A lab in South Korea has created a special type of rice that researchers say could help countries suffering from famine – and even be used as space food! 

Its grains are coated with fish gelatine and contain lab-grown beef cells to make it meaty and packed with protein. It’s cheaper to make and more eco-friendly than regular beef, because growing cells in the lab means you don’t need to farm lots of animals.

The team at Yonsei University in Seoul says that, for every 100g of protein produced in the lab, their rice releases about 6.3kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which is eight times less than traditional beef production.

There are doubts among experts, though, over how keen people will be to try lab-grown food.

Bridget Benelam, of the British Nutrition Foundation, praised the study but isn’t recommending the rice just yet. She said: “Further work would be needed if this technology were to be used as an alternative protein source to traditional animal products.”