Australian company creates meatball from long-extinct mammoth

Vow, an Australian meat company, has created a mammoth meatball by resurrecting the flesh of the long-extinct animals.

The project focuses on the idea of growing meat from cells without having to slaughter animals. The study also highlights the link between large-scale livestock production and the destruction of wildlife and the climate crisis, reports The Guardian.

Currently, there is quite a few companies working on replacements for conventional meat, such as chicken, pork and beef. 

The project Vow is working on is aimed more towards the mixing and matching of cells from unconventional species to create new kinds of meat.

So far, the company has done its research around more than 50 species, including alpaca, buffalo, crocodile, kangaroo, peacocks, and different types of fish.

Photo: Collected

According to the reports, the first cultivated meat to be sold to diners will be Japanese quail, which the company expects will be in restaurants in Singapore this year.

"We have a behaviour change problem when it comes to meat consumption," said George Peppou, CEO of Vow .

"The goal is to transition a few billion meat eaters away from eating [conventional] animal protein to eating things that can be produced in electrified systems.

And we believe the best way to do that is to invent meat. We look for cells that are easy to grow, really tasty and nutritious, and then mix and match those cells to create really tasty meat."

Tim Noakesmith, one of the co-founders of Vow, said: "We chose the woolly mammoth because it's a symbol of diversity loss and a symbol of climate change."

The creature was thought to have become extinct during the last ice age due to being hunted by humans and the rising temperature of the world. 

The initial idea was from Bas Korsten at creative agency Wunderman Thompson: "Our aim is to start a conversation about how we eat, and what the future alternatives can look and taste like. Cultured meat is meat, but not as we know it."

Vow has been working with Prof Ernst Wolvetang, at the Australian Institute for Bioengineering at the University of Queensland, to create the mammoth muscle protein.

The research team had taken the DNA sequence for mammoth myoglobin, a key muscle protein in giving meat its flavour, and filled in the few gaps using elephant DNA.

"It was ridiculously easy and fast," said Wolvetang. "We did this in a couple of weeks." Initially, the idea was to produce dodo meat, he said, but the DNA sequences needed do not exist.

No one has yet tasted the mammoth meatball.

"We haven't seen this protein for thousands of years," said Wolvetang. "So we have no idea how our immune system would react when we eat it. But if we did it again, we could certainly do it in a way that would make it more palatable to regulatory bodies."

Wolvetang also added that "It's a little bit strange and new – it's always like that at first. But from an environmental and ethical point of view, I personally think [cultivated meat] makes a lot of sense."

It is a widely known fact that the large-scale production of meat, particularly beef, causes huge damage to the environment. To prevent further damage, a big reduction in meat-eating in rich nations is necessary to end the detoriating climate crisis.

Seren Kell, at the Good Food Institute Europe, said: "I hope this fascinating project will open up new conversations about cultivated meat's extraordinary potential to produce more sustainable food.

"However, as the most common sources of meat are farm animals such as cattle, pigs, and poultry, most of the sustainable protein sector is focused on realistically replicating meat from these species.

"By cultivating beef, pork, chicken and seafood we can have the most impact in terms of reducing emissions from conventional animal agriculture."