Artificial meat will soon displace the present

Not the first year, scientists around the world leaddevelopment in the field of artificial meat. Moreover, the creation of such a product is extremely important for many reasons. And the point here is not in the pressure from convinced vegetarians. However, to produce a conventional kilogram of artificial meat until recently was much more expensive than a kilogram of the present. But it seems that very soon natural meat may disappear from the shelves, because technology does not stand still and vegetable meat will soon become cheaper than usual.

What is bad natural meat?

Even if you discard the ethical side of the issue,meat production causes irreparable harm to the environment. For example, as the editorial staff of ZME Science reports, cattle breeding consumes several times more water than growing an equivalent amount of edible plants, from which it would be possible to make artificial meat. In addition, the waste from the factories for the production of meat is obtained much more than from similar agricultural production.

But even with all the environmental and ethical benefits, natural meat benefits from artificial meat in two of the most important indicators: taste and price. But this, apparently, not for long.

Why is artificial meat more expensive?

This is a very logical question, because plants are notneed the same meticulous care as for animals. In general, growing crops requires less time and money, but meat based on vegetable components is more expensive. Why?

"There are several factors whyartificial meat is more expensive than natural meat, ”says Liz Specht, senior researcher at the Good Food Institute. “But the most important of them is that the volume of production of artificial meat is still very, very small. Therefore it is impossible to reduce the price to an acceptable level The reason is that “vegetable meat” companies have not yet become big enough to optimize the supply chain. ”

However, major producers of artificial meatlike Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat, they are already significantly expanding their staff and cheapening production technology, which by the first quarter of 2020 should lead to a fall in prices for their products.

This is interesting: Artificial meat will be produced from the same “material” as the packaging of goods in IKEA.

What does artificial meat taste like?

As for the question of taste, here todayeverything is quite good. If a few years ago, consumers did not like burgers with soybeans and chickpea cutlets because of the “vegetable flavor”, today, thanks to food processing technology, artificial meat does not exceed the natural in its taste properties, then it certainly does not yield to it.

And these are not empty words. Just a couple of months ago, the author of these lines, while in New York, in one of the local restaurants, tried the cheeseburger of the company Impossible Burger. The menu indicated that the cutlet does not contain meat, but it will taste the same as a natural beef cutlet. And you know what, the inscription did not lie. I am not a restaurant critic or gourmet, but if I hadn’t been told that the meat in the burger was made from soy, I wouldn’t have guessed that.

Therefore, if you are worried about what"Unreal meat" will be tasteless, you can forget about it. And since this market is rapidly developing, and the same Impossible Burger is already beyond the borders of the United States, almost anyone can taste the “meatless hamburger” in the near future.

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