Scientist Developing Lab-Grown Meat. Would You Eat It?

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It would take away the guilt that comes with that delicious cheeseburger. But would it taste as good?

Vladimir Mironov, a developmental biologist and tissue engineer at the Medical University of South Carolina has been working for years to create lab-grown meat. If he succeeds, he says the technology will help curb an incoming food crisis resulting from a shortage of land to raise animals. Plus, the product would be cheaper than farm-fresh meat because the process would be more efficient.

(More on TIME.com: See the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2010)

So far, Mironov has developed turkey muscle tissue. But to make tasty turkey, you need fat, and to make the turkey plump, you need a vascular system. So there’s still a long way to go. But the project lacks funding, in part due to the public just not liking the sound of test-tube meat.

All this reminds NewsFeed of the gone-too-soon sitcom Better Off Ted, where employees of a megacorporation attempt to create beef without the need of cows. Unfortunately, it ends up tasting “like despair.” Let’s hope Mironov proves more successful.

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