Whether or not we should continue to eat meat is an increasingly hot topic – its alleged impact on the climate and the ethical issues surrounding intensive farming have left many disillusioned with the carnivore's diet.

But scientists believe that they have a viable alternative that doesn’t involve sacrificing your steak for Quorn or lentils.

A Dutch team claim that their lab-grown burger made from bovine stem cells could be on sale within five years.

Appetising? The technology has already been proven on an individual scale. In 2013 scientists at Maastricht University, in the Netherlands cooked and ate the first lab-grown hamburger

They have even set up a company in a bid to make the burger taste better and cheaper to produce.

In 2013, the team cooked and ate a burger that cost £215,000 to produce.

The 142g 'cultured beef' patty, developed at Maastricht University, was lightly fried in a little butter and sunflower oil and took three months to grow in a laboratory, using cells from a living cow.

The burgers are created in a four-step process. First, stem cells — which have the power to turn into any other cell — are stripped from cow muscle, which is taken during a harmless biopsy.

The 142g 'cultured beef' patty was lightly fried in a little butter and sunflower oil and took three months to grow in a laboratory, using cells from a living cow (pictured at demonstration in 2013)

Next, the cells are incubated in a nutrient ‘broth’ until they multiply many times over, creating a sticky tissue.

This is then bulked up through the laboratory equivalent of exercise — it is anchored to Velcro and stretched.

Finally, 20,000 strips of the meat are minced and mixed with salt, breadcrumbs, egg powder and natural red colourants to form an edible patty.

The head of the new firm, Peter Verstrate, said in an interview with the BBC: ‘I feel extremely excited about the prospect of this product being on sale.

'I am confident that we will have it on the market in five years,' he said.

Sizzle: The meat had red beetroot juice and saffron added to provide an authentic beef colouring. Despite these ingredients, taster Ms Ruetzler said it could have done with some salt and pepper

He set out his plans to BBC News ahead of a symposium on developing the technology.

He went on to explain that the 'meat' would initially only be available as an exclusive product but would be on supermarket shelves once a demand and reasonable price had been established.

WHO IS SERGEY BRIN? It has just been revealed that Sergey Brin is one of the financial backers of the test-tube burger. Mr Brin is an American computer scientist and Internet entrepreneur who, with Larry Page, co-founded Google . Together with Page, he owns 16 per cent of the internet search giant . His personal wealth is estimated to be £13.2bn in 2012 . He and Page previously invested in a large offshore wind farm in 2010 and a self-driving car in a bid to reduce road accidents via Google's philanthropic arm. It is believed that Mr Brin invested £215,000 in the creation of the burger. Mr Brin has also invested in Space Adventures - the private space tourism company that is selling £65 million trips to the Moon . He has also previously worked with film director James Cameron to investigate mining asteroids and has an interest in solving the world’s energy and climate problems . Advertisement

The burger does still require considerable work before it can sold commercially, however.

Tasters at the 2013 event described the meat as tough.

‘I was expecting the texture to be more soft,’ said Austrian food researcher Hanni Rutzler, taking 27 chews before being able to swallow a mouthful. ‘It’s close to meat — it’s not that juicy.’

Professor Mark Post spent seven years trying to turn stem cells into meat, and was first successful with mouse burgers.

He then tried to grow pork — producing strips with the rubbery texture of squid or scallops — before settling on beef.

His technique, he says, can be used to recreate the flesh of most animals, including rare species such as tigers or pandas, although demand may be questionable.

The initial project was backed by Google co-founder Sergey brin.

At the time of the 2013 demonstration he said he was confident that man-made meat would do a great deal to help humanity.

In a video message played to attendees, he said: 'Sometimes when technology comes along, it has the capability to transform how we view our world.

'I like to look at technology opportunities. When technology seems like it is on the cusp of viability and if it succeeds there, it can be really transformative for the world.'

'There are basically three things that can happen going forward - one is that we can all become vegetarian. I don't think that's really likely.

'The second is we ignore the issues and that leads to continued environmental harm and the third option is we do something new.