Test-tube burger

It is a tale straight from the pages of the weirder realms of science fiction. A mysterious millionaire and a brilliant professor join forces, with a single aim. To create Frankenburger: the world's first test-tube beefburger. Peculiar as it may sound, it is the future for our food, according to the academic in question, Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University in the Netherlands.He plans to serve up the first burger this October after growing beef muscle in his lab, which will eventually become a juicy quarter-pounder. Post has grown small strips of beef-muscle tissue using a cow's stem cells and serum taken from a horse foetus (are you hungry yet?).Just like all growing muscles, they are presently flexing away to become bigger and healthier — only, in true sci-fi style, they are doing so in a Dutch lab, held in place by Velcro and stimulated by electricity. When fully grown, 3,000 of these muscles will be needed for one burger — and will cost an estimated £200,000 (Dh1.15 million). Post has big plans for his stem-cell-cum-foetus version of fast food."Eventually my vision is that you have a limited herd of donor animals in the world that you keep in stock and that you get your cells from," he says. So who is the chef who will cook up this scientific experiment and launch a culinary revolution? You guessed it — Heston Blumenthal. And the lucky diner? To be confirmed, says Post. "My financier will decide who will eat it ... [he is] famous, everyone knows this guy."But we will not learn his identity, not at least until his Frankenburger has proved a success. Ketchup anyone? Let's be serious. We shouldn't undermine credible efforts to solve the crisis in the world's food supply. But rarely do the inventors of these technologies seem to understand why consumers are sceptical of their ideas and motives. There are dozens of examples of food technology "big talk" that has come to nought. Scientists and biotech companies grumble that their efforts fail because of bad press — yet it is often entirely their own fault that the public are so suspicious.To begin with, they tend to make our stomachs churn. In-vitro meat production uses stem-cell technology and foetal material. How will we feel, eating the product of an animal that, never mind being kept in a factory farm, was never allowed life at all? Technologies such as this unnerve us because they interfere with the magnificently sedate process of evolution. We like to think what we eat is unaltered and as natural as possible. I have always thought it was astonishing that we subject our food to far fewer safety checks than we do our medicines.After all, we can eat the same foods every day for a lifetime, making them more risky. Medicines are (hopefully) only consumed for short periods of time. Genetically modified foods, for example, are not as thoroughly investigated as GM drugs. Cancer therapies using genetically modified organisms are rigorously tested over many years, yet pesticide-resistant wheat or soya needs only to be tested for three months — and tested on rats, not humans. The use of stem cells to cure human diseases is being debated all over the world by philosophers and politicians.Why is it being cleared for use on our plates with such ease? The technology is expensive, but Post hopes that expanding his operation will make it affordable. The reality is, though, that efforts of scientists to feed the world sustainably rarely see the light of day. Twenty years ago, biotechnologists created super-nutritious GM "Golden Rice", transforming rice with genes from a daffodil to add nutritious beta carotene. It was hoped it would reduce vitamin A deficiency in developing countries. But the project has encountered many technological difficulties, while attracting fierce opposition from pressure groups.Supporters of in-vitro meat say that it will solve many problems — not just hunger. Such as what, I wonder? In-vitro meat won't prevent greenhouse-gas emissions from livestock farms because dairy farms are a major source of methane, and milk cannot be made in a laboratory (yet). And while less land will be used for livestock, I can't see that there is a great need for it for other uses. We won't need, presumably, as much grain for animal food (a test tube does not need feeding). And we certainly don't need more potatoes or onions, cauliflowers or carrots — Spain, Holland and Africa can grow all the other vegetables we want so cheaply.What to do with the prairies of England? I predict the tumbleweed will be blowing across uninhabited plains in no time. Heston Blumenthal will surely employ all his powers to get the Frankenburger to taste decent. He is no shirker when it comes to using gadgets to enhance his cooking.It will probably need colour added to the flesh — Professor Post admits that the muscle strips are currently "pinkish towards yellowish" — and the flavour of well-hung beef needs replicating. But hey, a little hydrolysed vegetable protein, an unpleasant soya-based additive most often used in stock cubes to make them taste meaty, should do the trick. It is not that I am against growing protein, per se. Let's not forget Quorn, a vegetarian mycoprotein developed in Buckinghamshire using a soil fungus.Grown in tanks in oxygenated water, it develops from a single spore to a mass that can then be processed, given texture and sold as a meat alternative. It is not a mushroom, and it certainly does not taste like fungi, or anything else much. But it has made a lot of vegetarians happy and is a thousand times less controversial than using genetically modified organisms and stem cell science in food technology.Think back to the origins of the "food without fields" fantasy. Nasa, contemplating putting astronauts in space for long periods, initiated the in-vitro meat project nearly 20 years ago. They hoped that one day, those sent to space could feed themselves from on-board "farms", which grew beef, lamb and salmon. That, too, sounds like another great sci-fi story. But could it provide a clue to the provenance and funding for Frankenburgers? Consider the three elements of this story: space travel, mystery wealthy investor and great publicity stunt.