3 out of 4 Italians don't like the test-tube hamburger

This is revealed by a survey by Coldiretti: 3 out of 4 Italians would never eat the test-tube hamburger, not even if it were cooked by a great chef.

We are talking about the hamburger created from cow stem cells: created by Dr. Mark Post, director of the physiology department at the University of Maastricht, in the Netherlands. The announcement that the hamburger will be cooked by the British top chef Heston Blumenthal, known for his molecular gastronomy creations, does not increase the dish's appeal, considering that the experiment has so far produced — Coldiretti reports — only strips of tissue 3 centimeters long and less than half a millimeter thick, mushy in consistency and gray in color because there is no blood.

The product, appeal aside, has to date cost about 250,000 euros in research to achieve what visually appears to be a modest result.

Coldiretti's opinion on the matter is quite clear: the reality is that despite the constant flow of miracle-mongering news about the beneficial effects of the new genetic modifications carried out on animals and plants in the laboratory (from the fast-growing supersalmon to hypervitaminic rice and breast milk from transgenic cows), citizens' level of skepticism remains high. For this reason, as past experiences starting with mad cow disease (BSE) have shown, innovations in a sector like food, which is particularly exposed to health risks, must travel the road of naturalness and safety.