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Engineering the $325,000 Burger
Dr. Mark Post hopes to bring the dream of cultured meat one step closer to reality when he unveils his high tech hamburger in London. The five ounce burger is composed of 20,000 strips of beef muscle tissue grown in a laboratory at a cost of $325,000 (provided by an anonymous donor.) From the article: "The hamburger, assembled from tiny bits of beef muscle tissue grown in a laboratory and to be cooked and eaten at an event in London, perhaps in a few weeks, is meant to show the world — including potential sources of research funds — that so-called in-Vitro meat, or cultured meat, is a reality."
The Japanese will love this - while it's expensive. When it gets cheap, expect McDonald's to start quietly using it...
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Some people don't eat meat and animal products for health reasons, others for ethical reasons. So I think this will split the vegetarians and vegans into four groups:
- health issues vegetarian
- health issues vegan
- ethical vegetarian
- ethical vegan
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Given the wide range of positions that fall under the broad banner "vegetarian" (do you eat eggs? dairy? fish?), there is no one correct "technical qualification". Likely, vegetarians closer to the "fundamentalist vegan" side will consider this an unacceptable animal product, while vegetarians closer to the "I still sometimes have a BLT because bacon tastes so good" school will embrace the concept.
Q: How can you know why somebody is a vegan?
A: Don't worry. He'll tell you.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Of course there are also the people who think that any food that has even just come close to a lab is the devil. That group might have a considerable (but not complete) overlap with the ethical vegetarians/vegans.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Yeah, just because the first computer took millions to build and maintain didn't make it real.
The idea is to create meat that requires less resources and no slaughter. GMO agriculture increases crop yields, just like selective breeding has for millennia. Stop being a crank or just kill yourself.
Why are you so negative about lab grown meat? No more animal suffering, a lot less impact on the environment, what's not to like?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
Common additional "ingredients" in your "normal" burger:
* puss
* feces
* lead and other hazardous materials
* human hair
* insect parts
* insect larva
* bacterial waste
* lots of other disgusting things
And you want to complain about something grown in a nice clean lab?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAFO
Yup, not cultured at all.
Mostly random stuff.
Unless and until we get unpatented GMO crops, and no more lawsuits against farmers who got cross-pollination from GMO crops, I'll be against GMO crops, regardless of its other merits or non-merits. Buying GM crops means supporting an abusive industry.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Yes*
* Unless you don't think so.
I don't eat meat because I find animal food farming in this country (the US) abhorrant. I don't eat well treated food animals (free range, wild hunted, etc) because I find it simpler to draw the line at "I don't eat meat".
I'm looking forward to commonly available vat-grown beef. Once the price point hits a reasonable level, I think I will partake. Other people won't feel the same way.
Of course there are also the people who think that any food that has even just come close to a lab is the devil.
And I guarantee those people will say vat grown causes everything from cancer to autism. If we don't watch out this will become the next frankenfood scare
Funny thing is "quorn", which is factory grown fungus, seems to have a big enough vegetarian following that I've seen it at the major supermarket chains and it's the most artifical food in the place. I presume that the same people that are eating that wouldn't have much of a problem with vat grown meat.