Korean Scientists Cook Up Beef-Flavored Rice Craze

A South Korean research team has developed a “beef-flavored hybrid rice.” The rice features a meaty flavor achieved by attaching bovine stem cells to the grains.

The joint research team from Yonsei University’s Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Kangwon National University’s Department of Applied Animal Science, cultured meat startup Simple Planet, Korea Basic Science Institute, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, and Chung-Ang University have developed the so-called “beef rice,” which is cultivated with muscle and fat cells of animals within the rice grain.

The results of this research were published in the international academic journal “Materials” on February 15th in materials science.

This rice has 8% more protein and 7% more fat than regular rice. This results from cultivating bovine muscle and fat cells in the rice grain for up to 11 days.

The rice surface was also coated with fish gelatin to make the beef cells adhere better to the rice grain.

Beef rice has shown the potential to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions compared to the traditional method of obtaining meat by breeding animals.

Park So Hyun, a researcher at Johns Hopkins University who participated in developing beef rice, explained, “Normally, we get protein from livestock, but the livestock industry consumes a lot of resources and water and emits greenhouse gases. Adding livestock cells to nutrient-rich rice can further increase the nutritional level.”