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Take Out with Bob Weeks

Bob Weeks began his publishing career in the early 1970's and served in several different capacities with Bill Communications and Freed Crown Lee Publishing before becoming Publisher of Dairy Foods and Prepared Foods magazines at Gorman Publishing. In 1991 he set out on his own, establishing Weeks Publishing Company with the successful launch of Food Product Design Magazine which subsequently became and remains today the preeminent food development and R&D focused publication/information source. Bob continued as Publisher of Food Product Design as well as Culinology magazine after being acquired by Phoenix-based Virgo Publishing LLC. in 2005. His 23 years in food publishing have established Bob as one of the foremost thought leaders in the food industry.

Star Trek, Stem Cells and Pork

February 9, 2010 Comments

Posted in Blog, Topics, Biotech

Each month, our sister publication, Culinology, includes a department called Bites. It is comprised of tidbits about interesting developments throughout the food universe. Last week I got the March issue’s Bites from editor Doug Peckenpaugh to review.

As I went through the listings I was drawn back to the original Star Trek TV series and the ability of their onboard computers to duplicate any and all food products, be they for human or Klingon or Ferengi. By merely turning on the computer and asking for a particular foodstuff, it would magicallly materialize for consumption.

We enjoyed the fantasy.

What prompted my nostalgia for Star Trek was an item entitled, "Scientists turn stem cells into pork." The story was summarized as "Pork in a petrie dish—a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock, help alleviate world hunger, and save a lot of pigs their bacon."

The information that prompted the tidbit is rather too complicated to cover here, but if you are interested, you can access it by clicking here.

One more step toward making a Star Trek fantasy a reality?