(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — An Australian food company unveiled its latest creation Tuesday at the Nemo science museum in Amsterdam: a mammoth meatball, created using the genetic sequence of the long-gone mastodon.
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Although the massive meatball isn’t available to eat yet, Vow — the startup behind the creation — said it was meant to get the public talking about cultivated meat, which refers to cell-based or cultured meat.
Cultivated meat is made from animal cells, according to the Associated Press. In this case, gaps in the mammoth’s DNA were filled in with genetic data from an African elephant and inserted into a sheep cell, said Vow Founder Tim Noakesmith. Under the right conditions in a lab, Noakesmith said the cells multiplied until there were enough to roll up into a meatball.
The one on display in Amsterdam was sized somewhere between a softball and a volleyball. No one has tasted the meatball yet, not even its creators, but when it was being prepared — first slow baked and then finished off with a blow torch — it smelled good.
“The folks who were there, they said the aroma was something similar to another prototype that we produced before, which was crocodile,” Noakesmith said. “So, super fascinating to think that adding the protein from an animal that went extinct 4,000 years ago gave it a totally unique and new aroma, something we haven’t smelled as a population for a very long time.”
It’s not likely something many people will smell again anytime soon. So far, only the country of Singapore has approved cell-based meat for consumption. Vow is hoping to sell its first product there, a cultivated Japanese quail meat, later in 2023.
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(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)