An Australian food startup has engineered a giant meatball made with a surprising protein: woolly mammoth DNA. Vow, a company focused on creating lab-grown meats, revealed that the meatball was made from extinct woolly mammoth DNA and fragments of African elephant DNA, a close relative to the mammoth.
"It's here! Introducing the #MammothMeatball, the world's first meat made from extinct animal protein. With @WunThompson, we're starting a conversation on what the future of food looks like (and from our view, it's pretty exciting)," Vox wrote on Twitter while sharing a video of the meatball.
Take a look below:
According to a press release, while creating cultured meat usually means using blood of a dead calf, the start-up used an alternative, meaning no animals were killed in the making of the mammoth meatball.
This meatball is also not designed for consumption but will be kept at a science museum in Amsterdam to draw attention to the potential of cultured meats.
Vox stated that the project's goal is to draw attention to the potential of cultured meat to make eating habits more planet friendly. It also added that the process utilised "new and innovative technology" to make a statement about the food industry rather than a new menu item.
"We need to start rethinking how we get our food. My biggest hope for this project is ... that a lot more people across the world begin to hear about cultured meat," said James Ryall, Vow's chief scientific officer, as per CNN.
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Separately, the press note stated that 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".
But there is a reason why this meatball is not designed for consumption. According to Mr Ryall, it is 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," he explained, as per the outlet.
Notably, the meatball was revealed on Tuesday and will join the collection at a Netherlands science and medicine museum.
