This Startup Is 3D-Printing Vegan Faux Meat — And It’s Kosher

Close up of 3D printer recreating piece of meat Image by iStock

By Shira Feder November 26, 2018

The future of food is being printed out as you read this. Eating actual meat, like people have done for centuries, has now been rendered gauche. Eating meat, or simulations of meat, is the new wave. From the impossible existence of the Impossible Burgerto the now equally impossible existence of 3D-printed vegan meat, the future is now, and it’s being printed out for you by the Israeli company Jet Eat.

According to NoCamels, Jet Eat was founded by Eshchar Ben Shitrit, a former meat-eater committed to using his knowledge of 3D printing to create sustainable, vegan-friendly food. Jet Eat has five employees, funding from angel investors, is based out of Ness Ziona, Israel, and is currently using taste testers at Israeli University Technion to assure that taste is getting printed along with protein and color.

Jet Eat’s release is scheduled to come out by 2020, but will vegans actually eat it? Ted.com asked vegans, included almost-vegetarian Morton Bast, whether they’ll imbibe. “10,000 points to the first rabbi hip enough to come out and declare a stance on the theological implications of printed meat,” she said, adding, “It’s exhilarating and awesome to watch a concept as futuristic as printed meat come into contact with a concept as old as religious tradition.”

In this final frontier of artificial eats, Jet Eat has some competitors, and the race to create a table-ready, 3D printed meal has only just begun. Barcelona based company Nova Meat, fronted by researcher Giuseppe Scionti, is hard at work trying to achieve the very same impossible goal of 3D printing a vegan burger. A filing to the United States Department of Agriculture declares that “with reduction in price, it can reach the masses with religious restrictions on meat consumption (people restricted to Hindu, Kosher, Halal diets) and finally populations with limited access to safe meat production.”

Shira Feder is a writer. She’s at [email protected] and @shirafeder

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO