Researchers around the world have spent years trying to create the perfect burger—one with just the right flavor, juiciness, and color. It needs to sizzle when it hits a hot grill and make your mouth water.
But these experts aren’t trying to make a burger from beef—or even one from potatoes, beets, and other plants like those now sold at Burger King and TGI Fridays. Instead, they’re working to produce a patty made entirely from animal in a lab. And researchers hope it will help save the planet.
How? It may surprise you, but beef has a huge effect on the environment—much greater than chicken, fish, or vegetables. That’s because raising cattle requires a tremendous amount of land, water, and other resources. Millions of acres of forests have been cleared to grow food for the animals to eat.
And perhaps most damaging of all, cows release as part of their digestion process. When those gases—such as and —collect in the atmosphere, they trap the sun’s heat close to Earth’s surface, contributing to .