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In Vitro Grown Meat 'Nearly Possible'

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-don't-eat-greens,-food-eats-greens dept.

Bruce66423 writes "An article at The Guardian discusses the prospects for food from radically different sources than the ones we're used to. 'Sweet fried crickets' anyone? Quoting: '... artificial steak is still a way off. Pizza toppings are closer. The star of the Dutch research into in-vitro meat, Dr Mark Post, promised that the first artificial hamburger, made from 10bn lab-grown cells, would be ready for "flame-grilling by Heston Blumenthal" by the end of 2012. At the time of writing it is still on the back burner. Post (who previously produced valves for heart surgery) and other Dutch scientists are currently working over the problem of how to turn the "meat" from pieces of jelly into something acceptably structured: an old-fashioned muscle. Electric shocks may be the answer. ... The technological problems of producing the new hi-tech foods are nothing compared to the trouble the industry is having with the consumers – the "yuck factor," as the food technology scientists across the world like to put it. Shoppers' squeamishness has turned the food corporations, from whom the real money for R&D will have to come, very wary, and super-secretive about their work on GM in America.'"

3 of 260 comments (clear)

  1. A matter of perspective... by nine932038 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    After encountering the notion in the Vorkosigan series and thinking about it a bit, the notion of lab-grown meat doesn't seem like a big deal. It's arguably more sanitary than an animal that's been standing in filth for its entire life, after all.

  2. Processed beyond recognition by Beetjebrak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't understand the yuck-factor. Go buy a McChicken at the big yellow M. There's nothing recognizably chicken-ish about that product at all. The taste and texture is completely different from the chicken I tasted as a kid, when my grandfather would routinely kill and prepare his own chickens for dinner. I can tell you from personal experience that the yuck-factor in actually killing a chicken with a blade is much higher than that of an electricallly stimulated nuggy grown inside a petri dish.

    --
    Learn from the mistakes of others. There isn't enough time to make them all yourself.
  3. Re:Speaking as a vegan by EvolutionInAction · · Score: 5, Insightful
    You need to study formal logic a bit more. What you are committing is popularly known as the naturalistic fallacy. This is the assumption that what is natural is good, and what is good must be natural.

    Which is stupid when you actually stop and think about it. Dolphins rape each other, perfectly natural. Not good.