Time now for our "Life & Info" segment... where we focus on information useful for your everyday life.<br />The food industry has now gone far beyond the veggie burger in recent years, introducing all kinds of non-meaty treats for vegetarians and vegans.<br />An Israeli startup has taken the next logical step forward,... developing steak in a lab using cells from a cow.<br />Park Se-young has more.<br />It cooks, smells and tastes like steak, but this meat is not from an animal.<br />This steak was grown in the laboratory of an Israeli startup using a small number of cells taken from a cow …without slaughtering it.<br /><br />"This small amount of cells serve as a basis for getting more and more cells and from these cells we create the different cell types that comprise the muscle cut - which is actually the steak that we are eating."<br /><br />Because the meat is grown in closed containers that allow no contamination, there is no need to use antibiotics …which can be harmful to meat eaters.<br />While there have been lab-grown hamburgers and chicken, …Aleph Farms claims to have developed the world's first lab-grown steak.<br />And it could be seen on restuarant menus in the near future, …as the company is in talks with high-end restaurants in the United States, Europe and Asia to have the product released for a trial phase in 2021.<br />It plans to officially launch the product in 2023, …first in restaurants and then in stores.<br /><br />"Imagine the same steak, the same experience, same taste, same texture, but produced in a way which is more ethical, more sustainable and without all the public health issues associated with animal farming."<br /><br />A serving of a thin slice of the meat currently costs around 50 U.S. dollars, but the company hopes to bring that down by 2021 …to cost only a little more than a traditional steak.<br />Amid increasing consumer concerns about health, the environment and animal welfare, …there has been growing demand for meat substitutes.<br />The number of startups producing lab-grown meat has risen from four in 2016 to more than two dozen as of last year, …with hopes of entering the one-point-four trillion-dollar global market for animal protein.<br />Park Se-young, Arirang News.<br />
