by Anthony Gucciardi

November 13, 2011
from ActivistPost Website

Labeled as ‘cultured meat’ by scientists, new meat grown in laboratory Petri dishes utilizing animal stem cells may soon be coming to a grocery store near you - and perhaps even your dinner plate.

Scientists and advocates are pushing the new meat as a method of tackling world hunger, savings the lives of animals, the environment, and conserving resources.

The cost of creating the meat, however, is quite outlandish. The first Petri dish hamburger will cost around 250,000 euros to create, according to Mark Post, a vascular biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands.

Post hopes to unveil the human-made hamburger soon, making way for the mainstream creation of synthetic meat products.

'The first one will be a proof of concept, just to show it’s possible,' Post told Reuters in a telephone interview from his Maastricht lab. 'I believe I can do this in the coming year.'

Slaughterhouse animal stem cells used to make cultured meat

The meat is created using harvested stem cells from leftover animal material found in slaughterhouses.

Fed a concoction of sugars, amino acids, lipids, minerals and all other nutrients necessary for the stem cells to grow, the cells begin the transformation into full-fledged Petri dish meat.

So far Post has produced whitish pale muscle-like strips from this process, extremely thin and around 1 inch long. The strips are almost see-through, and do not look much like meat. Since the meat lacks blood, the meat also is short on color. In fact, it looks similar to the flesh of scallops.

Post plans to combine 3,000 of these strips and add lab-grown fat in order to create his hamburger.

'This first one will be grown in an academic lab, by highly trained academic staff,' he said. 'It’s hand-made and it’s time and labour-intensive, that’s why it’s so expensive to produce.'

At the moment, the meat is also quite unpleasing to the taste buds.

As Post continues to tweak the lab-grown meat, he plans to utilize lab-grown fat to enhance flavor.


 

Meat Glue

-   Transglutaminase and Franken Vittles   -

by Owen Myles

Contributing Writer

November 12, 2011
from ActivistPost Website
 

Welcome to Meat Glue, a covert and common additive to meat products.

Meat Glue is an interesting - if not repulsive - creature.

While not a registered product of Mary Shelley, royalties may be due. You might have never thought of resurrecting a hamburger back into steak, but somebody else has, and Activa (transglutaminase) is the enzymatic force of galvanism behind the ritual.

Forming covalent bonds between scraps of food, they are so effectively fused together that even professional chefs and gastronomes are typically unable to distinguish veritable sausage from filet mignon once reanimated by this strange product.


 

In case you’re wondering if it’s kosher: If a hot dog can receive such an honor, I see no reason why meat-glue wouldn’t too.

As with most artificial food additives, it is likely that Activa has received no more safety testing than the average food substance - a trifle. Considering that Activa is a trademark held by the world’s largest manufacturer of MSG, it could easily be determined that health is not a top priority.

It wasn’t until the 1970s that MSG was removed from baby food, and it was done so not through FDA authority, but voluntarily by baby food manufacturers.

With food safety oversight comprising interwoven threads of the ragged and soiled undergarment of mega-corporations like Monsanto and key agencies such as the FDA, it’s a staple unlikely frequenting the menu of any astute consumer. But is there even a choice?

Vegetarians might be laughing; but not so fast.

Activa is not limited to meat products. And with USDA and culinary SWAT teams raiding local sources of independent and honest food production, austerity measures seem destined for our pantries too. Local food production is the answer, but it’s not without formidable opposition.

The many astonishing affronts to our well being and liberties are not necessarily divided at the source. The implied reasoning behind the corrosions of our quality of life is almost all equally ludicrous and unnecessary. They reason that we need GMOs and Meat Glue because we don’t have enough food, but burn their own surpluses behind our backs and destroy those who would happily eliminate the shortages they covet.

From FAST to fast and furious, from Monsanto to mutant healthcare bills, a cacophony of corruption simply enforces what it cannot justify or deceive people into accepting.

Children feed upon McWaste under duress, while organic farmers are terrorized by government and their corporate pillars. The sources of hassle might as well wear neon badges, as they are perceptibly merging into a single unified disease.

Can’t we see?

Science and food are not intrinsic enemies. But science clandestinely, forcefully, or recklessly applied to food is an intrinsic enemy to decency itself.

Activa is but one of many legitimate concerns regarding the integrity of our food; and there are doubtlessly more serious issues to confront as well. The imperative matter is that of transparency and choice, and our current government has proven a treacherous and pitiful ally in this bizarre struggle. We have a right to know what we eat, and no one has the right to intentionally deceive us.

With help from the FDA, deception has been made the divine right of corporations. It has been left up to us to preserve our rights, even though it may entail litigation and assault. Well-established and firmly planted institutions have declared us inept and unfit to maintain our own forms.

Unless you already have, please take thorough note of the FDA corruption-stain (imposed label) upon all expressly non-RBGH/RBST products, which compels businesses to basically state that there is no difference between treated and untreated animals.

Now ask yourself:

What is the purpose of injecting multi-hundred pound beasts with a substance that not only has a significant cost, but has no noticeable effect?

Using Occam’s Razor, we can only deduce that such efforts are not made if no effect is achieved. It’s an example of a flagrant lie by the FDA, arrogantly displayed before our entire nation.

And guess who helps fortify such lies? Fox.

We’re surrounded by slime.

Yes, everywhere you look or go, there may be slime of the lowest order, and an honest journalist suffocating beneath it.

Action and awareness are great solvents of slime, and I conclude by suggesting a furious dedication to local agriculture (including you). Grow sprouts in a mason jar. Grow “anything”, and share it with your neighbors. Consider raising hens. Make your own bread.

Do something! Discuss these subjects with friends and strangers alike.

Let us take control of at least our own forms, tables, and yards, and build our infrastructure from the ground up - rather than upside down with corporate scumtards at the top, and withering frail masses at the base. In one way we are facing a great monster. In another way, we are finally facing ourselves and our fellow people.

Redirect their filthy greed and hostility into a blooming garden of wholesomeness.

We can do it!
 

Suggested viewing
While the video below is in all likeliness a hoax, the prolific and viral acceptance of it as real, reveals something about our collective attitudes on food:

Qu’ils mangent de la brioche merde! - A hilarious but probable video by The Yes Men:
 

Harvard Lecture on Meat Glue:

Subnotes
One issue with Meat Glue concerns bacteria.

When layers of meat are “glued” to other multiples layers, the natural seal of non frankenmeat is lost, and new openings for bacteria are created. This danger was expressed in the first video.

Perhaps related, is the FDA’s approval of spraying viruses on meat to combat listeria.
 

Akin to the extreme absurdity of irradiation, this is yet another example of what the FDA is really about.

Note that the FDA has never openly confronted the horrid conditions of slaughterhouses and processing facilities. They are quick to address a symptom of rot, but cower before the cause.

The exceedingly cruel conditions of slaughterhouses alone are sufficient to warrant a full-scale rejection of what the FDA piously protects.

And that is merely one of many hideous aspects of industrial practices sponsored by our Food & Drug Administration (Federal Pimps).