Grow-Your-Own Human Meat Meal Kit 'Technically' Not Cannibalism, Makers Say
Bored of basic beef burgers? Tired of Thanksgiving turkey? Have a hankering for something a bit more, erm, human than ham? Meat lovers, you're in luck! grow-your-own human meat kits are here and technically not cannibalism -- at least according to designer-scientist-artist trio behind the Ouroboros Steak. Intended to pose important questions surrounding the ethics and sustainability of lab grown meat, the conceptual kit allows users to harvest their own cheek cells and combine them with serum partially made of expired donated blood to create tiny, edible steaks, according to Dezeen Magazine. Yum?
Named after the iconic ancient symbol of a snake eating its own tail, the Ouroboros Steak was commissioned to be included as a part of the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Designs for Different Futures exhibition, and is now nominated for the Beazley design of the year award, the New York Post reported.
Aside from making for an erm, interesting and definitely NOT cannibalistic snack, the endeavor is a commentary on the fact that the creation of synthetic meat still requires fetal bovine serum (FBS), or blood from the calf fetuses inside of slaughtered pregnant cows. In other words, eating that lab-grown beef burger may still contribute to factory farming.
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"Fetal bovine serum costs significant amounts of money and the lives of animals," Andrew Pelling, the scientist behind Ouroboros Steak explained. "Although some lab-grown meat companies are claiming to have solved this problem, to our knowledge no independent, peer-reviewed, scientific studies have validated these claims."
By comparisons, these DIY human steaks do not harm animals, and are arguably greener and less expensive than synthetic meat, according to Grace Knight, the team's industrial designer.
"Expired human blood is a waste material in the medical system and is cheaper and more sustainable than FBS, but culturally less-accepted. People think that eating oneself is cannibalism, which technically this is not," she said.
Yet to the disappointment of "actual cannibal Shia LeBeouf" ...
... and maybe Kesha circa the early 2010s ...
... this product is not available for sale. Sorry Soylent Green superfans! I guess you'll just have to wait to get your fix.
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Top Image: The Design Museum
