Someone just finished preparing what is more than likely the most expensive hamburger patty ever made, and what's more, they didn't even do it in a kitchen.

The hamburger patty was engineered in a laboratory at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and it came at a considerable cost. When all was said and done, the pseudo-meat cost a whopping $325,000 to make. It's inventor Dr. Mark Post says that price was well worth it for what was accomplished.

"Let's make a proof of concept, and change the discussion from 'this is never going to work' to, 'well, we actually showed that it works, but now we need to get funding and work on it,'" Dr. Post said in an interview last fall in his office at Maastricht University.

The patty was made using roughly 20,000 strips of cultured meat tissue from a cow's neck. Tens of billions of cells were grown in the lab to make this artificially assembled meat patty a reality.

Of course, as it stands right now a $325,000 hamburger is a bit outside of most everyone's price range. Post admits that a lot of the technology used to make the burger patty will have to change and become both more efficient and cheaper, but he's also quick to point out that that was never his concern.

"That's not the point of the proof of concept. The point is, we already have sufficient technology to make a product that we could call meat or cultured beef, and we can eat it and we survive," noted Dr. Post. "I'm not by nature a very passionate guy," he added. "But I feel strongly that this could have a major impact on society in general. And that's a big motivator."

And just what could that "major impact on society" be? Well, if your Dr. Post that impact could literally change the way we perceive our food in the matter of just a couple of generations.

"In 25 years, real meat will come in a packet labelled, 'An animal has suffered in the production of this product' and it will carry a big eco tax." Post said, "I think in 50-60 years it may be forbidden to grow meat from livestock."