The company makes meatballs from lab-grown mammoth meat.

Dutch company Wow made the first beef meatballs mammoth.

The startup grew this meat in a laboratory, where it used the genetic information of an extinct animal.

extinct meat

The scientists behind this innovative milestone explained in the Netherlands how this “food” was produced.

First, Wow collected genetic information from mammoth went extinct and completed their genetic sequence using data from their closest living relative: the African elephant.

Subsequently, mammoth genes were inserted into a sheep cell. These cells were then removed, soaked in nutrients and turned into meat in laboratories.

After the meat was cooked, a giant meatball was made that has yet to be tested.

“And that doesn’t mean you can’t eat it, but because this protein is literally 4,000 years old, we haven’t seen it for a very, very long time,” said company founder Tim Noaksmith. “This means that we would like to do very thorough testing, as we do with any product that we want to bring to market. And for this purpose, we wanted to introduce it to the world faster and not necessarily bring it to the market right away.”

Future plans

Although Wow does not guarantee the safety of beef mammothAccording to Noaksmit, the startup chose the meat of an extinct animal to get people talking.

Wow is one of several companies producing lab-grown meat. In the US, the Food and Drug Administration last week approved “cultured chicken cell material” produced by GOOD Meat as safe for human consumption. In November, he approved Upside Foods’ lab-grown chicken.

Cultural meat has been developed for many years. The world’s first lab-grown hamburger was eaten in 2013. The first cell-based chicken nuggets were approved in Singapore in December 2020.

Proponents of lab-grown meat say it can help cut methane emissions and fight climate change.

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