--- title: "Scientists Say They Can Make Delicious Lab-Grown Fat, Weave It Into Fake Bacon" description: "The key to making both lab grown meat and plant based meats work may lie in combining them to more practically make a convincing and delicious alternative." date: "2023-02-26" modified: "2023-02-26" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-make-delicious-lab-grown-fat" categories: - "Science & Energy" tags: - "lab grown meat" - "plant-based meat" - "the digest" --- # Scientists Say They Can Make Delicious Lab-Grown Fat, Weave It Into Fake Bacon ![The key to making both lab grown meat and plant based meats work may lie in combining them to more practically make a convincing and delicious alternative.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* ## Meat Heads If humans are going to transition away from eating animals, we'll need to make the alternatives a lot tastier for the countless among us who will still have meat on their brains. While the plant-based meat industry is [floundering](), and lab-grown meat still appears [many years away from becoming a practical reality](), a hybrid solution might be the ideal path forward: combining cultivated animal fat with existing plant-based products. Getting a taste of this burgeoning trend was Yasmin Tayag at *The Atlantic*, who documents her experience trying some delicious, guilt-free bacon [in a new essay](). "Even before I tried the bacon, or even saw it, I could tell it was different," Tayag wrote. "The aroma of salt, smoke, and sizzling fat rising from the nearby kitchen seemed unmistakably real." "Then crunch gave way to satisfying chew, followed by a burst of hickory and the incomparable juiciness of animal fat," she added. ## Culinary Magic These elevated strips of fake bacon featuring pork fat grown in a bioreactor were made by Mission Barns, a biotech startup from San Francisco. And it might've found the key ingredient to making ersatz meat more palatable. As Tayag puts it, "animal fat is culinary magic," a peerless combination of full-bodied flavor and juiciness that plant alternatives just can't imitate. Plant replacements don't cook the same, either, like the commonly used coconut oil, which melts out of its food too easily. Another upside is that animal fat is far easier to grow compared to meat itself, since it only involves one type of cell, Mission Barns CEO Eitan Fischer told Tayag. Ed Steele, co-founder of London-based cultivated fat company Hoxton Farms, told Tayag that they can make a convincing product by mixing a mere 10 percent cultivated fat with plant-based protein by mass. ## Marketing Mishap But even this slightly more conservative approach has its shortcomings, Tayag says. For one, drizzling cultivated animal fat into plant-based products doesn't exactly address their lack of great nutrition compared to regular meat, which is rich in protein. Marketing it to a skeptical public will prove challenging, too. It's not exactly plant-based meat, and it's not exactly lab-grown meat. Previous attempts to bridge a similar gap were unsuccessful, like when companies in 2019 used the term "blended meat," which "was a bit of a marketing failure," Audrey Gyr at the pro-plant-based nonprofit Good Food Institute, told Tayag. Above all, making the stuff remains a pricey process, and companies like Upside Food, the first and only of the industry [to receive a go-ahead from the FDA]() so far, are years away from debuting their products to high-paying clients. **More on lab grown meat:** *[Journalist Eats Lab-Grown Chicken, Gets "Weirdly Gassy"]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()