The world's first stem cell burger was cooked and eaten in London today. The brainchild of Maastricht University's Mark Post, the burger was made of 20,000 small strands of meat grown from a cow's muscle cells and took three months to create. Breadcrumbs and some egg powder were added to the cultured beef to make it taste like a normal beef burger. To give it a beefy color, red beet juice and saffron were added. Chef Richard McGeown fried the stem cell burger with sunflower oil and butter and remarked that it looked slightly paler than a traditional burger. Two volunteers got to taste the five ounce (142g) burger, which was presented on a plate with a bun, salad and some tomato slices. After having the first bite and chewing thoughtfully many times, Hanni Rutzler, an Austrian food trends researcher, said: "I expected the texture to be more soft -- it's not that juicy. It's close to meat but it misses salt and pepper." The second volunteer to taste it agreed that the burger was missing something. Josh Schonwald, a Chicago-based author who writes about the future of food, said: "It has a familiar mouth-feel to real meat. The flavor is different though. It misses fat."
