Scientists at the Australian University of Woop-Woop have successfully created artificial vegetables starting only with meat.
This means that veggie-reluctant people can now eat lookalike vegetables without worrying about the impact of nitrate fertilisers, insecticides or of the amount of water used to grow them. The vegetables are created in the laboratory by an entirely unnatural process using various different meats as input.
The researchers initially concentrated on the larger vegetables, because everything is big in Australia. Large carrots, parsnips and marrows have been manufactured from wallaby meat, for example. Courgettes have been made from cow meat (and the staff jokingly refer to them as ‘cowgettes’). Peas and sweetcorn have proved more challenging because of their small size – but staff are hopeful that trials using meat from smaller animals – including shrews and grasshoppers – might bear fruit. So to speak.
Volunteers have been involved in taste tests and say that all of the artificial vegetables are satisfyingly meaty and particularly tasty with gravy. Vegetarians have cautiously welcomed these innovations. They believe that its fair for meat eaters to have vegetable substitutes in the same way they enjoy meat substitutes.
The researchers are currently working on a new project to address global drought, by creating artificial water from surplus wine.
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