The 'mammoth meatball' grown in a lab probably doesn't taste like woolly mammoth at all

black gloved hand holds glass display over giant meatball on white table
A meatball made from flesh cultivated using the DNA of an extinct woolly mammoth is presented at NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam, Netherlands.Piroschka van de Wouw/Reuters

Woolly mammoth meat hasn't been on the menu for at least 5,000 years.

A lab-grown meat company called Vow recently appeared to put the option back on the table by creating a "mammoth meatball," but the true flavor of mammoth meat remains a mystery.

woolly mammoth model with long curled tusks and shaggy hair stands in a museum exhibit with visitors reading a plaque
A woolly mammoth reconstruction at the Caverne du Pont D'Arc in Ardèche, France.Jean-Marc Zaorski/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

To make their Frankenstein-style meatball, Vow says it grabbed the myoglobin gene from mammoth DNA. Myoglobin is a protein that stores oxygen in the muscles, gives meat a red color, and makes that red juice that oozes out of a medium-rare steak.

Vow says it filled the gaps in the mammoth myoglobin gene with DNA from the African elephant, and injected the result into sheep muscle cells. They grew the meat from there.

You may be wondering: Does that really count as a mammoth meatball? And what the heck does that taste like?

A meatball made from flesh cultivated using the DNA of an extinct woolly mammoth is presented at NEMO Science Museum created by a cultured meat company, in Amsterdam, Netherlands March 28, 2023.
Vow's 'mammoth meatball' is presented at NEMO Science Museum in Amsterdam.PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW/AMSTERDAM/Reuters

Nobody tasted the meatball, according to Vow, because they were concerned that humans today might be allergic to the ancient protein.

Others have tasted a similar mammoth myoglobin creation, though. The Belgian startup Paleo says it added woolly mammoth myoglobin to a plant-based burger. The founder and CEO Hermes Sanctorum told Insider that it tasted "more intense — more meaty" than veggie burgers made with beef myoglobin.

woman stands in front of museum mammoth skeleton between tusks
A visitor looks at a complete mammoth skeleton in Lyon, France.Emmanuel Foudrot/Reuters

But he wasn't really tasting the flavor of mammoth. Even the mammoth meatball isn't very mammoth-y.

"I would definitely never suggest that this is the same as eating a meatball made out of mammoth flesh," James Ryall, Vow's chief science officer, told Insider.

The 'mammoth meatball' may as well be an 'elephant meatball'

Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genomics who studies the mammoth genome, told Insider that the coding of the myoglobin gene in woolly mammoths is "identical" to that of Asian elephants. His latest paper, published in the journal Cell on Friday, compares the animals' DNA to determine what makes a mammoth a mammoth.

asian elephant
A newborn Asian elephant calf plays with its mother La Belle and grandmother La petite at the Ramat Gan safari near Tel Aviv, Israel.AP Photo/Ariel Schalit

There are a few parts of the myoglobin DNA code that vary within each species, just like any DNA sequence in any species.

But on the whole, myoglobin in woolly mammoths and Asian elephants has the same DNA sequence, Dalén said.

"As far as we can see, no mammoth meatballs have been created. Rather, it's [Asian] elephant meatballs," he told Insider in an email.

Myoglobin isn't the main element of a meat's flavor

steak on a plate in its red brown juices with a spoon of the juice hovering over it
The juices that come out of a cooked steak are red because of myoglobin, not blood.Leonard Ortiz/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images

The flavor of a meat mainly comes from the aromas of the fat and the meatiness, or umami, of the muscle fibers. The mammoth meatball doesn't have either of those elements from woolly mammoth.

"Fat and caramelization of proteins is usually what I think about as affecting the flavor of meat," Gregg Rentfrow, a meat specialist and professor at the University of Kentucky Animal and Food Science Extension, told Insider.

Fat, dispersed throughout the muscle and built up in visible deposits, has different qualities and aromas depending on an animal's diet. That's what gives different meat different flavors — steak versus chicken, or pork versus lamb.

Ryall argues that lab-grown meat is different.

"We're not talking about a cut of meat from an animal, are we? We're talking about pure muscle cells, and the flavor from pure muscle cells doesn't come from the fat, it comes from the proteins," like myoglobin, he said.

Mammoth myoglobin doesn't necessarily bring mammoth flavor

Though he didn't taste it, Ryall said everyone could smell the meatball while it was cooking.

"The aroma was nothing like what you would expect for lamb," he said. "The best way that I can describe it, is that it was closer to something like crocodile," which is another type of meat Vow has grown in the lab.

Crocodile
A crocodile in Bangkok, Thailand.DEA / G.SIOEN / Getty Images

Myoglobin is known to have an iron-y taste, regardless of which animal it comes from. Because of that, according to Rentfrow, the quantity of myoglobin can affect a meat's flavor. Beef has a lot more myoglobin than chicken, which is why it's a darker meat with a more metallic aroma.

So the use of mammoth (or elephant) myoglobin doesn't necessarily bring a mammoth flavor to the sheep muscle tissue that Vow used. One could argue that the company's creation is actually a sheep meatball.

So why make a mammoth meatball that doesn't taste like mammoth?

"The whole point of doing something with mammoth was to do something so outrageous that it would break through into mainstream media," Ryall said.

Food systems produce 37% of the greenhouse-gas emissions that are warming the planet and driving catastrophic climate change. Startups like Vow argue that growing animal cells in giant steel vats, like a brewery, would use less land, water, and energy.

That could allow consumers to continue eating meat without the ecological and animal-rights consequences.

The first lab-grown meat products — or cultured meat, as the industry calls it — could be hitting US shelves following regulatory approval this year. Mammoth won't be one of them.

Real mammoth meat still exists, but it's in bad shape

Unlike the people behind Vow and Paleo, Dalén has tasted the flesh of a real mammoth. In 2012, he tried a small piece of frozen meat from the preserved carcass of a baby mammoth in Siberia.

baby mammoth mummified frozen carcass lies on a white table
The carcass of a baby mammoth lies in a museum in the Arctic city of Salekhard, in Russia.Sergei Cherkashin/Reuters

Of course that animal was frozen for thousands of years, so it probably had some freezer burn, to say the least.

"The mammoth meat tasted like what I would imagine putrified beef jerky, with no salt or spices, would taste like," Dalén said.

Suffice it to say, we're still waiting to learn what real mammoth meat tastes like.

Read the original article on Business Insider