The London-based Design Museum has nominated the “Ouroboros
Steak” as its design of the year. What is the “Ouroboros Steak” you ask?
It is steak made from human cells and expired donated blood. The human steak kits
were created by scientist Andrew Pelling and artists Orkan Telhan and Grace
Knight. The trio were commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art for an
exhibit in 2019, and have stated that the exhibit was created in critical
response to the burgeoning lab-grown meat industry, which is reliant upon fetal
bovine serum, derived from the blood of calf fetuses.
Pelling
told Dezeen Magazine, “As the lab-grown meat industry is developing rapidly, it
is important to develop designs that expose some of its underlying constraints
in order to see beyond the hype.” Knight noted, “Expired human blood is a waste
material in the medical system and is cheaper and more sustainable than FBS,
but culturally less accepted.” Gee, I wonder why.
The “Ouroboros
Steak” is named after the ancient alchemic symbol of a snake eating its own
tail, and could be “grown” in
about three months from cells taken from inside a human’s cheek. Creeped out
yet? Unsure of the ethics behind the potential new food source? Not to worry,
its makers/designers say that partaking of these human steaks would not “technically”
be cannibalism. After all, cannibalism is consuming another individual
of your species, not just something you grew from your own body.
Telhan
noted, “We are not promoting ‘eating ourselves’ as a realistic solution that
will fix humans’ protein needs. We rather ask a question: what would be the
sacrifices we need to make to be able to keep consuming meat at the pace that
we are? In the future, who will be able to afford animal meat and who may have
no other option than culturing meat from themselves?” Who indeed? A lovely
topic on which to ruminate, no?
According
to Fox News, the product’s website states, “Growing yourself ensures that you
and your loved ones always know the origin of your food, how it has been
raised, and that its cells were acquired ethically and consensually.”
The Design Museum website notes,
“Ouroboros Steak is a DIY meal kit for growing gourmet steaks from one’s own
cells. It comes as a starter kit of tools, ingredients and instructions that
enable users to culture their own cells into mini steaks, without causing harm
to animals.”
This
seems to be the perfect product for these times. A surefire winner for 2020.
Stay in your own home and eat yourself. “Umm, boy, that’s tasty! Wonder what
goes good with me?” Governor’s Newsome, Whitmer, Brown, Walz, Wolf, Cuomo, et.
al., would be so proud!
If the
aforementioned governors ever release their citizens from their endless lockdowns,
I predict that an Ouroboros Steakhouse restaurant chain will be launched. Instead
of BYOB, “bring your own booze,” it will be BYOS, or “bring your own steak.”
I can already picture the branding
and promotional material. “Ouroboros Steakhouse is Youroboros Steakhouse.
Because you’ve got a steak in this, too!”
Or perhaps,
“Ouroboros Steakhouse…because it’s hard to beat your own meat!”
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