This might look like a fairly normal bowl of rice, but it’s not. This is the new hybrid rice that isn’t just a grain, it’s also technically meat. Researchers in Korea have developed a new process of culturing lab grown cow fat and muscle cells inside grains of rice.
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00:00This might look like a fairly normal bowl of rice, but it's not.
00:06This is the new hybrid rice that isn't just a grain, it's also technically meat.
00:11Researchers at Yonsei University in Korea have developed a new process of culturing
00:15lab-grown cow fat and muscle cells inside grains of rice.
00:19And this is the result, a pinkish-hued rice that has a high fat and protein content.
00:24The developers say the process is currently laborious, but it could one day be refined,
00:28allowing humankind to meet its growing demand for food.
00:31With researcher Sohyun Park saying about it, quote,
00:34Imagine obtaining all the nutrients we need from cell-cultured protein rice.
00:38Rice already has a high nutrient level, but adding cells from livestock can further boost it.
00:43They first coat rice grains with fish gelatin, and then siphon bovine muscle and fat stem
00:47cells into them for around a week and a half.
00:49The end result is a pink rice with 8% more protein and 7% more fat than traditional rice.
00:55Even with its current manufacturing process, this meat rice is actually still cheaper to
00:59make than traditional beef at only around 15% the cost, and releases far fewer emissions
01:04than beef farming as well.
01:06So how does it taste?
01:07The researchers say it's a little beefy, with a creamy flavor and a plant protein aftertaste.