Printing a full 3-D steak may prove too difficult and inefficient for the petri dish meat experts, so instead they are suggesting a more feasible option: printing long threads of protein.
Consumers will be able to purchase machines that will weave these protein threads according to preset preferences. Effectively you would be able to choose the size, texture and tenderness and the meat would be made in front of you.
Next Nature says, “Groups of diners can even knit their own sections of a protein scarf, enabling multiple people to share a unique moment.”
The late-2000s saw a surge of meat-based statements. Models shared the spotlight with big chunks of meat, and I mean that literally, not as a derogatory term (that would have been: ‘big hunks of meat’).
Tyler Shields’ iconic photographs of Mischa Barton wearing nothing but a steak were powerful to say the least.
Image courtesy of tylershields.com
Image courtesy of tylershields.com
Image courtesy of tylershields.com
Image courtesy of tylershields.com
Vogue has carved meat into their editorials both cooked and raw. Terry Richardson’s series in Vogue Paris in October 2010 was humorous, letting Crystal Renn invoke her inner glutton.
Image courtesy of Vogue Paris and Terry Richardson
Image courtesy of Vogue Paris and Terry Richardson
Image courtesy of Vogue Paris and Terry Richardson
And ‘The Big Chill’ that Steven Klein shot for Vogue US in 2004 had enough gore to catch your eye, rather than make you avert it.
Image courtesy of Vogue US and Steven Klein
Now when people think of meat in fashion the first talking point is always Lady Gaga’s meat dress. In fact, if you type “meat in fashion” into Google right now (go ahead, do it) one of the first things you’ll find is that ‘Lady Gaga’s meat dress’ has its very own Wikipedia page.
Slightly ridiculous?
The restrained suggestion of gore that Vogue mastered has been amplified. Animal skulls are a main feature in Black Blessed’s 2013 Fall Catalogue.
Image courtesy of Black Blessed
Image courtesy of Black Blessed
Image courtesy of Black Blessed
In the usual fashion we have progressed past a point of balance. Rather than allowing meat to be an unexpected addition to an ordinary situation, it is now most important to shock.
Editorial image from TAR magazine’s second issue, 2010 Image courtesy of TAR magazine
At an exhibition now on at Hauser and Wirth in London animal carcasses are displayed as art. Alex Van Gelder, the artist responsible, aims to shock. Independent art critic Zoe Pilger says the potraits “seem to revel in a kind of death voyeurism for its own sake.”
Van Gelder’s meat portrait #013
Image courtesy of the Independent
Van Gelder’s meat portrait #015
Image courtesy of the Independent
Van Gelder’s meat portrait #026
Image courtesy of the Independent
The extreme goes the other way of course, with light-hearted approaches to involving meat in fashion and art. Bacon T-shirts are the new haute couture.
Light-hearted can be done impressively, especially if Karsten Wegener has anything to do with it. This German photographer recreated a series of famous artworks with a meaty spin.
Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers”
Damien Hirst’s “Mother and Child”
Edvarch Munch’s “The Scream”
Damien Hirst’s “Dots”
Jeff Koons’ “Poodle”
Picasso’s “Dove of Peace”
Blood and guts is all well and good, but what’s the point of art if no one wants to look at it?
On another quest for meatless-ness in Shanghai, we found ourselves in Greenology, a multi-story vegetarian restaurant with a gourmet edge; a perfect first date spot for all the foodie Buddhists of Shanghai. They prepare a different menu for each floor, we ate on the Forest floor. We were put in a private room and supplied with endless amounts of tea, both the classic green as well as a more adventurous saffron and cinnamon blend. Click on the images below to view a slideshow of the intricate (and surprisingly meaty) dishes we had the pleasure of eating:
The set menu for the ‘Forest’ level of the restaurant
The first course: It was recommended to eat from right to left
First fresh fruit jelly, to cleanse the palate
Then braised stuffed lotus root with sweet and sour sauce, which tasted like a rib
And finally, aniseed silverweed tubers and zucchini, the strongest flavour on the plate. It’s amazing how something so abstract could taste so meaty, a second helping definitely wouldn’t have gone amiss!
The next course was burdock barley quinoa soup, which had a very deep flavour (surprising for broth) as well as a few surprise berries at the bottom
Another trio of goodness: Stir-fried Chinese kale and lilium bulb, homemade organic non-GMO tofu stuffed with golden oyster mushrooms and an oatmeal crusted orange carrot patty
The oatmeal crusted orange carrot patty was light and, dare I say it, moist
The homemade organic non-GMO tofu stuffed with golden oyster mushrooms had an unexpected spicy kick to it, but there was no sign of any mushroom stuffing!
I had never had lilium bulb before this and it was a nice crisp sweet accompaniment to the course
Though the name ‘Brown Rice and Plum Vinegar’ is slightly offputting, this looked like champagne and tasted even better. Imagine Werther’s Original melted down into liquid, heaven.
The lion’s mane mushroom with black pepper sauce was the best part of the meal. Again, I was amazed there could be such a meaty taste and texture from something so un-meaty!
It was so filling as well, not at all like just eating some mushrooms
Also, I had no idea what ocra was, but I am a fan. Cold kidney beans on the other hand, were not so breathtaking
It wouldn’t be a meal in China without a bit of fried rice, but this had truffles in it, which gave it an extra tasty edge
If it hadn’t said this sorbet was made of organic tofu and brown rice on the menu I wouldn’t have believed it!
The organic tofu brown rice sorbet was incredibly sweet (especially considering the ingredients) and much creamier than the regular fruit sorbets I am used to
And if all that food just wasn’t enough, they let you keep your chopsticks as a souvenir!
With every New Year comes a resolution, and despite all our good intentions, the diets and other healthy lifestyle promises are often crushed under the weight of the New Year’s Day hangover.
We’ve broken ours already.
For those of you who are more strongly willed (read: less pathetic) than us, we congratulate you, for the rest of you we have come up with a solution: A meat-free month.
Today is the first ‘Meatless Monday’ of the 2014, and thus the perfect starting point to a 30-day meatless commitment; PETA has created an online pledge, you can find it here.
But how far will you choose to go?
Vegan or Vegetarian?
Choose vegan and you’re up there with the big guns. It’s tough, Beyoncé could only hack it for twenty-two days, but even then the results were obvious.
It’s a big commitment, but it is easier now than it has ever been before, with plenty of meat substitutes to minimise the shock. Bill Gates has even invested in manufacturing egg substitutes so he can have convincing vegan mayonnaise.
It would be a quick way to shed those holiday pounds.
Lots of celebrities are vegan for non-weight loss reasons (as we looked into last year) but it’s impossible to overlook the blatant impact on their physique. Natalie Portman is a vegan all year round, her motivation may be the animals not the body benefits, but she never seems to have a problem with love handles, post-holiday or not!
Choosing vegetarian isn’t a cop out though, it would be a lot easier, but you would still get a healthy detox out of it as long as you don’t coat everything in cheese!
Any dietary choice that involves boosting your intake of fruit and veg is going to boost your appearance, and who wouldn’t want better skin and shinier hair?
Either way you’d be doing the environment a favour by cutting your meat consumption. Who knows, maybe if enough people stop eating steak it will stop snowing in Egypt.
We’ve established that meat production doesn’t contribute positively to the environment, bar its products’ undeniably beautiful taste, smell, and sound (listen to that bacon sizzle).
While it’s true that a melt-in-your-mouth beef carpaccio brings a bite of romance to the world of food porn, perhaps it’s time to address meat as the luxury item that it is by assigning it a corresponding tax.
Taxing meat would put perspective on our daily indulgence
An article published in Nature Climate Change has brought forward this ‘meat tax’ idea for the simple reason that if meat is more expensive less of it will be bought and consequently less will need to be produced, ultimately resulting in reduced carbon emissions.
Scientists, Ripple, et al., explain in their article, “Influencing human behaviour is one of the most challenging aspects of any large-scale policy, and it is unlikely that a large-scale dietary change will happen voluntarily without incentives.” This tax would be the incentive.
It makes sense. Let’s be honest, it’s hard to change, sometimes we need a little nudge, that’s why plastic bag consumption in Wales has reduced by 80% in the two years since the 5p bag charge was introduced.
It works, that’s why an identical 5p charge on plastic bags is going to be introduced in England in 2015, so why wouldn’t it work for meat too?
PETA have called for a ‘sin’ tax to be put on meat, like that found on cigarettes, alcohol and petrol. The name, superfluous as it may be, does come with a valid meaning; despite creating the image of steak being grilled over the flames of hell, a ‘sin’ tax is implemented to balance out the health or environmental costs. Just as cigarettes have been linked to lung cancer, diets heavy in meat can cause heart disease. And petrol and meat farming both put a strain on the environment.
Whether a tax is imposed or not, meat should be treated as an indulgence (it tastes like one too). Keep that in mind this Meatless Monday.
Meatless Monday is here again and this week we’ve gone international! Got Meat. have popped over to China to check out Shanghai’s well-established vegan restaurant: Vegetarian Lifestyle.
The restaurant wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, it didn’t stink of hemp-flavoured incense, it wasn’t filled with dreadlocked hippies, it was indistinguishable from any meat-serving restaurant, even when it came to the food.
The meal was delicious, you heard the man, and it did not feel like anything was missing even though we were aware of the lack of meat. It begs the question, if avoiding eating meat was always this easy, would more people do it?
The world’s population is getting more and more conscious of the damage meat production is doing to the planet they live on, so why hasn’t there been more of a reaction? People don’t buy hybrid cars because they look cool, or install solar panels because they add to the décor of their roof; they do it because they feel a responsibility to the planet they live off. So regardless of how delicious bacon is, wouldn’t more people give it up if going vegan was as easy to do as buying a bag-for-life?
‘Tis the season is it not and in honour of the enchanting atmosphere of festive joy hanging in the crisp (read: slightly damp) winter air I thought it was time for a truly Christmassy post, and what could be more Christmassy than these twelve days.
The ‘12 Days of Christmas’ song has been sung in the UK since the 18th century, if you haven’t heard it you’re in for a treat:
The rhyme was first published in the children’s book Mirth without Mischief in 1780, and I can’t help but notice that half of the presents ‘my true love gave to me’ would be very easily cooked. No, I am not suggesting at all that the author was a cannibal or promoting you tracking down a dancing lady or drumming drummer and throwing either of them in the oven; I was referring to the birds.
From six of the more traditional ‘geese-a-laying’ to the two more unfamiliar turtledoves, I can’t help but wonder if the author was compiling a plan for a party. Piping pipers and drumming drummers certainly would have provided enough entertainment for an 18th century crowd. And the dancing ladies and leaping lords would have made up a lively guestlist. The 23-bird spread would have been impressive, slightly medieval in size (and slightly illegal considering the swans), but impressive nonetheless.
Unfortunately I don’t have access to any hens, French or otherwise, so I can’t start experimenting with what dishes might have been served at this wild event. Instead, all of us here at Got Meat. have compiled a selection of recipes on our Pinterest board just in case some of you want to try out something new this Christmas. Have a look here
And don’t worry, the swan recipes are vegetarian…
All together now:
On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…
First, a disclaimer, the term “faggots” is not in any way intended as an offensive term for a gay person (though the title does work ironically well in that context), but rather as a lovely foodstuff made from various animal inside-y bits.
There are many definitions for the word “faggot” and unfortunately the one that most quickly comes to mind is far more crude than the originally intended 13th century definition: “a bundle of twigs bound up”.
In this case, however, we’re talking about good old fashioned British faggots, a combination of all the offal (internal organs and entrails) you can imagine, mainly liver and sometimes heart, encased in bit of fat or skin and then roasted. Making their way onto the menus of many a Michelin star restaurant, they are the trendiest thing to be stuffing your face with right now.
You might say it’s the Welsh response to pâté. Delicious until you hear what’s in it, then suddenly you’d like it to be as far away from your mouth as possible, but offal is underrated. As bursting with health benefits as it is taste, livers got all the vitamin A you could want while kidneys are a great source of iron.
But even if you can’t stomach the taste, faggots are at least a source of humour. For all our American and Canadian friends who mouths still haven’t quite closed since reading the title, don’t worry, you aren’t the only ones who were shocked, the Canadian comedian Tom Stade enacts it perfectly.
It’s Christmas time and what would Christmas be without the whole family coming together to scoff down a great big turkey!?
Bad news, it may not seem like it now, but our planet isn’t going to be able to cope with the binge culture we have adopted. What options will we have if meat runs out?
51.72% chose Vegetarianism, 39.66% wanted plant-based substitutes and 8.62% were keen for In Vitro meat. Poll made possible by polldaddy.com
In Vitro Meat
Plant-based substitutes
Vegetarianism
Here’s what you chose:
“We’re running out of everything,” professor of sustainability at the Welsh School of Architecture Huw Jenkins explains, “and if we don’t attend to that it will happen sooner.”
He may have been speaking about the architectural context of sustainability, but the fact is that our whole current system of living is absurdly greedy. Not even fifty years ago it would have been ridiculous to expect meat in every meal, but now it would not be unusual to have sausages for breakfast, a chicken sandwich for lunch and spaghetti bolognese for dinner.
Meat is no longer seen as a luxury but it still comes at a cost.
The documentary Meat the Truth, put’s it into perspective, here’s the trailer (try to ignore the overly dramatic music).
Jenkins went on to introduce the “three planet argument”, which describes how the way the human race live now will take the resources of three planets to maintain.
Unfortunately we don’t have three planets, sure a few earth look-a-likes have been spotted, but 42 light-years is a hell of a long commute so it’s probably best to look after the one we’ve got.
Meat farming is one of the biggest drains on our resources and also arguably one of the easiest to change, so what are the alternatives?
Behind door number one we have In Vitro meat, also known as cultured meat, which is made through a stem cell science very similar to the process used in the production of organ grafts.
Here’s an explanatory video from someone with first hand knowledge:
The scientist behind this ground-breaking research, Mark Post, puts it simply, “By our technology we are actually producing meat, it’s just not in a cow.”
For the majority of people, at least according to the survey done a few days ago, the first instinct when considering eating meat grown in a petri dish is “ew”. But is it the way forward?
Winston Churchill thought so way back in 1931 when he wrote,
“We shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium…The new foods will from the outset be practically indistinguishable from the natural products, and any changes will be so gradual as to escape observation.”
Dr Neil Stephens, an In Vitro meat specialist from Cardiff University, seems excited by the concept, explaining how the scientists actually producing the meat are looking for ways to exercise the muscle and tissue they are creating in order perfect the familiar meat texture that does essentially come from the way animals use their muscles before they are killed.
Only €300,000 later, a ready made beef patty from stem cells. Image supplied by cuturedbeef
The first cultured beef burger was created by Mark Post and tasted in London in August. Stephens attended the even but admitted, “I didn’t taste any of it myself and I was too far away to even smell it…they said that the texture was better than they expected, but it could have used more salt.”
Watch a snippet of the Telegraph’s coverage of the taste test
But is it really feasible? If this slightly disappointing burger cost around €300,000, imagine how much a turkey with stuffing would cost? Even Stephens admits, “There’s a huge amount of uncertainty about what level of cheapening can be obtained to make it comparable to meat in the supermarket today. If it doesn’t get into the same zone then it’s going to have very limited use and it’s not really going to address global climate change…There’s still some distance to travel between where we are today and when it’s going to be a marketable reality.”
What do the public think of In Vitro meat, we went to find out, have a listen here:
There are some who see no potential in test tube meat, Niko Koffeman, one of the founders of the Vegetarian Butcher, calls cultured meat “a dead born brainchild”.
This leads us to what’s behind door number two: Plant-based substitutes.
This does not just mean Quorn. Though Quorn is a healthy alternative to meat and funnily enough was originally produced because of a predicted protein shortage in the 1960s, it is not anything new.
Koffeman puts it succinctly, “The old-skool meat substitutes are outdated…we developed a chicken structure from soy which cannot be distinguished from real meat.”
And he’s not the only one who thinks so, Marnie Chesterton did a taste test of the Vegetarian Butcher’s chicken on her Radio Netherlands Worldwide show, and said she wouldn’t have known the difference,
“It’s got that fibrous quality that meat has, and it’s really tender and it tastes good!”
Koffeman is confident in his product, explaining, “Our products can completely replace all meat. It has the same taste, bite and nutritional value as the real thing (or even better than that).”
He even recognises their potential to make a positive difference, “With the existing cropland we could feed 10 billion people if we stop degrading plant-based proteins into animal-feed and biofules.
We don’t believe this [in vitro meat] will be the future of food, it will take a long time, it’s still inefficient, it’s expensive and it can’t feed the world…the structuring of plantbased proteins is far ahead of cultured meat now.”
The Vegetarian Butcher’s “chicken”, looks like chicken…
…Apparently it “tastes like chicken” too. Images supplied by Koffeman, the Vegetarian Butcher
While Koffeman states their products contain the same nutrients as animal meats, this is not the case as many nutrients like Vitamin B12, Creatine and Vitamin D3 can only be found in animal products.
This brings us to door number three, Vegetarianism.
It’s the simple, healthy solution, and even stem-cell-burger-grower Mark Post says rather than introducing themselves to his test tube grown meat, vegetarians would be better off remaining vegetarians.
Sure meat has been linked to our evolutionary progress and brain development, but definitely not in the quantities we’ve gotten used to.
Vegetarianism may be an (incredibly) extreme solution, but even if it were just a change made one day a week, like the Norwegian armies ‘Meatless Mondays‘, it would have a tremendous impact.
It might be against the Christmas spirit to eat in moderation, but if eating less meat now will mean the turkey of the future will still come from a bird, it’s definitely a change worth making.
Sprouts are much more delicious than childhood memories indicate, but nothing epitomises Christmas like a stuffed turkey, or the girl stuffed with it. Photo taken by Sophia Epstein
Got Meat. 