In-Vitro Muscle Cells, It's What's For Dinner

wanzeo writes "Within the last decade, many of us have experienced the encroachment of ethics into our mealtime. Phrases such as vegetarian, vegan, organic, bST, GMO, etc. have become part of common grocery store advertising. The most recent addition to the list of ethically charged food is in-vitro meat, or meat that was cultured in a petri dish, and was never part of a live animal. The project has been brought to fruition by Mark Post, a biologist at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. Grown using animal stem-cells on a nutrient medium, the nearly see-through strips of muscle would need to be stacked nearly 3,000 times to approach the thickness of a burger. The practice promises to be more humane, sustainable, and efficient than conventional meats, with one analysis suggesting it would, 'use 35 to 60 percent less energy, emit 80 to 95 percent less greenhouse gas and use around 98 percent less land.' In a world where nearly half of all crop production is used to feed livestock, a move towards artificial meat may be inevitable."

Comments

Monsanto

[scifiber_phil]

Monsanto will patent it, claim real meat infringes, then make us all eat it. No labelling of fake meat will be allowed, so we won't know what we are eating. At that time maybe I'll try the frankensalmon.

Re:Monsanto

[broken_chaos]

I'm actually fine with this idea of 'fake meat', as long as it's done well. If it tastes and behaves similarly to 'real meat', and is made from actual real animal cells... I'm just fine with the idea. I'd be more worried about genetically modified meat -- but this stuff is not modified in that way. It's just cells grown in a non-standard incubation system (i.e., a lab dish, as opposed to a sack of other meat cells).

Re:Monsanto

[scifiber_phil]

I realize that if all meat was synthetic, there would be no need to label it as such. I was just referencing the fact that in Pennsylvania and other states, there was a market for milk from cows not being given growth hormone. In Pennsylvania, the secretary of agriculture was set to disallow the labelling of milk as being free of growth hormone. There was enough pushback from those wanting to buy growth hormone-free milk and those just wanting to know what they were drinking to force the secretary to backtrack on the order. I was angry and still am angry that a state official was comfortable hiding what was in our food for the sake of lobbying interests. I was just trying to make the point that we are being force-fed GM foods, and in most cases, there have been no long term studies as to safety. I was trying to make humorously the point that GM foods are being rammed down our throats whether we like it our not, and regardless of safety concerns. Call me crazy, but I still want to make my own life choices, and not have the government and corporations make them for me. Just for the record, in food, "you won't notice the difference" does not equate to safe to eat. Safe to eat is actually the most important part of "mission accomplished".

Re:Monsanto

[green1]

Much easier to control for exposure to chemicals, diseases, and other toxins in a lab than it is in free ranging animals....

Re:Monsanto

[Belial6]

If this meat were to hit the market, the stuff you buy would not be made in a lab. It would be made in a factory. Your current meat is processed in a factory too. The fear that there would be increased chance of exposure to hazardous chemicals is irrational.

Re:Monsanto

[osu-neko]

We've been safely eating genetically modified foods for millennia. It's a bit bizarre that we somehow choose to label the latest method of modifying animal or plant genetics as "GM" but not the rest, giving many the entirely false impression that the bread and steak and other foodstuffs they and their ancestors have been eating for generations aren't genetically modified. But then, in a world where people ask, "When did wild poodles roam the Earth?" I suppose it's unsurprising. Sad, but unsurprising...

Re:Monsanto

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

It's also much easier to detect toxins in a lab, let alone track down the source.

If free-range animals suddenly start coming back as having say lead exposure, you have to look in the water, the wind, any plants they might have eaten, any fertilizers you may have used on any of those plants, any feed you gave them--and even once you find the source, you have to find a way around the problem, since farms aren't what you call mobile. Compared to that, looking at the tools you put in the lab to produce the product (also known as "quality control") isn't exactly going out of your way.

Re:Monsanto

[Belial6]

What is intellectually dishonest is to call the place it would be made a "lab", and imply that this indicates the presence more hazardous chemicals than where food is processed now. As it is now, there are hazardous chemicals in virtually every single factory, and virutally every single restaurant, grociery store and farm for that matter.

Embrace the Future

[Sponge Bath]

Synthetic meat is still too expensive. This process will be optimized to a fabricated protein paste fed through a tube to power your assigned functions until you wear out and are flushed. Witness the progress of humanity.

No thanks

[Anonymous Coward]

If I want non meat protein, there's plenty of plant-based sources. If I want meat, I prefer it come from an animal. I have no qualms about killing an animal for meat. I also find sanitized supermarket packaging retarded. Trying to detach meat from the idea an animal died for it is twisted. People shouldn't hind from that fact and be respectful an animal died for the meat.

Re:No thanks

[hedwards]

Probably because it's creepy and is likely to come with any number of unforeseen consequences. Plus, just because it's like meat doesn't mean that it's going to have the same effect on the body. Which could be a good thing, but then again there's all sorts of nutrients that are no longer common in our diets because the food scientists designing our meals didn't think to include them. Iodine is a common one to be deficient in around here, and that's largely because it doesn't get added to our foods along with the salt.

A fake salmon like meat isn't likely to have any iodine in it at all.

Ethics?

[HornWumpus]

Just because PETA says something is unethical doesn't mean it is.

There is nothing unethical about eating meat.

There is nothing unethical about eating whale, they are about as smart as pigs.

There is nothing unethical about eating dog or cat. It's just what you are used to.

It is unethical to try to impose your opinions on others. I'm looking at you herbivores.

Re:Food myths

[tsa]

And what do you think all those burgers ate when they were still cows? Soja and corn that was grown especially for them. For the soja alone, massive amounts of rainforest are cut down in countries like Brazil every year.

Re:Food myths

[phulegart]

Grazing animal use the massive tracts of un-airable land and don't require labor and oil and pesticide intensive production techniques.

Unfortunately, these same Grazing animals don't graze any more, and we have to bring the food to them. Oh, sure, there are "Free Range" animals, but the meat produced from them is more expensive. The majority of the meat produced from these Grazing Animals does require labor and oil and pesticide... because we must grow the food for these animals, harvest the food for these animals, and transport the food for these animals. That requires pesticide, labor, and oil.

Thus meat production *IS* more inefficient than growing vegetables, because it involves the process *OF* growing vegetables, plus a whole lot more.

Ok, ok... so Hay isn't any kind of vegetable you or I would eat. But it is still sown, grown, harvested and transported.

Re:don't forget the market of fungible commodities

[jpapon]

It's just a lie. There's absolutely no reason for McDonald's to mix together meat from different continents. Not only would it be stupid since it would make it all but impossible to track down where tainted meat originated from, but it would be more expensive than just buying local beef.

If it is Cheaper and Tastes Bettter . . .

[NicknamesAreStupid]

. . . it will be sold. There is no morality on the bottom line.

In-Vitro Muscle Cells, It's What Human's Crave

[definate]

This sounds awesome. I love meat, best part of any meal, however I don't like the whole killing cattle thing, but it's a necessary evil for me, as I'm not willing to give it up. However, this would be the best of both worlds.

It will be able to be mass manufactured in large quantities, and hopefully cheaply. It reduces energy usage. Reduces carbon emissions. Reduces land usage.

These are all HUGE wins. As long as food companies get serious on it (which they likely would), then you can get flawless, tasty steaks, for cheap as fuck. I don't care if it's not "authentic", I wan't my pseudo-lamb meat!

My guess is it would take a while before they were able to get it up to the mass manufacturing stage, and even further before they're producing meat with the nice tasting fat, and other impurities. Though, once it's at the mass manufacturing stage, people will start eating it, mainly people who like gamey meat though.