Erik says: "Here's a spectacular idea: many kids don't seem to enjoy eating meat, so why not change the flavor so you can't taste the meat, give it an unappetizing color, and extrude it into spaghetti-like strands? The meat scientists who invented this stuff are hoping to bring it to market. Judging from the video the news page offers, which could give you nightmares for weeks, it's going to be an uphill battle."

"It tastes like meat and it can look like meat but we can actually change the composition of the product quite a lot so we can mask the meaty flavour," Mike North from AgResearch says.

And with busy families demanding more convenient yet healthy foods AgResearch believes it is on to something.

Kids love spaghetti but for many parents it's hard to get them to eat meat – so the meaty, protein saturated, pasta version could be an innovative way of providing youngsters with vital nutrients and iron.