"Meaty rice"? South Korean professor wants to change global protein 18/06/2024
- Ana Cunha-Busch
- Jun 17, 2024
- 3 min read
By AFP - Agence France Presse
Meaty rice"? South Korean professor wants to change global protein
In a small laboratory in Seoul, a team of South Korean scientists inject cultured bovine cells into individual rice grains. They hope that this process could revolutionize the way the world feeds itself.
Team leader and Professor Hong Jin-kee believes his new so-called 'meaty rice' could be an environmentally friendly and ethical way of providing protein - from preventing famine to feeding astronauts in space.
No animals were harmed in making the dish, which looks like a normal bowl of rice - albeit pink - but it gives off a slight buttery aroma due to the addition of bovine muscle and fat cell cultures.
With the help of cultured meat, "we can obtain animal protein without slaughtering animals," Hong from Yonsei University in Seoul told AFP.
Companies worldwide are seeking to commercialize meat alternatives such as plant-based or cultured meat, as industrial livestock farming raises ethical questions and environmental concerns related to greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture.
Hong, who has a background in organoids and biomedical sciences, chose rice for his research as this grain is already the main source of protein for people in Asia.
His process can currently be time-consuming: a normal grain of rice is coated with fish gelatin to improve adhesion and then individually injected with bovine cells before being cultured in a petri dish for up to 11 days.
Rice has a "slightly porous structure", Hong said, and once the bovine cells have been injected into the rice, the grain "provides an ideal structure for the cells to grow evenly from the inside out".
- Carbon footprint -
Hong's "meaty" rice contains eight percent more protein and seven percent more fat than regular rice.
Hong and his team are still working on scaling up the process, but he hopes his creation will be approved as relief food for emergencies in two African countries.
"For people who can only eat one meal a day, a slight increase in protein content, even by just a few percent, is incredibly important," he said.
South Korea has not yet approved cultured meat for consumption but has announced plans to put millions of dollars into a "food-tech" fund in 2022 while designating cell-cultured meat as a priority research area.
Cultured meat is sold in Singapore and the United States, but Italy banned it last year, citing the need to protect its livestock industry.
Some scientists point out that the sourcing of animal source cells is a potential ethical problem with cultured meat.
It is difficult "to be sure about the safety of the serum used in the culture media and the antibiotics and hormones added during the cultivation process," Choi Yoon-Jae, a former professor emeritus at Seoul National University, wrote in a post on the website Chuksan News.
According to Hong's team, their hybrid rice method significantly reduces the carbon footprint of proteins by eliminating the need to breed and keep animals.
He estimates that producing 100 grams of protein releases 6.27 kilograms of carbon dioxide - eight times less than traditional beef production.
- Would you eat it? -
Cultured meat has long been presented as a climate solution compared to traditional livestock farming," says Neil Stephens, lecturer in technology and society at the University of Birmingham.
However, the sector faces challenges such as the need to "produce on a large scale and cheaply, with low energy requirements and environmentally friendly inputs," he told AFP.
"The 'meaty' rice could have an advantage over other cultured meat products as it is a hybrid product, mixing animal cells with plant material - the rice - which is cheaper and less energy-intensive," he said.
"Still, it would have to prove its environmental friendliness on a large scale - and convince people to eat it. Both could be a challenge."
Global consultancy AT Kearney has predicted that around 2040, only 40 percent of the world's meat consumption will come from conventional sources - and the entire industry will be turned on its head.
"Products such as milk, egg whites, gelatine, and fish can be produced using similar technologies," according to a 2019 report.
Hong firmly believes that biotechnology can change the way people consume food for the better.
For example, an elderly person with sarcopenia - muscle wasting - could eat lab-grown meat made entirely of muscle cells rather than fat to alleviate their particular condition.
The world is on the cusp of an era where "more biological information is available and we need to control our food closely," he said.
This could mean that a future AI-powered kitchen could assess a person's health based on a blood analysis and then instruct a robot to prepare the most appropriate breakfast.
By Claire LEE
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