A meatball made from flesh cultivated using the DNA of an extinct woolly mammoth is presented at NEMO Science Museum created by a cultured meat company, in Amsterdam, Netherlands March 28, 2023.
PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW/AMSTERDAM/Reuters
An Australian cultured meat firm made a giant meatball with mammoth DNA and lab-made lamb.
No one tasted the meatball out of concerns around potential allergies to the 5,000-year-old protein.
The meatball is “a striking statement” to raise awareness of meat alternatives, the firm said.
Chicken, fish, or mammoth? Australian cultured meat company Vow has engineered a giant meatball made with a surprising protein: woolly mammoth DNA. But no one has tasted it because humans could be allergic to the 5,000-year-old protein.
The meatball was made from extinct woolly mammoth DNA and fragments of African elephant DNA, a close relative to the mammoth, according to a press release from Vow. The DNA was then inserted into lab-made lamb, CNN reported.
Vow said the process utilized “new and innovative technology” to produce a giant meatball that’s intended to make a statement about the food industry rather than a new menu item. The meatball “aims to challenge the public and the meat industry to think differently about how we produce and consume food – highlighting cultured meat as a viable alternative to traditional animal agriculture,” the press release said.
But there’s another reason why no one’s dug a fork into the entree. James Ryall, chief scientific officer at Vow, told CNN it’s unclear if humans can stomach mammoth meat.
“Normally, we would taste our products and play around with them. But we were hesitant to immediately try and taste because we’re talking about a protein that hasn’t existed for 5,000 years. I’ve got no idea what the potential allergenicity might be of this particular protein,” Ryall said.
There is evidence that ancient humans consumed mammoth meat, and even that they used clever preservation methods, like submerging it in cold water, due to the sheer quantity of meat that could be harvested from the animal, according to the book “Lost Feast: Culinary Extinction and the Future of Food” by Lenore Newman.
The meatball was revealed on Tuesday and will join the collection at a Netherlands science and medicine museum.