July 18, 2011 02:26 pm EDT

Human-derived gelatin spares the livestock, confuses vegans

Vegans are going to be super-conflicted by this one. Researchers at Beijing University's College of Life Science and Technology are pioneering a four-legged creature friendly method for cranking out the 300,000 tons of gelatin produced each year. Their solution: people. Well, not in the Soylent Green sense. No, the process in question here takes "human gelatin genes [and inserts them] into a strain of yeast [producing] gelatin with controllable features." Sound appetizing? It might, if you want to avoid chowing down on "Mad Cow" tainted gummy worms at the cinema. Alright, so maybe these Chinese scientists are signaling the sensationalist red alert a bit prematurely -- it's just too bad Charlton Heston isn't around to witness this bit of life science imitating his art.

[Image credit via Film Critic]

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Human-derived gelatin spares the livestock, confuses vegans originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 18 Jul 2011 10:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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