninja Foodi. BTW it may sound like a fan oven but in performance treat it like it’s a convection oven. I had to do my Pieminister GF Ranger pie for a few minutes more for sizzling perfection this evening. It was up to their usual excellent standards.

I understand other pies are available but when it comes to the GF variety Pieminister rule.

[Chris G]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

Air friers are great, mine has pushed my microwave to reserve position for quick cooking.

There is no better way to cook chips, tempura, chicken wings and all kinds of tasty treats.

I am surprised Considering it is cyclonic cooking that Dyson hasn't got one on the market for only £500.

[Geez Money]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

umm... the fries are made from peeled potatoes, there's no skin at all. Perhaps you're not used to deep fried foods?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfZLWEAiixo

[Nick Ryan]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

I suspect it's more a reference to the fact that because they are so thin, the surface area compared to content volume is very high.

For example, a "typical" fry that is 4mm square in area profile and, for ease of maths, consists of 1mm thick "skin" (largely fried vegetable oil) which works out to around 12 square mm of "skin" with 4 square mm of potato in the middle. Compare this to a much more reasonable 15mm chip and making the same crude assumptions you get 56 square mm of "skin" with 169 square mm of potato on the middle. That's quite a difference: 12/4 for the fry and 56/169 for the chip.

[Piro]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

Yup. Fries can be good now and then if you crave nothing but crunch and grease, but chips are simply superior.

Of course it gets even better; we can get to what potatoes were put on this earth for (certain varieties, at least): roast potatoes.

[MacroRodent]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

> whether or not the patty had been a part of a formerly live cow was not discernable by taste,

I rarely visit these joints, but a couple of weeks ago did, and on a whim ordered a veggieburger, where the patty is made from some of the new-fangled plant-based meats substitutes. Frankly, it tasted and felt exactly like their meat version. Clearly, 3d-printing meat for this purpose would be overkill.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

"...indeterminate, mostly organic mush."

Beef McNuggets?

[T. F. M. Reader]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

In thje ciontext of Galactic exploration the problem is already solved: you just sneak off to the nearest restaurant and a four-legged creature will offer you a piece off its shoulder or rump or, indeed, liver...

[Nick Ryan]

Re: "there's the edibility problem to overcome"

Yes, but could you imagine eating an animal that actually wants to be eaten? It's just not right. It's much better to eat an animal that doesn't want to be eaten...

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: eating an animal that actually wants to be eaten

There are species where the offspring eat their mother from inside. IIRC there is a creature that will do this in times of abundance, but when food gets scarce, develops wings to enable the species to find new sources of food in order to survive. Once such a source is found, it returns to its cannabilistic tendencies.

[Pete 2]

Buy online

> A 5mm-by-10mm morsel that looks somewhat like the famous marbled pink flesh yet is inedible

None of which matters when the item is posted on *Bay. The photo can be zoomed in. By the time someone tries to eat what they have bought, the seller will have an entirely new identity

[Claverhouse]

Man of the Peeple

As a vegetarian, the only time I heard of the fabulously expensive Wagyu beef was when ex-pressie Obama served it at his inauguration.

No idea if he served it again at his recent maskless birthday bash, but that was hosted at his $12 million house in homely Martha's Vineyard, so possibly...

[Geoff May (no relation)]

"The meat is tenderized in some cases by feeding the cows beer or massaging them"

I'm off for some personal tenderising in the pub ... I hope the barlady doesn't get the wrong idea when I ask for the massage, though.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Re: "The meat is tenderized in some cases by feeding the cows beer or massaging them"

Speaking of massage, I misread that as masturbation.

Silly me.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: "The meat is tenderized in some cases by feeding the cows beer or massaging them"

The meat spuds (2 veg!) would need basting to keep things moist during roasting

[Mark 85]

Custom, designer printed steaks could be the next thing for a millionaire's dinner table.

Nah.. the wealthy will have the real thing and leave the printed versions for everyone else.

[Chris G]

You can bet that a 'designer' printed steak will have the idiot designer's logo printed all the way through.

[Muscleguy]

Science Ahoy

I am a muscle development specialist. Muscle is not just muscle fibres and fat. It also includes connective tissue which gets made by fibroblasts. Though if you grow muscle cells and fibroblasts in culture the fibroblasts outgrow the muscle cells by miles.

We have not solved this problem which is why there is no connective tissue in this ‘meat’. We’ll ignore the lack of never fibres or that the muscle is unexercised to an extreme degree. While not being massaged Wagyu beef cattle can wonder or run around their fields. This also helps give muscle its taste and texture.

Oh yeah one more thing is missing, blood vessels. You cannot actually grow muscle thick enough for a steak in culture without providing a blood supply.

The money imperative is causing these people to try and pretend they can run when they can barely toddle if that. It is half bluster and the rest is hype.

[Fruit and Nutcase]

Re: Science Ahoy

Could it be argued that the "real thing" been "3D Printed", as. it's been created by additive manufacturing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Science Ahoy

And I bet the carbon cost of manufacture is magnitudes higher per kg than growing a cow, as for all the other types of synthetic meat they've tried so far.

[Charles 9]

Re: Science Ahoy

It would be interesting to see a side-by-side comparison, given the notorious carbon costs and inefficiencies of raising a cow for its meat.

I'd be more interested in plant-based meat substitutes, and they're moving along, as I see, but they're not quite ready for the big show as of yet.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: plant-based meat substitutes

For cows would that be daisies?

[normal1]

Re: Science Ahoy

Maybe hook it up to a TENS unit, to shock it in the vats and make the lab meat twitch?

/no repsonsibility if it climbs out of the vats looking for revenge on it's maker.

[Anonymous South African Coward]

Re: Science Ahoy

New plot line for Resident Evil...

[TonyHoyle]

Re: Science Ahoy

Indeed there doesn't seem to be much progress except in price.. when I first heard of it it was $1m an ounce.. now it's somewhat cheaper.. but they still haven't made anything close to a single edible joint of meat.

We're a million miles away from a commercial process that can produce thousands of tonnes of the stuff for very little money with a low carbon footprint (which is surely the point).

[Geez Money]

Re: Science Ahoy

Can you maybe explain what the edibility problem is? They were very vague and I'm curious.

[Ken Moorhouse]

Re: Can you maybe explain what the edibility problem is?

I guess the analogy is to print out a photo of a piece of roast beef on rice paper, and then to eat it. Yes, you can eat it but the flavour and method of digestion of it is dictated by its composition as perceived by your digestive system, rather than as signalled by your brain (i.e., rice paper). Vegan equivalents of meat must surely work on this principle.

[Will S]

Re: Science Ahoy

Their paper states that they differentiate the adipose stem cells in to vascular tissue - chemically induce the growth of part of the blood vessel. It won't have the texture or taste of a blood vessel, but it's a theoretical stab at recreating the blood vessel.

The lack of connective tissue and use of transglutaminase to 'stick' cells together also struck me as odd. The muscle, and fat, components of the tissue would have no texture at all. Collagen printing has been around for ages now. Yeah, this is just hype (and Nature Comm can't find anyone to review).

[Anonymous Coward]

Obligatory Jeff Goldblum...

Your scientists were so preoccupied with etc etc.

[normal1]

Japanese Microboffins?

Theyv'e been downsized by corporate.

[Ken Moorhouse]

...bovine satellite...

That's the moon innit?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wake me when they scale

Then we'll get the grill ready & have the best Kansas City sauces at ready

[Dan 55]

Now concentrate this time Dougal

This 3D-printed Wagyu beef is small, but those out there are far away...

[Man inna barrel]

What is the point of this?

Inedible food must be something of an embarrassment, like a restaurant advertising carbonised gerbil in a creosote jus, with a side of rat droppings. Gordon Ramsay should be told.

[Potemkine!]

Sci-Fi

We get closer and closer to Star Trek's replicators.

[TheRealRoland]

Go-Gurt

But meat-flavored...