First Test-Tube Burger Eaten in London

The world's first lab-grown burger finally
went under a much-anticipated taste test
today (Aug. 5) in London. The verdict? It
has a mouthfeel like meat but it's missing
the fatty, juicy flavor of the real thing, two
critics said.

In a broadcast of the tasting, one of the
brave eaters, Austrian nutritionist Hanni
Ruetzler, said, "It's close to meat," but
added, "It's not that juicy." American food
author Josh Schonwald agreed, saying,
"The bite feels like a conventional
hamburger," before noting that it was lean
and lacking fat.

Humans' taste for animal meat comes at a high environmental price, and the mastermind
behind the project, scientist Mark Post, of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, is
hoping to develop the test-tube meat as a sustainable food source. The synthetic beef
patties that were served up today had been made from thousands of muscle strips, each
the size of a grain of rice, grown from cow stem cells in a laboratory.
In a video , Google co-founder Sergey Brin also revealed himself as the project's secret
financial backer who donated $330,000 to the fake meat's creation.