Will you be tucking in? Eating meat is bad for the planet, say activists. Now, food scientists are looking for other options. Some of them have never been tasted before.
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On the menu: dodo steak and unicorn chops
Will you be tucking in? Eating meat is bad for the planet, say activists. Now, food scientists are looking for other options. Some of them have never been tasted before.
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What's happening?
Bob and Kate sit down in their favourite restaurant and look at the menu. Today is Kate's birthday, so they want something special. But what will it be? The dinosaur stew sounds tempting - but so does the dragon burger. So hard to choose!
Food companies have been trying to find new foods that meat eaters will like - but that will not hurt animals or the environmentThe natural world..
One option is to come up with dishes made from plants that have the same taste and feel as meat. Another is meat created by scientists in a laboratoryA room for scientific experiments or research. .
But one is more surprising than all the others. The aim is not just to make a fake meat that tastes like beef or chicken. It is to make new and tastier meats, including from extinctA species that no longer has any living members. creatures such as the dodo - and perhaps ones that never existed, like the unicorn.
Find out more
In March, an Australian company called Vow made a meatball with the DNADeoxyribonucleic acid is the material in an organism that carries genetic information. of a woolly mammothIts closest living relative is the Asian elephant. The last population lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean.. The animal died out around 4,000 years ago.
Growing the cells needed for the meatball was "ridiculously easy and fast", says one scientist who took part in the project. "We did this in a couple of weeks."
He adds that no one has actually tasted the meatball - because nobody has eaten woolly mammoth for thousands of years, scientists do not know how the body might react. But it shows what is possible.
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Will you be tucking in?
Yes! It is boring just to eat the same things over and over again. With a unicorn burger, we could eat exciting new foods and save the planet too.
No! We do not really need meat at all. There are lots of good options made out of plants. We should learn how to cook without meat. And it will be a long time before anyone sees a unicorn burger.
Keywords
Environment - The natural world.
Laboratory - A room for scientific experiments or research.
Extinct - A species that no longer has any living members.
DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid is the material in an organism that carries genetic information.
Woolly mammoth - Its closest living relative is the Asian elephant. The last population lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean.
On the menu: dodo steak and unicorn chops
Mythical meals: The Ancient Greeks warned that the unicorn's meat tasted bitter. Glossary
Environment - The natural world.
Laboratory - A room for scientific experiments or research.
Extinct - A species that no longer has any living members.
DNA - Deoxyribonucleic acid is the material in an organism that carries genetic information.
Woolly mammoth - Its closest living relative is the Asian elephant. The last population lived on Wrangel Island in the Arctic Ocean.