Well, what do you know? Before Korea University released a white paper on meat-based plants, some science folks had already made meat everything, including meat berries. One such science folks is the YouTube channel The Thought Emporium. Last year, The Thought Emporium stripped some leaves of a few types of vegetables of their cells in a process called decellularization.
After the cells are removed, all that are left are scaffolds of cellulose lignin which makes the leaves clear like glass. Not going to lie. Transparent leaves are pretty surreal. Anyhoo, once the cells are removed, the leaves are ready to accept other cells.
In this experiment, which was posted on The Thought Emporium’s YouTube channel last year, rat cells were introduced to the leaves. Long story short. The experiment was a success and meat leaves were born.
Before you scream out loud in disgust and think that this is the case of science folks being preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn’t stop to think if they should, you ought to know there are bigger implications than just turning vegetables into meat.
It could lead the possibility of growing organs for those who need them. So yes, at a glance, it may look like some mad scientist or surgeon like Victor Frankenstein or Godwin Baxter at work but it really isn’t. In any case, I will let you be the judge by watching the entire video which can find embedded below.
Images: YouTube (The Thought Emporium).
