The first reviews of the lab-made hamburger are in and according to USA Today, the product needs some work.
The hamburger was fried in a pan in London and served to two volunteers, American food author Josh Schonwald and Austrian food researcher Hanni Ruetzler. According to the Daily Mail the reviews were a bit mixed.
"I expected the texture to be more soft... I know there is no fat in it so I don't know how juicy it would be," Ruetzler said. "It's close to meat. It's not that juicy. The consistency is perfect."
"The absence is the fat, it's a leanness to it, but the bite feels like a conventional hamburger," Schonwald told the Associated Press.
Schonwald added he rarely eats hamburgers "without ketchup or onion or jalapenos or bacon."
Professor Mark Post's team at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told the Daily Mail, the experiment, once tweaked and fixed would answer some of the major problems the world faces. He said the project is an effort to feed the world and to combat climate change.
But do not expect the lab-made product to hit shelves anytime soon. Post said manufacturing meat is a technical challenge. The taste test has come after five years of research. Despite the review and concern about the flavor, scientist said things can be tweaked.
"Taste is the least important problem since this could be controlled by letting some of the stems developed into fat cells," said Stig Omholt, director of biotechnology at the Norwegian University of Life Science.
The developers hope it will show how the soaring global demand for protein can be met without the need for vast herds of cattle. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, we will be eating twice as much meat as we do now by 2050.
PETA spokesmen Ben Williamson said the company supports lab-gown meat if it means fewer animals are eaten.
