You May Soon Be Able to Eat a Woolly Mammoth Meatball

CULTIVATED MEAT MEANS GROWN IN A LAB, AND THERE’S ALREADY A WOOLLY MAMMOTH MEATBALL?

Well, I didn’t see this one coming. And I really, really should have. I’ve followed somewhat ardently the news of every woolly mammoth that’s been found in the thawing regions of the world. And with every variously preserved mammoth we find, we talk more and more about cloning one and bringing them back into the world. And, in fact, we’re almost there. But I never thought about eating woolly mammoth meat. Not at all. And certainly not before we bring them back from extinction. Yet here we are, almost able to eat a woolly mammoth meatball before they’re even back from the dead?

AUSTRALIAN COMPANY VOX SAYS IT MADE A WOOLLY MAMMOTH MEATBALL THAT TASTES TRUE

Why yes, we are. Almost. Vow is an Australian cultivated food company that literally makes meat in a laboratory, using animal cells to “grow” the meat. And using this method, Vow says it has used their “advanced molecular engineering” to make a woolly mammoth meatball. They did this by combining original mammoth DNA with pieces of an African elephant’s DNA. James Ryall is Vow’s chief science officer, and he says they identified the mammoth myoglobin, which is the protein that gives meat its color and taste. Using that and publicly available data on mammoth DNA has produced a woolly mammoth meatball that should actually taste like a woolly mammoth….. meatball.

Woolly Mammoth To Return From Extinction in 4 Years

MEAT GROWN IN A LAB WILL SOON BE NORMAL, BUT WILL A WOOLLY MAMMOTH MEATBALL EVER BE?

So why did I say I should have seen this coming? Because I’m a geek, and the idea of growing meat in a vat has long been a staple of science fiction ideas. And, well, someday fairly soon it will be cheaper to grow meat in a lab than to breed, feed, and slaughter animals in a field or warehouse. The term for growing meat is “cultivated meat,” and there have been a large number of companies raising venture capital funding to make it happen, and soon. Cultivated meat and seafood are almost on the table, both in business and reality. But extinct animals? It’s a short step from one to the other. And it seems we are already there with a woolly mammoth meatball.