Canadian researchers have developed a new way of cultivating meat using a technique adapted from growing tissue for human transplants.

Researchers Ravi Selvaganapathy and Alireza Shahin-Shamsabadi of McMaster University’s School of Biomedical Engineering devised a way to stack thin sheets of cultivated muscle and fat cells grown together in a lab setting.

The method is positioned to provide more natural flavor and texture than other meat alternatives, in addition to being more sustainable and sanitary than conventional meat 

The layers can be stacked into a solid piece of any thickness, Selvaganapathy says, and “tuned” to replicate the fat content and marbling of any cut of meat – an advantage over other alternatives.

“We are creating slabs of meat,” he says. “Consumers will be able to buy meat with whatever percentage of fat they like – just like they do with milk.”

Making meat stick
One of the biggest challenges of cultivated meat is finding a framework or scaffold to organize the cells’ growth. 

In this new method, the sheets of living cells, each about the thickness of a sheet of printer paper, are first grown in culture and then concentrated on growth plates.

They are then peeled off and stacked or folded together. The sheets naturally bond to one another before the cells die.

The researchers described the proof of concept in the journal Cells Tissues Organs, by making meat from available lines of mouse cells. 

Though they did not eat the mouse meat described in the research paper, they later made and cooked a sample of meat they created from rabbit cells.

“It felt and tasted just like meat,” says Selvaganapathy.

There is no reason to think the same technology would not work for growing beef, pork or chicken, and the model would lend itself well to large-scale production, he continues. 

Sustainable protein in demand
The new method was developed in response to the meat-supply crisis and growing global population. 

Worldwide demand for alternative proteins is growing while current meat consumption is straining land and water resources and generating troubling levels of greenhouse gases.

“Meat production right now is not sustainable,” Selvaganapathy says. “There has to be an alternative way of creating meat.”

While other forms of cultured meat have previously been developed, the McMaster researchers believe theirs has the best potential for creating products consumers will accept, enjoy and afford.

The researchers have since formed a start-up company to begin commercializing the technology.

As slaughter-free meat continues to accelerate, research into its nutritional aspects are also advancing. 

Recently, the Spanish government funded BioTech Foods with €5.2 million (US$6.3 million) to investigate the health qualities of meat produced from cellular agriculture. 

This month Aleph Farms partnered with Mitsubishi to bring cultivated meat to Japan. Meanwhile, cell-based chicken is on the menu for selec customers in Israel’s The Chicken test kitchen.