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Lab-Grown Steak
swight1701 writes "New Scientist has an article about several researches who are trying to perfect growing seafood, chicken and beef in the lab without the animal. NASA started the program by wanting to provide burgers for Mars astronauts, and researchers hope to look to McDonalds, et al as funding sources in the future. The biggest problems being nutrient delivery to thick meat and exercise for the sedentary slabs. Processed meats seem to be something that may be a reality soon, while your animal friendly filet mignon may take a little while."
Just as farm-raised meat has a different taste quality than game meat, I wonder what the flavor of lab meat would be?
--If you code for the exceptions, the rules fall into place
Huhhhuhhuh... laaaab grooownnn buuurrrgggerr... araarrrrraarah slurp slurp
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
This is just sick. I don't think I could even think about eating this. Anyone else feel the same way?
Who know what the long term effects of eating genetically engineered food are? It seems like more and more corporations are putting profit margins before people...
Is this food being compliant to be cosher?
Can it be lenten and be eaten in Christian fasting?
I want to be able to meet my meat. Why can't they just breed cows that desire to be eaten. Then we could all have a nice meal at The Restaraunt at the End of the Universe.
Sounds like there may be some contributions and/or benefits for the hacker community, here.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
If they could grow beef with taco seasoning already in it... Oh, the possibilities!
Doesn't anyone remember in high school chemistry, they said never *ever* eat anything from the lab? I kinda feel like that situation applies here.
--gaz
"I turn away with fright and horror from the lamentable evil of functions which do not have derivatives."
Now it'll be ok to tell your date you're a vegetarian while eating steak!
I wonder how I am going to get my steak bloody as hell if it's that superficial
Nowadays I don't like my meat hard-baken, what's it gonna be when we get Mr. Cow-Experiment on the plates?
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
I used to be an avid Sci-Fi reader, and I recall reading several stories that included synthesized meat. Is the one I'm thinking of that involved some guy killing people and eating them because he didn't like vat-grown meat a Heinlein book?
--sdem
would this type of meat be eaten by ethical vegetarians, ie. those that don't eat meat because animals need to be killed for it. I personaly eat meat myself but I think it would be great if we could reduce the suffering of animals by perfecting this process.
I'm vegan, but even if you aren't, you'll be hard pressed to find people that support the truly unethical treatment of cows for the production of veal.
My guess is that because of their problems with muscle stimulation and "bulk growth" that the resulting meat will be more like veal than traditional "steaks."
At any rate, you should still GO VEGAN or at least vegetarian. Even NASA can't argue (from the article):
"People are vegetarians and vegans on Earth and they do quite well," comments Thomas Dreschel, director of NASA's Fundamental Biology Outreach Programme. "It is more efficient to grow plants and feed on them. If astronauts really need essential amino acids, they can eat a pill."
Ground BEAF?
Tastes like "Chicken Little"!
Anyone else remember "The Space Merchants?"
Seriously, I wonder if my jewish friends will be able to partake of the grown meat. I mean, it does not have cloven hooves or chew cud when it was grown in a vat.
Any Rabbi's out there want to give this a shot?
For people staying on Mars, wouldn't it be much easier and cheaper to bring some frozen embryos and grow them there? If they get a few males and females born from the test tubes then they could breed them. It would also prevent the negative response from much of the public.
Developers: We can use your help.
... where Jeff Goldblum sends the steak through the transporter. He has Geena Davis take a taste of the "molecularly re-engineered" steak vs the "real" steak. She has an immediate negative reaction and her complaint is that is tastes like something that is trying to be a steak (not her exact words, but the gist of the whole scene). This is how I imagine this meat being.
:)
This is also similar to some of those vegetarian "meats" available. One hamburger product I tried reminded me a lot of that scene. It tasted more like a burger than any other veggie burger I tried, but was perhaps a bit too close without being perfect. The end result was that it was more "disturbing" to eat because though it sorta tasted like meat, it had a weird "there is something not right here" kind of taste to it.
Of course they'll realize (too late of course) that given the right combinations of other foods/chemicals that the meat will continue to grow while in the gut. This will at first be disturbing as burger gluttons everywhere start exploding, but then people will realize that you only have to eat one burger, and given a good protein shake, you can "replenish" it any time you want
IF nothing else it may force more peope to think about where their food comes from and how it is processed.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
How do they do that to real meat?
This is not the sig line you are looking for... -- Old Jedi Sig Line Trick
As I recall the Kzinti of Known Space (Larry Niven's books and many short stories by various authors) feed their troops on warships by growing cancers in large vats. Kzin need good, raw meat. Eventually they desire truly fresh meat of course...look out!
Any and all traces of hunger that I had are now completely gone thanks to this. And I have this sudden desire to kill all of the meat that I eat from now on, just so I can verify its' source...
"See, we plan ahead! That way, we never have to do anything now."
...might be to *use* the muscle power a slab of steak represents, to perform work.
But obviously this is an important step towards developing Matrix pods. Full steam ahead, and pass the soylent yellow!
What they are doing is just growing muscle tissue. Could this be applied to other types of tissue, skin for example?
Worst. Sig. Ever.
Quick, somebody go get the rabbi! This stuff CAN'T POSSIBLY be kosher! Well, maybe. But it's going to take an awful lot of pilpul, I mean, Talmudic discussion, to determine, what kind of food, exactly, this stuff is in terms of the usual criteria. I mean, does it have a cloven hoof? It's got NO HOOF AT ALL! Does it chew it's cud? NO! That can't be good, bubbehelle, nu? Just give me an old-fashioned steer and let me slit his throat, OK, you meshuggenah shagitz scientists!
What if genetic cow clones cook you! Pardon my English, It's like I've said before: Not All Things Are Like I Expected, Processing Our RNA To Meat Are Nasty. How Other Taste Genetic RNA I'm Truthfully Shocked. I just need to come up with a catchy acronym now. I can see it now: A. Grow steak in the laboratory, B. make sure it's tasty???? C. _IF_ people buy it, someone will handily profit!
Not very politically correct, so I'm sure the liberals will mod me down. Because of the scares, the Genetically Modified Food Industiry is dying.
if it's grown from a cell culture?
A sick question, but it's the kind of thing we'll need to think about, because somebody will want to do that and we should begin debating whether we'll allow it.
"One researcher recalls a student, a vegan, who asked if she could just biopsy herself, grow up a steak and eat it."
gross. sorta like cutting off your leg and knawing on it.
Sedentary meat delivered to be eaten by sedentary Americans.
If your bitterest enemies are people who hack the heads off civilians, then I would say you're doing something right.
Well, I eat quarn, make from mushrooms, no animals in sight.
Is there really an ethical market for cow free beef?
(BTW I'm not a veg or a vegan, my family has a long history of heart desease, steak isn't in my diet)
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I dunno why I thought of that...
Lab...geeks...beef...
Oh well, I've got karma to burn.
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
Forget Flavor, I'm sure there will be a barrage of spices to perk up that meal.
What i can't wait for is the Good Eats episode with fake meat. Alton will have a handful explaining how my hamburger get's it's daily exercise.
http://use.perl.org
if the condiments taste like the steak probably will, they'll need an extra fuel tank of ketchup.
Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
The least you could do was cite your source.
You have to realize when technology has made your business model obsolete. I don't understand these companies that think past profits mandate their future existance.
Consumers have rights too you know.
NASA started the program by wanting to provide burgers for Mars astronauts
This is a perfect example of what's wrong with NASA. They had two options:
1. Go to the store and pick up some ready-made beef patties at $2.50/lb.
2. At a cost of $97 bazillion in taxpayer money, invent cowless beef in a laboratory.
And they went with option 2. Is there any wonder they're running short on cash and haven't done anything useful in a decade and a half?
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
Hold on there a second... I have a suggestion. I think instead NASA should provide Mars astronaughts with 1) a way to get to Mars and 2) a way to get back and maybe 3) some things to do while they are there.
After NASA does that, then they can work on the fake burger thing... ;)
"To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit." -Stephen Hawking
However, questions do abound:
Anonymous Coward: (n.) 1. nerd at school or library. 2. karmawhore in training. 3. embarrased prep.
"Dear God, it's full of meat!"
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
One of the methods discussed uses collagen as a culture for growing the tissue. That's a problem for ethical vegetarians since collagen is derived from dead animal flesh.
Tastes like chicken indeed.
Tastes Like Chicken
You suppose that vegetarians/vegans will have a problem with eating this, since it doesn't seem that it was ever 'alive'?
talk about your soylent greens.
i'll need a dna parentage workup on every hamburger i meet (sic):
40% cargill wannabeef
30% amgen chickenoid prozac delivery fewd
20% roche fishy fish
10% raelian elohim eat the flesh of thy prophet
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
However, there have got to be problems with this.
First, the cows would get jealous. I mean, how would you feel if the only thing in the world you did right was taken away from you? I'd feel pretty pissed.
Second, I kind of enjoy the separation between Meat Eaters and the Vegetarians. If they stop not eating meat, eating meat in the presence of a vegetarian loses a lot of meaning.
Third, and this is a big if, if we stop eating the cows, they will become the ultra race. There are so many of these cows, we are eating them to keep them in check, but just think, if we stop eating them they will multiply so fast, and eventually they will rise above us and kill us all, start eating us, create a lab form of us, that overtakes the cows, we eat the cows, and it's a very vicious cycle that I think is unavoidable.
Plus beef is such a good deal. Those "gardenburgers" are so damn expensive! Whenever you have a party you have to get a damn pack of those, these bio-meats will be more expensive and the vegetarians will want those, because they want to eat meat, they just don't want to kill a cow who would be happier dead.
I hope this isn't the beginning of the end of dirt-cheap hamburgers.
Nope, Ground BASF.
You know, because they don't make the things we eat, they make the things we eat better!
"They do not preach that their god will rouse them, a little before the Nuts work loose." Kipling, 'The Sons of Martha'
I seem to remember a short science fiction story where congress debated if new product of this type should be allowed on the market. The problem was that the new product was not beef but long pig (human).
Your comment brings to mind the only cause that I currently support, i.e., the "Adopt a Vegitarian" movement.
Thanks to you I will have chicken wings, raw clams and a burger for lunch. Topped off with a good long workout before the Peach Bowl kickoff. Will save the veal for tomorrow.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
So Slig anyone?
Just ask your friendly Bene Tleilax dealer for details
Hmm..I know people who say "I don't eat anything that had a face."
Now they'll have to say "I don't eat anything that has face-building information in its genes."
Operator, give me the number for 911!
Ok, for example, so, like, I'm this totally comitted ethical person that doesn't feel it's right to exploit other living beings for sustanence. In a couple more years, I can just give the lab a DNA sample, and then they can grow all the Thud457 that I can eat! (I wonder if that would be a nutrionally complete diet?!!)
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
This showed up often enough w/ H. Beam Piper as "carniculture" for food production. Bujold's future history also covers this.
-soup (GNUrd, Speaker to Machines) "Laugh at yourself- Why should everyone else have all the fun?" -Romanchek's 6th Ru
Not being a big meat eater (I try for diverse protein and fat sources), I still see a huge advantage here - growing meat in a sterile environment.
Worries about the effects of eating BSE-tainted meat, salmonella, trichinosis, ad nauseum. Lab-grown/machine grown meat could certainly provide a safer source of meat than current methods.
"The Sage treasures Unity and measures all things by it" - Lao Tzu
I'm sure glad all things scientific were first screened by the public to make sure there was no outcry.
Right on!
http://use.perl.org
I imagine that PETA will be thrilled,.. but what about vegetarians? Many vegetarians become vegetarian because of their ethics toward the treatment and killing of animals. Many vegetarians stay vegetarian because of the health benefits of having a meatless diet. I'd imagine that the meat that is generated with this new process would be incredibly lean and healthy. So. Would any vegetarians out there consider eating this type of meat? Since this meat is grown in a lab.. could it technically be considered a meat, or would it be a vegetable?
And to expand on this subject a little.. if scienctist in the future were able to "grow" leather, furs, ivory, et al, would vegans then be liberated to wear such articles?
I'm from the camp that says veggie burgers don't have to taste like meat to be good... and I eat meat so if I want meat I eat it. However I REALLY dig quorn... infact now that you mentioned it, I'll buy some today. but Quorn isn't precisely made from "mushrooms"- rather I think the box uses some language to say it is made from "a protein fungus." Ummmm! Pass the salt! ;)
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
This is so cool. So that fish don't die from pollutants we can create special breeds of fish that can survive the shit that we throw down into waterways. Then we fund research to create genes that could help us digest such fish. And pesticide companies can grow. Win Win.
Aha! I knew it was true.
I realize that most /.ers can't even remember what they had for dinner last night but I think we've been through this one before. I know it must have been hard for the editors to find since it had such a dramatically different title..."Lab-Grown Meat. Chunks...."
Anyway, while this is interesting from a tech POV it seems like a dramatic waste of resources for its intended target. Wouldn't growing and processing soy and soy-based products be much less resource intensive?
BFL
(former vegetarian...mmmmm...steak)
There's one thing computing teaches you, and that's that there's no point to remembering everything.
--Doug Copland
Is anyone else having Cheers flashbacks of Norm talking about the "Baff" and "Loobster" served at his favorite eaterty?
(shudder)
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
New Dawn Biotech solved this problem. They have meat that grows on trees, and they are about to take it to market. This is the same company that created Chick'N, and is working on F'sH.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Mmmmmmmm .... labby ....
My first reaction is: why? Why not just be a vegetarian? Hell, millions of Indians are, and they seem to be doing okay, building supercomputers and hand-held computing devices like gangbusters. We need less saturated fat, not an uberexpensive supply of it.
My second reaction is that astronauts should be eating no meat, anyway. Those of you who remember how the diaper smell went from interestingly aromatic to puke-inducing as soon as the baby started to eat meat will want your space station comrades to stick with the rice and lentils and a side of naan.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
...but it has to be said:
"If we're not supposed to eat animals, how come they're made out of meat?"
-Steven Wright
Well, hey, I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.
you neglected to add to the price of $97 bazillion in costs of taxpayer money for sending the meat you bought from the supermarket to mars.
so really, option 2 saves nasa $2.5 a pound.
perhaps a perfect example of what is wrong with your logic?
I don't eat anything that never had a mother. Take that PETA :b
More junk food! Sad thing is it's inevitable. Little Soylent Green slabs of stuff grown in factories from reprocessed organic waste repurposed from dead pets, cow brains, post-corporal digestive residude, failed clones, and... well, why the heck not, dead bodies.
Everyfood we've invented in the last 2,000 years is junk food: white starch, white sugar, white fat, white beer. White meat is the obvious next step.
'Xcuse me but I'm going to stick to my diet of edible roots and leaves, nuts, whole grains, seafood, goat, milk, and cheese. Luckily alcohol was invented more than 5,000 years ago, so it makes it onto my "good" list.
Cheers! And happy Hogmanay to all of you.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I have to wonder, why would NASA spend $ to research developing lab-grown meat when you could just turn veggie for a long-duration mission? Is it a weight/power/space issue? (Space as in the amount of space it would take in the ship to grow hydroponics?)
Now, I'm a true-blooded American Carnivore (TM) and eat just about anything you put in front of me. A vegan diet (within reason) is plenty sufficient and I'd certainly adopt one as a requirement to go on a long-term mission.
OTOH, I certainly can support any developments that would put a dent in the factory farms.
The environmental impact of meat, even if mitigated by efficient production techniques (i.e., not "on the hoof"), is greater than that of a vegetarian foodstuffs.
As for the protein argument, forget it. If you give even the slightest thought to a balanced vegetarian diet, it's trivial to get enough protein. (See this.)
Besides lab-grown mean just sounds gross. "He suggests using a bioreactor with a branching network of hundreds of tiny edible tubes that act like artificial capillaries to convey nutrients to the growing meat."...bleah!
--
bachiatari na torisetsu o yome!
Ahh, but you can. In fact, I feel that there are two immediate counterpoints to this notion.
The first is that not all land is plantable. Very large parts of of Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico are unsuited to crop growing either because they're too arid, or too rocky, or too low in other nutrients. You may notice that these areas have a reputation for cattle ranching.
Second, cattle (and other animals) can be a natural part of the crop cycle on land that is arable. Its well known that you ought to leave your fields fallow every few years, even better is to graze some sort of fertilizer-producing animal on it. You'll feed some of your grain to these animals as well, but you're paid back both in meat and fertilizer for this use.
Now, to be fair, I'll admit that there are other parts of our meat producing system that cause problems. Feedlots are probably the best example. The amount of manure created by their dense populations pollutes the groundwater and causes other problems before it can be removed for use as a fertilizer. Some slaughterhouses are inhumane (and some are not).
I think if you're going to argue for something in terms of efficiency and global impact, organic farming makes the most sense.
Perhaps the lab approach will pollute less than the feedlots, and provide a cheaper alternative. That's going to be my hope, at least.
-Zipwow
I don't know which is more depressing, that 2/3 didn't care enough to vote, or that 1/2 of those that did are crazy.
Here's the original appearance of this article
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/monahan1.html
Humans are omnivores. That is the only argument that has any relevence to this discussion. I choose not to eat veal or a lot of red meat; I do this from choice, as I accept that other people make their own choices, but choosing to rip people down and try to gross them out by discussing the butchering process or suggesting that humans should eat other humans is reprehensible. It is with an obvious superior and elitist attitude that many of these statements have been made, and that proves nothing; nor does it convince "the other side" to convert. Why, then, does PETA not seek the extermination of species that eat other animal species? The answer is simple: they would quickly (assuming the necessary tools existed) decimate life on earth. Why is it different with humankind? Because in many people's eyes humankind is an unnatural aberration; one which only destroys nature. The problem is not eating meat, which is natural and healthy in the correct proportions, it is human overpopulation. Control that, and there is no longer a question of the "efficiency" of eating meat. Besides which, speaking of pure efficiency, how necessary is a home computer? The resources required to construct one are immense, especially in comparison to what it gets used for (mostly). Is Quake necessary? No, but it's fun. People eat meat because they enjoy it, just like people use their computer hardware to read /. because they enjoy it. It is technically inefficient to read /. and I will continue to do it, sometimes even while eating a turkey sandwich or a burger. And I will enjoy the inefficiency, and think about the butchering process as often as I think about mining, smelting, molding plastics, marketing (which is arguably vastly more evil than butchering), etc., etc.
Are you suggesting there's enough farmable landmass to support six billion people eating cow today? Note that according to this article the technology to grow large slabs of edible muscle ala "steak" doesn't yet exist. --M
zombie nation my friend ;)
Come play free flash games on Kongregate!
why not a pile of yeast and a conveyor belt to your mouths ?
very happy I'm living elsewhere...
Alternative interpretation: Once the original (kosher slaughtered) seed meat is provided, no other animals are harmed. The subsequent meat, since it is not derived from harming an animal, might be categorized in the same way as milk is.
If viable, this latter interpretation would in theory allow for kosher cheeseburgers as long as the meat was grown not raised (you wouldn't be mixing).
Except, you're not allowed to do something that appears to violate the law. Unless it was instantly obvious to a passerby that the new type of cheeseburger was not made with real meat, it would not be legal. Or in theory if a person was in a restaurant marked as kosher that ONLY served grown meat cheeseburgers, so no doubt would be placed on the eaters actions.
For those too young to know, SPAM stand for Scientifically Produced Animal Matter. And this is a perfect example of it.
Does this mean vegetarians no longer have an excuse to not eat meat?
Google link for VEGF
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
We are the Steak Robots
We are here to protect you
We are here to protect you from The Terrible Secret Of Steak
By the way, I don't have any first-hand gustatory experience with any of the above.
I think this technology would be good for Taco Bell, Pancho's, any school cafeteria, airlines, and any Mexican food buffet where the "meat" is "meat". Grown meat would be better than whatever is they're serving.
"This isn't a study in computer science, its a study in human behavior"
come on guys, we could do with a little fairness.
then again, this discussion isn't one that is likely to get past the many people who post here who appear to think that arrogance makes them more right.
i've noticed that compassion and arrogance generally don't mix very often.
The end of veal? No way! I likes my veal to come from real baby cows. I wont take no test-tube veal substitute! I say, let's exploit those dairy bull calves! They don't produce no milk, and we don't need all those guys growin' up and sexin' all the lady cows. Not as long as I have by electric stun-gun and trusty cattle throat-slitting knife will I give up veal. You'll have to pry it from my cold dead fork, covered in velvety mozzarella and rich tomato sauce!
Would it be cannibalism if we tried this on humans? Maybe humans taste really good and we just never knew it because killing is wrong and it just feels strange to eat what used to be someone's arm. Is there a "sick bastard" mod?
char *mySig;
So these people get their protein from earthworms?
"animal friendly filet mignon," the post says. That could not be more off-the-mark.
Consider this:
If you produce "animal friendly" meat without using animals, you no longer have the need to kill the animal. While you could consider that "friendly" to the animal facing the shotgun slug between the eyes, to the species of animal as a whole, it's quite unfriendly.
If you can raise the meat instead of the animal, you don't have the expensive of raising the animal, feeding the animal, keeping the animal healthy, providing shelter for the animal, and so on. In short: You don't need the animal.
But, see, the animals are domesticated, and have been for thousands of years. They depend on us for everything. If we don't provide for them, they will die off.
Perhaps they could make the switch from domesticated to wild/feral again over the course of a generate, but, at least in most developed countries, there wouldn't be the room to have these big critters roaming free. Shortage of proper habitat would doom them.
Folks, I hate to break this to you, but if we didn't eat cows and chickens and pigs (oh my!) -- they'd all be extinct or on the verge of extinction right now. And that's pretty gosh-darned animal-unfriendly, don't ya think?
Please note: I'm not an environmentalist or animal rights advocate. Not at all. I'm just trying to paint the larger picture that most animal rights folks would not think about. For me, personally, if I could buy a Chia Steak at the local WalMart, and eat steak every night so long as I kept the thing watered, well, shit, sign me up!
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
You are forgetting about other, non-killing usage
of animals: they can be milked
(producing good cheese!), used as pets, used for
riding and moving stuff.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
"A NASA-funded team..." These are the same idiots who will complain that their budget is shrinking.
Advice: on VPS providers
A beowulf cluster of sedentary slabs
going to the gym!
Think vegetarian.
It takes over 30 times less resources (money, enregy, water etc) to do 1 kg of wheat, corn, rice, soya or similar than it takes to produce 1 kg of meaat.
Humans "need" meat? Sure. Most Indians aren't humans then? And i am not alive neither, due to being a veg all my life... Switch to vegetarism and feel more energical that after earing lab grown meat substitutes!
I can see it now : get rid of all those gassey cows, and the econazis can stop trying to make us feel guilty for wanting our wives to drive safe SUVs!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
If I'm not mistaken, there is still no artificailly created substitute for sugar that tastes exactly like sugar. Hell, even stuff refined from other natural products, like high fructose corn syrup, doesn't taste exactly like sugar. So how in the hell can they hope to make something as complex as an artificial beef roast or pork loin? I certainly don't want the fake-steak equivelant of a diet coke aftertaste.
in Soviet Russia the meat is artificial you...
"It's LAAAABalicious!"
"Have a slab o' the lab!"
Any others?
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Growing meat like this could potentially save a lot of water, energy, space and lives. I doubt it would be difficult to modify to modify the meat to make it more nutritious. The lack of fat might be a big issue as much of the taste of meat comes from the fat in it.
This could also mean disease free meat. One day people might be able to order a steak uber-rare and not worry about vomiting, death, or even worse... explosive diarrhea.
I myself am a vegetarian due to my having a conscience and a brain that just won't forget those videos I saw when I was younger. Well, that and I feel that us humans aren't really all that great of a species.... I mean, what species is stupid enough to pass on the genes we hate. We make glasses, fix deformities, cure baldness, c-section babies... while that's great for the individuals, and I'm not knocking any of them (I myself am not a very geneticly desirable specimen.) It passes on the genes that make those techniques required and thereby making the species weaker as a whole... Gah, getting way off topic again.
-Derick
But I'm waiting for our obstructionist friends like PETA to start moaning about it.
It'll take them a while though. First, they'll have to find some mealy-mouthed excuse to get upset about it and that'll take a while since it seems to be a win/win situation all around.
Once they get THAT going then they'll have to work themselves up into a state of self-righteous fury to convince themselves they are doing the Right Thing and therefore It's Ok To Do Something Nasty. The SS did this too. So did Pol Pot.
Finally, they'll have to slather a lot of bullshit over the whole thing to hide their true agenda, which is to destroy Western Civilization.
At least they put nude girls into cages. Anyone who does that can't be ALL bad....
It's Christmas everyday with BitTorrent.
I'm glad to see that science has found a way to end the wholesale exploitation and cruel treatment of plants. Of course, this simply moves our cruel need to eat something to animals or at least animal tissue. Perhaps the time has come for man to stop eating all togather so that no other species, plant, animal or fungi will face the cruel and futile life of an agricultural product!
$G
-- $G
If the seed meat is derived from a properly kosher slaughtered cow, then it shouldn't count as "flesh stripped from a living animal". Unless they counted the nutrient pool meat as a living animal, which would seem to be a difficult position to support.
Back it up. Show me how a kosher diet is irrelevant today. Detail a strategy for feeding the world's population with cows.
I am only hateful toward people who make sweeping, ignorant claims about religions they don't understand. I have no more respect for unfounded attacks on religion than on science.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Though perhaps they could use it as some sort of power source?
I'm pretty sure you can't eat the flesh of another Christian. I'm not sure about atheists...
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
This is great news for 3/4 of the United States population (and slightly lower fraction of the European population), who are genetically ill-adapted to post-neolithic-revolution dietary patterns high in starch. Starch (the cheapest source of calories) is at dangerously high levels in their diet ("The Zone", by Barry Sears, p. 31). For males this can suppress testosterone levels as well as having a variety of other side effects. For those "Paleolithic" males this author's advice is "Eat less starch and more protein until you feel better." Some minimum level of moderate exercise (at least 20 minutes walking at a moderately fast pace at least every other or third day) is also crucial.
Seastead this.
SUVs are safer in (multiple-vehicle) collisions, but not in braking or handling... and their single-vehicle accidents are deadlier than automobiles, IIRC.
This is a common misconception...
I heard the author of High and Mighty, Keith Bradsher, interviewed by Michael Medved. I had originally thought he simply set out to demonize SUVs by any method possible, so I started listening skeptically - but I was convinced of his argument by the end of his interview (though Medved wasn't). He didn't come across as a boo-hoo uses-too-much-gas-so-it's-hurting-mudder-erf kind of guy - he made his points rather well, without the appeals to emotion I [almost] expected.
His main point was that he wanted people to be fully aware of the risks involved with SUVs... not to eliminate SUVs altogether. He gave explicit license to people that need them for off-roading, or carrying large loads.
He was more of an advocate for defensive-driving safety - he owned a "maneuverable" Audi with excellent braking and handling, and that was his general approach to car safety.
Overall... he raised some points that I don't usually hear considered when people want to buy an SUV.
0x0D 0x0A
I have read that more animals are killed per calorie during modern farming for grains than from eating cows. A large number of cute and fuzzy bunnies, field mice, etc are killed by farming practices in somewhat savage ways.
The only way to bust a doper--is when you yourself become a smoker!
"One researcher recalls a student, a vegan, who asked if she could just biopsy herself, grow up a steak and eat it. If you want to eat truly victimless meat, perhaps it is time to put yourself on the menu"
and
Pansy ass styro wrapped blood sucking pieces of SHIT
Man, I love militant hypocrisy.
There is a reason for everything. Sometimes that reason just sucks.
Well, whatever it is, it HAS to be preferable to whatever is in a MacDonald's "burger". I don't think I want to know what parts of the cow are in there. Lips and assholes? Oh, wait, that's hotdogs.
.sig abducted by Raelians
it's not the argument anyway.
Vegetarian / Vegan is irrational. It denies the reality that we, as humans, have evolved as meat eaters. There is no way to argue against that and it's stupid to even try.
The consumption of meat has given us big brains. With those big brains we have been able to find ways to survive which reduce the need to torture and kill other animals.
Any other route for life celebrates barbarism.
We can, and will, break free of the killing and live in the company of, not as the enemies of, our fellow creatures.
If you disagree then you are in the company of the Rawandan butchers or Pol Pot where the life of others is valueless and can be traded for power.
I've been vegan for 12 years. Many, many people have attacked me verbally [and physically] and yet not one convincing argument as to why I should pull the trigger has been suggested. Feel free to try and be the first.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I thought Spam was processed meat?
...your first Mars mission has been brought to you by McDonalds...Coke, and the makers of Coke products...Tang, "It's Tangtastic!"...and by Microsoft, "Where do you *really* want to go today?"
Why doesn't NASA just send them processed meat in a can. Heck, we just got a ham from one of our vendors this last Christmas...it's good till 2006!
Of course, maybe they should think about sending man there first instead of wasting funding on what they'll eat there.
From what I understand there's no plan to go there in the very near future.
"Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely."
My knee-jerk reaction is to say "ewwww! I would never eat that!" Then I started to think it through.
We USians have not had to deal with outbreaks of BSE/CJD yet. Sooner or later it will probably happen. When it does, the dynamics of food consumption will change.
In my area, you can buy prime cuts of beef for approximately US$10/lb (that's $22/kg for our non-USian friends.) The market fluctuates considerably, based on seasons, market decisions, and store policies. The price is held fairly low because there is an excess of product.
But all the meat I buy comes from three or four sources, all mass commercial herds and corporate processors. Say half that source becomes unavailable, either because it has to be quarantined, or because it is actually infected and must be destroyed.
All of a sudden, there's no longer an excess of product. Beef becomes a commodity, and prices soar. Instead of $10/lb, it's $100/lb, if you can get it.
And imagine the hysteria and suspicion. We Americans are pretty good at that, especially after being whipped into a frenzy by the talking heads on the six o'clock news.
If a clean, lab-grown alternative product that seems vaguely the same is available, it will fly off the grocery store shelves.
It's time for a tasty meal of roast slig meat.
I've been a big believer of the Chicken Brick concept... You go into the market and pick up a brick of artificial chicken meat prepackaged in a plastic container. (Think Tofu boxes.)
I don't think it's gross. Actually, since it won't be genetically engineered, but rather comes from real chicken, the meat should be fairly safe as long as the growth-fluid supply is clean and disease free. If it can be done in a sterile production line, hell, it'll make for safe chicken.
And, with chicken being in standard sized bricks, it'll be easier to transport from the manufacturing floor to the market shelf...
Restaurant: what do you want sir?
Me: Myself, medium rare please
There's a whole "synthetic meat" industry already, based on mostly on soybeans. The stuff is awful (the main market is prisons), but available.
You are forgetting that we were the ones who made these animals what they are today. We are also the ones who keep their population up. I think it's better to not be born than to be born, be separated fom your mother right after birth, be plugged with hormones that make you too big for your legs, live a life of pain, then be killed (in many cases extremely painfully.)
In fact I think the merciful thing to do would be to stop eating meat and kill all of the domesticated animals in a painless manner.
-Derick
Perhaps down the road, we could use this technology to supply all meat for human being on Earth.
It would allow us to grow more grain for people, perhaps free up land that was used for cattle grains, feedlots or ranges.
Perhaps it would also help curtail bovine methane emissions.
What they are doing is just growing muscle tissue. Could this be applied to other types of tissue, skin for example?
Yeah. They've been experimenting with growning human skin in labs for burn victims for a while now. Works fairly well. Also, they've succeeded in the first lab grown organ, a bladder.
If you don't understand any of my sayings, come to me in private and I shall take you in my German mouth.
I've read the article, but didn't pick up any information about what is 'fed' to the growing meat. Is it merely other animal products?
If you're a real vegetarian you'd be applauding these efforts. In the future we wouldn't need to kill animals for meat. They can roam free across the open plains and starve to death like other wild animals do.
But another requirement for kosher meat is that no more than three days (72 hours?) pass from the time the animal is slaughtered till the meat is eaten. So if you consider your definition based on time from when your "seed animal" is slaughtered, you still wind up with non-kosher meat because too much time has passed.
Just a bit of trivia I remember from a restaurant purchasing class in a prior life.
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
I wonder if artificial meat will be just as heart-stoppingly unhealthy at the real stuff.
Sorry pal but Cows and Pigs aren't domesticated, neither are Fish.
I grew up in ranch country I know what I'm talking about. You can't domesticate something as dumb as a Cow, all the do is walk around and eat grass, literally. Animals don't need shelter, they don't need us.
That was a funny post tho.
"When I grow up, I"m going to Bovine University!!"
Join the TWIT army now!
This is either really freaking cool or really freaking disturbing. I haven't decided which yet.
-Zak
Actually, this is to satisfy people like YOU who don't want to kill animals and feel that eating bloody flesh is somehow wrong because you're killing an animal. Face it, you don't think eating bloody flesh is gross because it's meat. You think it's wrong because you kill an animal to make it.
All you're doing right now is proving my opinion that most vegetarians choose their diet because they feel vegetarianism makes them superior and more classy people.
Lab-grown steak is a good thing. Period. No more slaughterhouses, no more massive feedlots, no more nutrient runoff, no more E. coli in the meat, no more need to graze cattle on large tracts of land, no more hunting of predators that prey on herds, etc, etc, etc. Oh, and you don't need to kill anything.
This isn't becoming "detached" from our food, this is altering the source of our food so we don't need to become detached. If you want "back to nature" then go out and live in the savannahs of Africa and live as a hunter gatherer, because by your definition farming and animal domestication are all "becoming detached" from our food.
And I HAVE killed my own meat. Doesn't phase me. Not everyone has the same aversion to sitting on the top of the food chain that you have.
If not all sentients are human, couldn't it be possible that not all humans are sentient either?
I'd assume that artificial meat would allay some of the concerns of many vegetarians who are such because of humanitarian reasons. Personally, I like meat. A lot. Considering we've basically created animals soley for the purpose of being cattle, it's hard to be that concerned.
It's been a long time.
That's a very interesting idea I never thought of. It leads me to another:
If you decided you wanted to transition to a more animal-friendly society, you'd have to have some horrendous "readjustment" period where we killed off all the old animals (or reduced them to their minimum useful numbers) and we'd then just maintain that smaller population.
In other words, killing many animals upfront to save hypothetical animals down the road.
That's an interesting choice to make!
First of all, this isn't genetic engineering. This is simply the growing of muscle tissue in a lab.
Also, it might be amusing if cows become an exotic species that is only seen in zoos. Even if they don't live on in zoos they'll live on in India.
Oh that's wonderful, it picked up an old subject line.
Wait a minute...!
SOYLENT GREEN IS MADE OF AKIRA!!!
...in a nightmarish, Frankenstein kinda way.
Think I'll stick to my McDonald's cheeseburgers.
-- anthony
My first reaction is: why? Why not just be a vegetarian?
Becuase you'll miss out on pork chops, prime rib, butter, clarified butter, foie gras, duck, cream, bacon, proscuitto, and all sorts of other things that are delicious.
Hell, millions of Indians are, and they seem to be doing okay, building supercomputers and hand-held computing devices like gangbusters.
They're also missing out on a good deal of cuisine. "They seem to be doing okay" could hardly be more nebulous.
We need less saturated fat, not an uberexpensive supply of it.
Saturated fat isn't as bad as people make it out to be. Furthermore, carbohydrates (permitted in the allegedly-healthy vegetarian lifestyle) are much worse than people make them out to be.
My second reaction is that astronauts should be eating no meat, anyway.
Of course you have that reaction! You probably believe that everyone should be vegetarians, much like Christians believe that everyone should be Christians. A friend on mine attended a vegetarian rally, and he overheard a vegetarian say in his malice-laden voice, "Things would be better if all the meat-eaters just died!"
Those of you who remember how the diaper smell went from interestingly aromatic to puke-inducing as soon as the baby started to eat meat will want your space station comrades to stick with the rice and lentils and a side of naan.
I've never known any feces from any baby that smelled "interestingly aromatic," though I have gotten used to the smell of my 2-year-old's poop. Vegetarians, like Christians, often distort or invent facts (such as, "rabbits eat a lot of carrots") to support their philisophical beliefs. I'm reminded of the phrase, "You use facts like a drunk uses a lamp post: for support, not for illumination."
I really like Southern Indian cooking, though. Food doesn't have to have meat to be yummy.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
... Of course any topic mentioning autocannibalism is going to get a PLIF link..
t p://www.plif.com/archive/wc025.gif
Here's a few others you can cut & paste:
http://www.plif.com/archive/wc027.gif
ht
What sick twisted beauty comes from the great white north..
Well, I'm pretty sure anything that comes out of a meat-lab would taste better than the crap I got at Arby's last time I ate there. :P
:)
Unless, of course, they've been making lab-grown meats the whole time, and that's why Arby's is so cheap.
Even though I know this steak is not real, the matrix tells my brain that it is juicy and good.
;)
Or something like that
Or, you'd be able to grow for two days and eat it on the third.
That said, after being vegetarian for a while, I'm a lot pickier about whatever meat I do eat, mostly fish and poultry. I tried going back to some of the thing I liked before (like sausage), but I find it rather gross in retrospect.
That said, most of my objection to meat is that it is an unsustainable practice. Unfortunately, "organic" meat is even worse this way. I have been a supporter of lab-grown meat alternatives for a long time, for this reason.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
But like much other space research, what happens up there could one day become commonplace down here too - just look what happened to Velcro.
Actually, Velcro was patented in 1952 by two Swiss men, George de Mestral and his weaver friend. Nothing to do with the space program. Geez. Just because MIB says Velcro comes from outer space doesn't mean it really DOES. :)
Any sufficiently simple magic can be passed off as mere advanced technology.
If not, there might still be another way. One researcher recalls a student, a vegan, who asked if she could just biopsy herself, grow up a steak and eat it. If you want to eat truly victimless meat, perhaps it is time to put yourself on the menu.
why are these people allowed to breed. maybe thats why harry harrison wrote soilent green. if youve noticed carnivors tend to only eat herbivores. so i guess we should only make soilent green out of vegans. ha i knew there was a use for those people.
I understand your aversion to vegetarian food; I grew up vegetarian and on the rare occasions that I taste meat, I can't stand it. Environmental conditioning and whatnot.
The interesting thing is that I just recently learned from personal experience that it's very possible to change your preferences. For the last four months I've been working in a hospital in Belize. I somehow assumed that being so close to Mexico Belize would have some wonderful mexican/spanish food. I was deeply dissapointed, when I first got there, I would describe Belize's culinary heratige as Crap. For the last four months I have been fantisizeing about the foods I would eat when I came home for Christmas. When I actually got home a few weeks ago and went out to eat the things I'd been craving all along, I was deeply dissapointed. The things I had loved so much before are nearly impallateible now. I find myself longing for the simple diet of rice, beans, and vegetables I was eating in Belize.
The moral is that if you really do feel bad about causing animal suffering by eating meat, you can likely learn to enjoy a vegetarian diet. Changing my tastes took around 3 months in my case, though I'd imagine it varies from person to person.
Perchance though if this meat growing works it will become a moot point, and I can learn to enjoy steak.
Mod my comments down. It'll be fun.
...no more need to graze cattle on large tracts of land...
It makes me wonder, if people stop eating meat, what will happen to all those cattle? Should we just set them all free? Keep them as pets? Set up massive zoos for them?
Really now, I think if the vegans have their way the cattle population will be decimated to the point of near extinction. How cruel.
I have a few very good friends who are or were dairy farmers and/or veal farmers. I've been on their farms, I've WORKED on their farms. Thank you for being insulting, but I *do* think I have a little better frame of reference than you assumed.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
I wouldn't be surprised if some crazy PETA fool used this quote once.
Interesting: You make up a quote, and then go so far as to call a PETA member a "fool" for believing a quote that you just made up. Fascinating. Do you have imaginary conflicts with everyone that you know?
In any case PETA is a very large group. Are their kooks in it? Absolutely! Are there people who've made statements in the heat of a debating moment that they've wished they could take back? Absolutely. Are there people with a vested interest in animal cruelty who take PETA quotes grossly out of content and paraphrase them forever? Absolutely. Of course all anti-PETA people must basically be Jeffery Dahmers: He ate meat, so therefore he represents everything that the non-PETA society advocates. YOU DAMN CANNIBAL SICKO!
They are not sentient. Learn the differences between these things.
This is what is called "moralizing": In this case by describing a vast chasm of difference between humans and "lower" beings. We have "sentience", whereas other animals are merely alive. Of course this is completely a subjective measure by someone use to treating every human behaviour as consciousness, and every animal (ignoring that we're "just" a highly evolved monkey, basically) behaviour as "instinct". If your baby smiles at you it's a magical consciousness, but when a baby kitten plays with a ball it's nothing more than training for the hunt further in life. Sorry but I am of the belief that all life is amazing and truly is a miracle, and I can see complexity in every life from an ant to a walrus.
no mushroooooms is cool, I grow my own mushrooms and have no complaints about mushroom being put on the box.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
yeah, but what do the cows eat?
that same grain.
So you get the bunnies and mice killed for the farming, and the cows killed for the eating.
additionall, livestock eats more grain than humans do.
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Think of all the unemployed cows.
Nah. We still need them for leather. This way we can go back to the noble tradition of killing animals solely for their hides.
Well, now, will a lab grown steak have a soul or part of a soul? If it has even just a tiny bit of soul, then the religious fanatics will still have a problem with eating it. Animals do not have a soul? Go read your Greek history... Does a cloned human baby have a soul? If so, where did it come from? If not, can the US government outlaw cloning and hunt clones down and kill them without remorse? Are they going to make a tiny electric chair to execute clone babies? Will a Catholic Priest commit a crime if he rapes a soulless clone altar boy?
Geez, the meat at Mc Donalds already tastes like it was grown in a high school chemistry lab.
PHP is the solution of choice for relaying mysql errors to web users.
I wouldn't rule it out as a possibility. I stopped eating red meat about 6 years ago without much difficulty.
My history teacher way back in high school was a Quaker, and while not vegetarian, he went out of his way to get his food only from farms that he'd visited. That way he could guarantee they were cruelty-free. I think I'd be more apt to go this route.
(I know, "cruelty" is a debatable term in this discussion, but I don't personally consider the killing of animals for consumption by other animals to be cruel. I do consider imposing inhumane conditions on animals, and allowing them to suffer, to be cruel.)
lab grown tube steak?
With current nutritional knowledge, meat is simply irrelevant for a health diet; in fact, the current increasing levels of obesity in American society show that eating meat is contributory to very poor health.
Leave the goddam animals alone, whether they're of the real _or_ of the test tube variety.
t_t_b
I'm on PJ's "enemies" list! Are you?
This lab meat had better be tasty, or I won't give up the 'real deal' anytime soon. I don't even eat McDonald's 'meat' products because they aren't really meat at all, and they taste nasty. Then again, most people are exposed heavily to McDonald's as a child and not moose, elk, antelope, deer, ostrich, alligator, wild waterfoul and upland game as a child. Maybe I'm spoiled, but maybe processed (and often adulterated) meat is just plain fucking nasty.
Enjoy your tank burger, future boy. I'll be hand-loading until they pry my hunting rifle from my cold dead hands.
I would like to say that this article just halved the chances that I ever eat meat again in my life.
yuck
If she really wants to be able to eat herself, there are easier ways. I recommend some stretching exercises to start...
"It sure was strange to see something on Usenet about me that didn't involve Klingon gang rape." -- Wil Wheaton
Lentils will help make you fart more, and that will cause problems with maintaining breathable air on a long space mission, but the smell thing won't be as much of a problem since lentils don't make your farts stinky. A burger is much worse for doing that.
and murder tastes good...
I think your have some definitions wrong. "Kosher" refers to the practice in Judiaism of not eating pork, not eating shell fish, and not mixing meat and dairy. As far as I know, it is not related to the Hindu practice of not eating and giving special status to cows.
I was raised Jewish. The rationale I've gotten is that at the time, pork and shell fish were more likely to kill you. Not mixing meat and dairy was more abstract, something about not cooking a kid in its mother's milk.
The pork and shell fish restrictions are irrelevant. We have the technology to cook them properly. Not mixing meat and dairy is a moral argument, and can't be made irrelevant, only decided by an individual that they don't care.
But as someone else pointed out, Jews don't keep kosher because it had practical reasons in the past. Jews who keep kosher do so because it is part of Jewish law. Same with Hindus.
For the record, I am a vegetarian, so I don't eat any meat at all.
I think Bob the Angry Flower has an even better solution to The Vegetarian's Dilemma
type of spam. I sure hope I don't start getting unsolicited emails like "INCREASE YOUR LIBIDO with processed meat", "LOSE WEIGHT with artificial meat", OR "REFINANCE YOUR HOME to invest in fantastic meat invention". I just can't handle spam about spam. Please.
I suppose that texture and other qualities would not be exactly the same as real meat - and that in time, techniques will be perfected to reproduce those qualities, but they will not be generally used because they'll increase the cost of the meat - so you and I poor people will be eating the schlock lab-grown stuff, and the uber-rich will be eating either high-quality lab stuff, or the real deal.
I'm also guessing that since it will inevitably become a mass-production process, that it will "become" unprofitable to actually raise real cows - at least on a large scale, (again, only for the uber-wealthy) - so that real, actual cows will probably become extinct, or the gene pool will become restricted. Someday, there may very well be NO cows, and even no people who remember what a real cow tastes like. Sort of reminds one of that discussion in the Matrix.
As far as reducing "cruelty" - I find vegetarianism EXTREMELY cruel by comparison. When you're eating green salad, some of those plants are actually still alive, still photosynthesizing, etc. THAT'S cruel. Not only that - staying fed only on vegetables, you're typically killing far more individual organisms, hundreds of beans have to die - compared to one cow, for a meat-eater. The one cow would feed you for weeks. So carnivores don't have the market cornered on cruelty, as far as I'm concerned. If a cow feels pain and suffers and knows when it's alive or dead - why can't a lentil?
Fact is - you can't prove that any other living creature has a conscious mind - including other humans. It's Chalmers' "hard problem".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
I have heard some theologans who told of a ritual of one of the Canaanite peoples that was culminated in the boiling of a kid goat, which might have been alive as the boiling commenced, in its mother's milk. In addition to the inhumanity of that act, the commandment also has preventing idolatry as a concern.
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.
"change your preference"?
If you prefer to eat one thing, and then change to eathing another (for some reason, like having some wacko convince you that cows are too cute to die), that's not a preference.
I prefer to eat meat. If it's available. That's my preference. I may, at some point, due to external factors, decide to no longer eat any meat. (most likely due to the Vegan Gestapo coming by my house and putting a gun to my head and threatening to arrest me for war crimes and being an evil human oppressing animals). But that will not ever change my "preference".
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
As I understand it, farm animals eating processed (and infected) farm animals is the main method of transmission for CJD (Mad Cow disease, if you must). Could artificially-grown meats replace this source of food as genetically modified plants have done for animal feed in some cases? Would this be horribly cost-inefficient because (perhaps) the whole point of feeding animals their brethren is a cost-cutting move?
Customer: You'd think they're raising the chicken from scratch
Waiter: Actually sir, with the current scientific methods, they do in fact engineer a whole chicken sandwitch in approximately 5.2 minutes, though the original specimen is no longer needed
Yeah... not sure if this would kill or enhance that old complaint.
Eeegads! The source of global warming...flatulence and beans!
HERE!
If you don't want to repeat the past, stop living in it.
That has always been my argument to people who say that it is wrong or mean to kill animals to eat. The fact is that people created cows/pigs/chickens. Those animals did not exist before people bred them into the things that we call cows/pigs/chickens.
Growing the meat alone is just another step forward.
One day people will learn the folly of Winbloze, Linux Rules!
Lots of dietary rules don't make much sense anymore, though. Take for example people starving in India with cows and cow shit everywhere, or how we don't eat cats (mmm...roof rabbit) in the States. I hate cats.
I want to know when I'm going to be able to order leather in uniform 4'x8'sheets, the better to laminate onto desks, chairs, tables, etc. and make clothing out of.
Any of you lot have a clue how much leather costs these days? BIG dinero. Aside from the bent characters in leather undies, how about bike jackets and pants that don't cost $thousand$ eh? What would you rather, ass meets road clad in Levis or a pair of purpose built leather pants?
If these guys can culture leather by the square yard, I'm on line for that!
And don't forget, if they can do cow skin they can do human skin just the same. One hell of a lot of burn patients around who could use a couple square feet of brand new skin.
Well just as long as no one steals my idea for fermented meat alcoholic beverages...Okay, I think that one's safe.
but "highly evolved"? What does that even mean?
Human beings have more capability to reason in the abstract than most other animals. How this makes them "higher" is anybody's guess.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Assuming it were possible ... for the moment, since it's not really biologically possible for a lot of reasons...
You'd also need to feed the dividing meat cells with something. Not to mention the unfortunate consequences if the growth outpaced digestion.
Remember the nursery rhyme? ~"There was an old lady who swallowed a fly..."~
DNA just wants to be free...
I'm not sure where I misspoke or was misunderstood. I've been yammering on most of the afternoon on this topic so I'm sure I've bungled a few things. I understand that Mosaic and Hindu law are different and unrelated. I claimed that they both served practical purposes to their respective cultures, and that both can be viewed as valid for entirely modern reasons also. Ergo, I'd have to disagree that they are irrelevant.
:-)
If I follow the Kosher diet, then I am assured that I am getting clean meat (stricter than USDA standards) from an animal that was treated well and humanely slaughtered. The pork and shellfish thing is obviated by our improved cooking technology, but a non-issue if you don't eat either no matter how it's cooked. Plus, both are fatty meats implicated in vascular/heart disease, so there's another advantage to following The Law. It's sort of like the debate about condoms and abstinence. One reduces the likelihood of an STD, the other eliminates it.
I can't dispute you on the meat and milk thing, but another reply addressed that really well, demonstrating that political as well as personal and tribal survival concerns go into the rules.
While we're sharing personal histories, I've been a vegetarian, ovo-lacto, omnivore, et al at one time or another, and have never advocated abstinence.
Trouble making decisions? Just flip for it.
Nuff said... /. said this:
side note: on the 1st attempt at this reply,
Slashdot requires you to wait 20 seconds between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
Kinda like waiting an hour after eating to go swim? So I type fast...
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I'm not sure who you're picking a battle with here, however indeed it was a drop-in replacement for "evolved along with from a common point", with a point that our evolution has been more successful from a "master of the planet" perspective.
I am a vegetarian, but not a ranter (I think). The reason I became a vegetarian is I think people eat too much meat, and meat production is not particular environmentally sound or efficient, as well as being thoughtlessly unconcious of other creatures with an awareness of their surroundings.
I quit eating meant for basically the reason I quit smoking. When it comes down to it, and no offense to the farmers and others who I know care about their product, taken as a whole it is an industry that doesn't care about anything but making money, and if they can have people eating meat (and cheese) three times a day they will, no matter how non-sensible or unneccesary it is.
I believe it when people say the largely unregulated factory farms with tens of thousands of animals in them are unsafe, that they are a terrible use of our resources (water, land, and generated waste) and and that vegetarian diets are healther than those that include meat (especially so much meat). I also believe that we are very adaptable creatures and that I am able to make conscious choices. There is plenty of choice in food, lots of stuff that tastes great and is healthy and not meat (or dairy), yet so many people react in very stereotypical ways when one suggests that removing beef, chicken and cheese (90% of the non-vegetarian diet) is a thing to do.
These are facts too.
I am personally for vat grown meat, because it might resolve some of the above issues, though I do have mighty concerns about the experimental nature of this challenge.
Um, what cattle are you talking about? You do realize they don't exactly live a full life-span, right? The last of them will be sent to the slaughterhouse, just all like their forebears. It is their sole reason for being.
The cattle population is decimated all the time. Its called the roundup. Its just that breeding of new cattle would probably be curtailed.
yeah, just going down one of the roads the science types try to walk you down.
As to whether it's true or not, who cares?
For me it's "This is where we're at, where should we explore? I know, how about the one where we don't breed other species to abuse & then kill"
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
It was on the moon. Growing meat came first, then milk came second, IIRC.
[ And dammit, this is slashdot, someone will catch the reference. ]
wtf? Where do you work? Is there any other kind of industry? Isn't that the purpose of industry?
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Oh, the vast majority of them will just be killed off. Humans and their livestock have lived in a symbotic relationship for thousands of years.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
You don't really think people are gonna stop raising cattle just because we've got vat-grown beef, do you? Realistically? Maybe it'll be cheaper someday to eat the vat-grown stuff. Maybe it'll be more plentiful, this vat-grown stuff. Maybe the meat that we eat now every day will become a delicassy? (sp?)
Really now, I think if the vegans have their way the cattle population will be decimated to the point of near extinction. How cruel.
A clear example of a poorly-thought philosophy. Heh. These animals have been domesticated SO LONG that they couldn't live wild anymore. Maybe they could learn again, but you can't just set them free. They'd all be hunted down and slaughtered within days/weeks. You're absolutely correct, if the vegans have their way there won't be any of these animals left. So, by saving their lives by preventing us from killing them and eating them (their purpose in life), we should stop killing them and let nature wipe out the whole lot of them?
Besides, after we have vat-grown meat it will finally be possible to cram every open space and open range with living, breathing, PEOPLE. The overpopulation nightmares about death and destruction aren't half as scary as filling up all the available space with people.
I think that when the food riots start, the vegans will be the first to turn on fellow men. :)
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Grain isn't the only thing farmed. There's all kinds of vegetables that are farmed. How about fruits, too, while we're at it?
Hope the Vegans have all seen the Secret of NIMH. :)
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Not only do I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, but I would also eat every life from an ant to a walrus, if I was hungry enough.
It doesn't have to make sense. If you assume your actions must make sense, you could be making an "ass" out of "ume". If you assume the world makes sense somehow, maybe you should read the previous sentence.
Stop the senseless stuff! I can't handle it anymore! I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown because the world doesn't make sense to my narrow imagination, limited experience, and generally pathetic brain (I'm talking about *all* of you, and me too)!
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I agree ALMOST completely. Execept on one point, WE are animals, if you consider the human animal sentient then animals are sentient. Remember we are nothing more than another animal that happens to be somewhat intelligent and manually capable.
1. Kill enough cows to feed the world's population.
2. ???
3. Profit!!!
Seriously, though, the problem isn't a feeding problem, it's a supply problem. Detail a plan to provide enough cow to feed the world's population:
1. Visit FAT porno sites
2. ???
3. Profit!!!
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wtf? Where do you work? Is there any other kind of industry? Isn't that the purpose of industry?
I didn't say they anyone was doing anything unusual. We can view things outside of the "purpose of industry." In fact we can even question and change what industries do, to our advantage. You didn't know this? Wow.
Imagine an ad like, "Eat the heart of your enemy!" :-)
Careful dude, you "assumed" something. You assumed I didn't know this. :)
You presented the view that industry was somehow performing something that was somehow "bad" by trying to survive. Making money == survival, ! making money != survival. This is the problem of industry. It's why industry will always do whatever is needed to survive, and people will always suffer. There's no solution. It's division by zero: undefined.
Now, I'm all for trying to help businesses be more ethical. The problem really happens when you attempt to define "ethical". For example, if the meat-producers of the world stopped producing meat entirely because they felt it was unethical and people starved because of this, then did they do the "right" thing? Note that I'm not saying that stopping meat production would cause starvation, I don't know the answer to that.
Many problems occur when one group tries to enforce their own sense of "ethics" or "morals". Take the FSF as a prime example. The Free Software community is starkly divided, but for what reason? Because one group of people tried to impose their "ethics" and "morals" upon the other, and the other said "not me, buddy."
So, after we all agree what "ethics" are, and what will be henceforth considered "ethics", then we can force industry to obey. Until then, we're being no more ethical than they are by forcing them to do something that might be contrary to their own beliefs.
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How about shit?
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Well, I didn't suggest anyone do anything. I simply stated that I "went vegetarian" for my own personal reasons that have to do with believing large scale meat-centered production and consumption may be a bad thing, and that we have more choice than many people choose to live out.
I also believe there are no absolute truths and no definitive ethics behavior, most truths and facts exist in a vacuum, and that the reality we end up living in is a result of weighing possibilities and coming up with something workable (well, sometimes).
To summarize, it would make me happy if people would consider eating less meat instead of just saying "I like the taste of meat nyah nyah" (most of what we eat comes from an outside suggestion anyway, an other point being there is more variety than the few things that keep people tied to a meat-centred diet). I don't think I'm much of a facist because of that and I certainly don't deserve a "careful, dude."
Actually, at the end of the article it mentions the idea of taking a biopsy of yourself, and growing a You-Burger(tm).
Sounds like a useful sideline for famous celebrities. Brad Pitt Beefcake Burgers, Britney steak...
I can agree with this. Freedom of choice, in my opinion, is our most important freedom, mostly because it implies the rest. :)
To summarize, it would make me happy if people would consider eating less meat instead of just saying "I like the taste of meat nyah nyah" (most of what we eat comes from an outside suggestion anyway, an other point being there is more variety than the few things that keep people tied to a meat-centred diet). I don't think I'm much of a facist because of that and I certainly don't deserve a "careful, dude."
I agree that choosing to eat something solely because I like it is probably a bad idea. Besides personal morality choices (I chose to eat meat myself :) ), there's also a personal danger level (it *is* possible to cook and eat chicken in a healthy fashion, I do it all the time).
There *is* more variety, and I never pass up a dish just because it says "I'm good for vegetarians." If the dish is a well-balanced meal, or fits nicely into such, then I will eat it regardless of its composition.
So, if you discover a lump of shit that has the amount of protein my body needs (as well as other nutrients), I might choose not to eat it solely for taste reasons, but in a pinch I'd eat it regardless.
The "careful, dude" was because assumptions can be dangerous, and when I see someone doing something potentially dangerous, it warrants a "careful, dude". :)
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Er, I don't think anyone eats 90% meat/cheese -- well, not for long, anyways ("what's that funny pain in my chest?"). :)
Personally, I think you can have a very healthy diet that includes *some* meat/etc. Just keep everything in moderation. I think there's little difference between that and *no* meat, health-wise. Vegitarianism could even be worse, if you don't do it right. Meat is a convenient source of some good stuff, and you have to really know what you're doing (or live in a well-evolved, largely-vegetarian culter, e.g. India) to get enough non-meat sources of these components.
The real problem that a lot of Americans have is just too many calories overall -- well, too much of *everything*, actually. But an under-appreciated danger is that of having too carbohydrates. They translate into the same bad (and some good) fats in your body as meat will give you, if you don't exercise it off promptly. And that's where some misguided vegetarians could go wrong, I think. I mean, if someone goes to McDonald's and just gets french fries and a soda, and thinks they're being healthy because they're avoiding meat, they're sadly mistaken!
This relates somewhat to a recent Scientific American article , about how the absolute "no fat" emphasis has been misguided. Here's a zoom-up on what the authors feel is a better design for the Food Pyramid.
Personally, I lost nearly 20lbs (low 170's --> mid 150's) about 1.5 yrs ago, over a period of 6 months. This wasn't by doing anything drastic with my diet, I just stopped eating so *damn* much! Probably due to being laid off from my company, where we had free dinners every night, and where I went out to lunch with buddies every day. Now if I could just get out of my computer chair and *exercise*...
"Orthodoxy is unconsciousness" - Orwell
However, the food that *is* served is still actually synthesised meat. A new such product, Ambrosia Plus, has recently been released by a competitor, and has caused the testifying executive's company to lose significant amounts of market share. Normally, they are quickly able to duplicate such a new product, but they were unable for some time to determine what type of meat it is...
The story ends with the executive saying "I have a second archaic term which I need to introduce to you all. I'll spell it out: C-A-N-N..."
I wouldn't be surprised if there are even earlier examples of the idea.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
The best meat cmes from Kobe, bar NONE. They massage thier cors with sake every morning and feed them beer. Go to Kobe, eat a $200 steak, you'll understand.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
Wanna bet they try and take your dies and press if they ever perfect this process?
Indecision is the key to flexibility.
Porn?
Hehe, seriously, then they were still the food supply, they just weren't domesticated. But still part of the primary food supply. Of course, we had buffalo then, too, that were part of the primary food supply. If the buffalo hadn't been hunted to the point of extinction, perhaps they too would be domesticated. But still fulfilling their first, and only role, which is providing food for the rest of us. :)
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I am for the possible lab meat because no matter if you are a meat eater or plant eater you are a murderer. Both plants and animals are living beings, they both reproduce, they both have been shown to have emotions, they both bleed when cut, they both die, they both are born, they both eat, they both breath.
However at least the meat is dead when we eat it. Having a fresh salad means actually eating something that is still living.
Nine out of ten people say they can't notice the difference!
This line comes from ST:TNG.
An ambasidor when told the enterprise crew don't kill for food but eat artifically created meat he says "How barbaric"
I thought I was going to need to provide the contrary and say "If it's not killed it's not food"
But I'll happly eat tofu if I get enough soy on it.
I favor meat and if this works I'm hoping the artifical meat is cheaper.
I'm so far on top of thr food chain I can order my dead cow to go.
And this will just put me even one notch higher.. Now all the animals can die I'd I'll still be able to order my syth meat 'to go'.
I don't actually exist.
This argument is dumb. It's not like lab-grown meat will be perfected to everyone's taste overnight, nor is it realistic to expect everyone to turn vegan overnight. As the demand for real meat decreases, farmers would keep less and less cows. There isn't going to be a whole crapload of cows needing to go someplace all of a sudden, it'll be a slow dropoff if anything.
To answer your question seriously, before humans the cows and other grazing animals were basically nature's groundskeepers, keeping the grass "mowed", and also providing fertilizer to grow more grass and other plants.
sentience is synonymous to awareness...
.. attitude is based on experience... including awareness, which is proof of our sentience.
1) do you seriously belive animals do not have awareness...?
2) i'm not complaining about myself.. maybe you should.
3)
perhaps he made fun of the zealous nature of some peta members... yet, to some, it may seem that he was mocking those with the belief that animals are capable of perceiving pain.
-judging another only defines yourself
vegetarianism ( P ) Pronunciation Key (vj-târ--nzm) n. The practice of subsisting on a diet composed primarily or wholly of vegetables, grains, fruits, nuts, and seeds, with or without eggs and dairy products.
A side of beef needs to hang in the cooler for a few weeks for enzymes in the meat to do their magic -- breaking down tough fibres and the like. Generally it is hung as a whole side. It doesn't taste right and it's tough if this isn't done. It your roast or steak tastes liver-ish it didn't age long enough. The best beef hangs the longest (up to 4 weeks for Certified Angus Beef).
I wonder if this lab beef will age properly.
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This reminds me of Peter Hamilton's novel Fallen Dragon , where in the future all food is lab-grown, and only back-to-nature fanatics eat plants and animals. In one scene, the main character gets physically ill when he discovers the roast beef sandwich he's eating came from an actual cow.
Hamilton's pretty good at extrapolating from the present to create the future world in his books. I don't think this scenario is unrealistic, a century or so from now.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.