Question: how are artificial foods made?

Rosie Cane answered on 17 Jun 2017:

Good question! We get artificial flavours in a lot of foods, using chemicals to give the food a certain taste or smell. For example, strawberry bubblegum doesn’t have actual strawberries in it – it has a mixture of chemicals that make a strawberry-type taste!

We have also made actual artificial foods before, an example being a beef burger! Scientists made the first artificial beef-burger in a lab – and no cows were harmed in the making of this!

They did this by taking cells from cows and growing them in a liquid mixture with lots of nutrients. This helped to develop the soft tissue that makes up muscles in animal bodies. This was then used to form thin strands of artificial meat to make the burgers!

It would be great if we could make artificial versions of all meat and less animals were harmed, but unfortunately it takes a lot of time and money. This project took five years and £200,000 to make one burger! Hopefully in the future we will find a cheaper and easier way to do this!