By Echo Xie
- Study finds results ‘indistinguishable’ in flavour, colour and texture, suggesting potential as alternative protein source
- Cultivated seafood could also one day relieve pressure on overfished marine stocks, the researchers say
A team of researchers at Zhejiang University has grown China’s first centimetre-long fish fillets in the laboratory.
Developed over 17 days, the cultured fish fillets are indistinguishable from similar natural fish in flavour, colour and texture, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed Science of Food, an online open access publication from Nature Partner Journals.
“Marine fish contain high-quality protein and unsaturated fatty acids, which have a positive effect on health,” said co-author Liu Donghong, a researcher at Zhejiang University.
“This technology may provide support for addressing the supply of meat and animal protein for human beings. It also has important implications for the conservation of marine fish stocks,” Liu said, on the university’s website.
Cultured meat – a genuine product achieved by cultivating animal cells in a lab – has emerged as an alternative to partially replace the traditional livestock industry in meat production, according to the research team.
Some researchers and companies have developed meat tissues from cows and pigs with the help of 3D printing technology.
But there have been fewer studies on cultured marine fish because of the large diversity in muscle types among marine fish and a lack of supporting materials for a 3D scaffold to build the flesh structure.
For their study, the researchers cultured fillets of the large yellow croaker, a warm-temperature migratory fish in which muscle and fat cells account for more than 80 per cent of its body.
The fish is also an important economic marine species in East Asia, where it is favoured for its flavour and abundance in nutrients, but has declined dramatically in the wild due to overfishing.
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