World’s First 3D-Printed Ribeye Steak Is Juicy Beef That Was Never Slaughtered
Image via Aleph Farms / PR Newswire
Aleph Farms, the Israeli food-tech startup reputed for growing a thin steak in the lab, has quite literally gone a cut above by cultivating the “world’s first slaughter-free ribeye steak” through 3D “bioprinting.”
3D bioprinting differs from the usual 3D printing in that the materials being printed are actual living cells. With more cells to work with, scientists then incubate them and have them interact to form an extracellular matrix mimicking those found in animals.
The startup has invented proprietary tissue cultivators to build meat tissues as if the biological process had occurred in nature. The tissues recreate the muscle, fat, nutrients, and vascular-like configuration of meat, resembling the texture and qualities of beef from a slaughtered cow before and during cooking.
The resulting ribeye is a product of cow cells cultivated in the lab “without genetic engineering and immortalization.”
The company has been working on cruelty-free meats using just animal cells in hopes to facilitate accessibility for fresh meat even in parts of the world with unideal conditions. It plans to boost these chances by harvesting meat in one of the harshest and most isolated climates known to humankind: space.
Ribeye is an incredible step up for the company, which previously succeeded at growing a thin steak slice. It is a choice cut esteemed for its marbling of fat that, when seared, tenderizes the meat and gives it juiciness.
Aleph Farms asserts that due to the cultivated steak’s similar muscle and fat structure to its slaughtered counterpart, it carries the same qualities of a “delicious tender, juicy ribeye steak you’d buy from the butcher.”
“With the realization of this milestone, we have broken the barriers to introducing new levels of variety into the cultivated meat cuts we can now produce,” described Aleph Farms’ co-founder Shulamit Levenberg.
Having accomplished this feat, the company is confident it can grow different types of cruelty-free meat “of any dimension” and eventually expand its line of offerings.
[via Food Dive and Bloomberg, cover image via Aleph Farms / PR Newswire]
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