What Does Cultured Meat Taste Like?
If you are reading this, congratulations! You are part of the select few who are curious to know what cultured meat tastes like. While there are no special trophies to be won, deciding to know what an innovation like cultured meat tastes like is a good step to embracing the revolution.
Thankfully, there have been a couple of taste tests and scientific projections to explain what cultured meat tastes like and justify why there would be certain differences in taste from conventional meat – if there are any taste differences in the first place.
Earlier this year, there was a blind taste test to examine what cultivated chicken meat tastes like. The test also checked if participants would be able to detect cultivated chicken meat from real meat. Graced by professional tasters and scientists, there was quite a bit of disagreement and a tough time deciding which was which, SuperMeat founder, the company which provided the cultivated meat sample exposed which dish was actually the cultivated one.
If this means anything, it means that it will most likely always be hard to set aside the taste of cultured meat from naturally grown meat – which seems to be a good one for a laboratory product that manufacturers desire to attain all characteristics as with its natural counterpart.
In truth, it will take a lot of technical accuracies for cultured meat to taste like real meat since several factors do affect what meat tastes like. Some of these factors, like the presence of blood vessels and the right proportion of fat to muscle cells, may be hard to achieve in cultivated meat samples. But this does not mean cultivated meat products have failed in giving us what we want so far.
Does Cultivated Meat Taste the Same as Real Meat?
With the aid of an electronic tongue, scientists have been able to provide what to expect as to the taste of cultured meat and the reasons why there may be subtle differences in taste for anyone who is truly patient enough to check.
First of all, scientists have highlighted that some subtle differences in amino acid compositions might create a bit awkward feel when eating lab-grown meat. Amino acids are known to trigger complex taste sensations. Unless cultivated meat producers are careful enough to achieve the exact compositions of amino acids in their meat products, they may not do well enough to achieve that expected umami flavor of meat.
Despite this, it is revealed that cultivated meat would potentially be sweeter than traditional meat also due to distinct amino acid profiles. Scientists believe that there is a higher probability for cultured meat to contain amino acids like glycine and alanine which give a sweet sensation than amino acids like leucine and tyrosine which have a bitter aftertaste.
Generally, the attempt is to produce real meat and not something that tastes like an edible infused with meat flavor. Therefore, scientists are having the time of their lives, working on how to improve other characteristics of lab-grown meat such as the texture and the final outlook.
We are hopeful that by the time cultivated meats are openly available for consumption, they will do so well at resembling conventional meats that no one would ever have any reason to doubt consuming them.
