Chickening Out

Are you hungry? The world certainly is – and the hunt is on for sustainable, nutritious foodstuffs to feed its growing population. Here, food engineers explore a new way to produce hybrid food – mixing meat and plant matter to boost protein levels and also, in theory, taste. This is a proof of principle, though – using 3D bioprinting to pipe a mixture of mouse muscle cells and algae into the 'appealing' shape of a chicken drumstick. And while the sight of the green mixture glistening as it prints (sped up here) may not tickle the taste buds, the hybrid food can be baked or boiled, allowing nutritionists to know exactly what is going into a meal, down to individual cells and molecules. This is a bold step forward that food scientists will no doubt improve on, but a question remains – who will be the first to eat one?

Written by John Ankers

John Ankers

Writer

A former researcher in systems biology, John is now an online biology tutor and professional coach supporting the wellbeing of scientists and NHS professionals. He's writing, too, of course.

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• Video (original sped up 4x) from work by Sushila Maharjan and colleagues
• Division of Engineering in Medicine, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution – NonCommercial – NoDerivs (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Published in Nature Communications, July 2025