PETA Abandons $1 Million Prize For Artificial Chicken

sciencehabit writes "Don't expect an artificial chicken in every pot anytime soon. Since 2008, the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has offered $1 million to anyone able to create a commercially viable artificial meat from growing chicken cells. But although scientists are making progress toward artificial hamburgers, even a 2-year extension from the original deadline of 2012 wasn't enough to lure applicants for PETA's prize."

Comments

Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

They said it didn't lure applicants? If I was working on artificial chicken meat, I wouldn't phone them up and tell them until I had it working. Why give your business plan away to rivals? They should have left it in place.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[ShieldW0lf]

What I'd like to know is, why does PETA hate chickens so much? You don't have to be a genius to foresee what will happen to the chicken species if we abandon them as a food source.

That said, being able to grow slabs of chicken breast in a nutrient bath at home would be pretty sweet, if it could be done.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

PETA has this crazed idea that animals are better off dead than owned even if they have absolutly no chance of surviving wild. So that would be perfectly in character for them actually.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[davester666]

But who wants to eat some phony lab meat when they could be eating some tasty good healthy sea kittens!

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Chrisq]

PETA has this crazed idea that animals are better off dead than owned even if they have absolutly no chance of surviving wild. So that would be perfectly in character for them actually.

I think that is a misrepresentation - they would rather them not being born than being owned, though they go through hoops to define pets as companions rather than being owned.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[KiloByte]

No, otherwise they wouldn't go on massive slaughter-fests. An animal PETA gets its hands on has an 84% chance of getting murdered within 24 hours.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

PETA appears to be against the mass exploitation of chickens. If 10bn chickens are killed annually for meat, and that reduces to 10m, they will have succeeded ... but the chicken would be far from extinct. Commercial chicken production could even stop completely, but people in rural areas would still keep chickens, as they have done for hundreds of years, for their eggs if nothing else (remember that dual-use nature of the chicken?) Chicken manure is also quite the asset if you're living rurally. And then you can sell the carcass to stupid town-dwellers who are prepared to pay high prices for the "real chicken" their parents used to talk about.

The chicken isn't going to go extinct just because we stop exploiting it for meat on a mass scale. Stop pretending that complex bio-economic systems work in binary. The choice is not "continue to exploit animals in their billions" vs "watch them go extinct", and only a fool would claim that it was. I mean, I fucking hate PETA, but I hate binary thinking more (and I use the term "thinking" reservedly). As for the idea that mass production of chickens has some kind of advantage in terms of bio-diversity - it's complete and utter propagandist nonsense, although I guess it kind of works if you close your eyes and ignore the species that already went extinct so we can have enough land to grow enough corn to feed 10 billion identical fucking chickens.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Chrisq]

No, otherwise they wouldn't go on massive slaughter-fests. An animal PETA gets its hands on has an 84% chance of getting murdered within 24 hours.

To be fair to them they don't like it and only do it so that they can accept animals rejected by other shelters. I have mixed feelings on this, on one hand I think they should turn more away - but on the other hand if the alternative is the animals being dumped by the roadside or worse then maybe accepting and euthenising is best

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Bruinwar]

In warmer climates, they go feral. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F... Disclaimer: I love chickens! Specially off my grill in the summertime.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

There would only be contests and arguements over which growlights and nutrients to use, which species developed the largest and tastiest drumsticks and how to hide your growroom from hungry cops....

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[RabidReindeer]

PETA appears to be against the mass exploitation of chickens. If 10bn chickens are killed annually for meat, and that reduces to 10m, they will have succeeded ... but the chicken would be far from extinct. Commercial chicken production could even stop completely, but people in rural areas would still keep chickens, as they have done for hundreds of years, for their eggs if nothing else (remember that dual-use nature of the chicken?) Chicken manure is also quite the asset if you're living rurally. And then you can sell the carcass to stupid town-dwellers who are prepared to pay high prices for the "real chicken" their parents used to talk about.

The chicken isn't going to go extinct just because we stop exploiting it for meat on a mass scale. Stop pretending that complex bio-economic systems work in binary. The choice is not "continue to exploit animals in their billions" vs "watch them go extinct", and only a fool would claim that it was. I mean, I fucking hate PETA, but I hate binary thinking more (and I use the term "thinking" reservedly). As for the idea that mass production of chickens has some kind of advantage in terms of bio-diversity - it's complete and utter propagandist nonsense, although I guess it kind of works if you close your eyes and ignore the species that already went extinct so we can have enough land to grow enough corn to feed 10 billion identical fucking chickens.

What PETA is really against is humans. Otherwise they'd make themselves better informed about what the animals really want. If you believe PETA, all animals want to do is flee humans, and that's observably false. Even skunks have been known to move in next to human beings. Alaskan wolves show off their puppies to tourists, and don't even think of trying to do anything interesting around emperor penguins.

Case in point: veganism, which I'm pretty sure is almost(?) essential for PETA membership. Veganism is based on the concept that you don't use any animal product that exploits the animal. Which gives you the wierd situation where you're allowed to eat human placenta meat, but not eggs.

The problem is that many farm animals of today are mutants bred to interact with humans. Chickens will lay sterile eggs, regardless, but vegans will leave the eggs to rot. Cows will produce milk, but lacking someone to milk them, will be in pain. Sheep, unsheared will overheat.

I prefer to minimize the amount of animal pain and suffering I cause. Besides, if I eat too many of them, they'll get their revenge by raising my cholesterol. I'll pay more for uncaged chicken eggs and am hoping to see the day that bacon, burgers and jerky are something that can be rolled off a production line instead of forcibly removed from the carcasses of dead animals.

But I think I get more pain and suffering from having to drive into an office and work all day than a chicken does producing that one sterile egg, so I'm not feeling too bad about a free-roving chicken.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Attila Dimedici]

I am sorry, I need a source other than PETA to believe that they don't like it. They provide no evidence that their claim is true. This is an organization which has been shown in the past to be willing to distort the facts in order to promote its agenda. It is also an organization that opposes the very concept of pets. So, to put it bluntly, I do NOT believe them. Since PETA believes that dogs and cats SHOULD be allowed to run feral (and only as many survive as manage to do so without human intervention), I believe they take these animals in with the intention of killing them since these animals apparently cannot survive in the wild without human intervention (the reason they are brought to the shelter in the first place).

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Chrisq]

I am sorry, I need a source other than PETA to believe that they don't like it. They provide no evidence that their claim is true.

You have a strange argument here. Its akin to saying that someone wanting to promote healthy living liked unfit people dying of heart attacks. Granted they are odd an extreme, but to say that they like killing animals - despite them saying the opposite - seems unjustified.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[hawkinspeter]

Not defending them, but it's not murder unless they're killing humans. "Slaughtered" would be a better word to use.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actions speak louder than words. You may be a gullible moron that believes whatever someone tells you, but not everyone else is so obtuse. PETA has proven themselves to be a bunch of liars, and they kill animals daily. It's not really hard to figure out.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

They don't like it? Well that just changes everything!

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Attila Dimedici]

I am not saying that they "like" killing animals. I am saying that they prefer killing animals to allowing those animals to be adopted as someone's pet. PETA has given me reason to think that they believe it is better for those animals to die than for them to live as someone's pet.

Re:Why didn't they leave it in place?

[erroneus]

There is no way that artificial chicken meat, or other meat for that matter, will be inexpensive enough to displace the business of raising actual livestock. The research should be focused and funded by medical interests who would seek to grow human tissue. From there, methods can be derived and adapted to creating artificial meat. It makes no sense to attempt this PETAs way... not financially anyway.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[interkin3tic]

A lot of my dislike of PETA is based on my impression that they're doing it more for attention than genuine concern for animals. The euthanizing seems to fit with that, killing animals that aren't attractive to make room for new animals which might gain sympathy. Much like I assume they do with attractive celebrity spokespeople who have gone past their prime. Another reason I dislike them is that they seem theistic in their defense of animals. Wanting to end all animal testing (which I assume they still do) to me doesn't sound like a reasoned position, it sounds like they don't care to consider that will completely stop medical progress for people.

That they actually have reservations about it suggests it's actually more about the animals, that they're doing something they hate because they realize they need to.

Or it's just PR for a well-mocked hypocrisy. I don't know. Just I'm less sure it's 100% about providing attention for starlets and socialites.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Chrisq]

Not defending them, but it's not murder unless they're killing humans. "Slaughtered" would be a better word to use.

legally yes ... but sometimes its nice to judge people by their own criteria.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[hawkinspeter]

Sometimes... but most of the time you just drag yourself down to their level.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? Would you not rather take your chances by the roadside than be killed? Or even caged? I mean, if you're adopting a PETA-like anthropomorphic ethical stance here, is not euthanization completely inconsistent with any commonly accepted notion of ethics? If not, well, who elected you God?

Now, if "the problem, of course, is the humans", you may have what it takes to become an Affordable Health Care administrator. Wonder what prize is PETA offering for a commercially viable Soylent Green?

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you can sell the carcass to stupid town-dwellers who are prepared to pay high prices for the "real chicken" their parents used to talk about.

Here in the land of milk and honey I much prefer to buy locally raised chickens at the farmer market and they do taste much better than what is peddled at the grocery. That said I have realized the state of affairs and try to consume more bean sources of protein such as chickpea, etc. For cost alone it is worth eating less meat. When the price of beef is going up, the reaction should be to eat less beef.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Curunir_wolf]

What I'd like to know is, why does PETA hate chickens so much? You don't have to be a genius to foresee what will happen to the chicken species if we abandon them as a food source.

That said, being able to grow slabs of chicken breast in a nutrient bath at home would be pretty sweet, if it could be done.

If you're not vegan, chickens are one of the most efficient ways of producing your own food. They don't need a lot of food, they can eat whatever they find in a pasture. They'll start producing eggs and do so for years (you don't even need a rooster), it's an excellent source of protein. You can keep two or three in a pretty small space as long as you can supplement their diet, and they'll still help keep the insect population down, and you'll have eggs every day.

So there is really no need for artificial chicken meat. When the chicken is too old to produce eggs, you eat it.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[AlphaWolf_HK]

Actually meat won't raise your cholesterol. Or at least, it's unlikely to. In the last few years, we've found that most of what we thought we know about cholesterol to be wrong. Dietary cholesterol (that is, the cholesterol figure you see on food labels, as well as the cholesterol found in meat and eggs) doesn't actually raise your LDL (bad) cholesterol levels. What actually does is saturated fats, which are less likely to be found in meats than many vegetables.

In fact, the infamous 1986 to 2008 "Harvard Study" that is often cited by vegans as being the reason you shouldn't eat red meat, doesn't actually suggest what they claim it does. Some group interpreted the raw data to place a link between various forms of cancer and heart disease with those who eat red meat, but they made a critical mistake. The group that ate red meat also happened to include a lot of smokers, drinkers, obese people, and people who otherwise just didn't bother watching their diet, whereas among the vegetarian group you saw less of this occurring (really any form of diet at all tends to cause one to be more conscious of what they consume.)

However one critical trend that these people didn't spot was that the vegetarian group almost universally had bad cholesterol levels. Did that make the headline news? Nope. But the "red meat is bad" news did, and so lately there's been a fad to eliminate it from our diets, which I don't think is well advised.

Anyways, don't believe anybody who thinks eating meat causes bad cholesterol, because there's no evidence to support it.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[bluefoxlucid]

And then there's dogs, which work extremely well with humans and actively want human companionship. Even wild wolves don't pose much danger to humans, often coming close without hostility; and wild foxes will sometimes play with people.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[kumanopuusan]

Sorry, but it sounds like you don't know how pervasive monocultures are in modern agriculture. Thanks to globalization, even peasants living largely without the benefit of industrialization grow whichever crop will earn them the most money. Just as an example, in Laos, one of the least developed countries in the world, state-owned Chinese corporations are creating huge rubber plantations at the expense of huge swaths of native ecosystems. The chicken exists because of its commoditization, and it will take just one commodity that's more profitable to wipe it out entirely. Don't underestimate the degree to which economics has already shaped most--if not all--of the modern world.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Parafilmus]

What I'd like to know is, why does PETA hate chickens so much? You don't have to be a genius to foresee what will happen to the chicken species if we abandon them as a food source

The species seems to be doing OK in the wild. Its far from endangered.

http://www.birdlife.org/datazo...

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Anonymous Coward]

If we are talking about the law, I might agree that murder does not fit. But since we aren't, I think murder is a perfectly acceptable word to use when describing "killing something not for food, nor for shelter, nor because it is a pest, nor to relieve suffering". Slaughtered, when we're talking about animals, implies killing to be processed into food.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Vegan Cyclist]

Here is some evidence: they have a $30 million annual budget (at least a few years ago, haven't looked lately), and millions of members. An email to members in the area would probably be all it takes to find a home (with some screening of course). Shelters run on a fraction of a fraction of their budget, yet have significantly higher adoption rates (both in sheer volume, and percentages).

When you start looking into what PETA does, and all the killing they endorse (like giving an award to a mouse trap that used gas to kill mice, or a special pot to boil lobsters in, or that they have 'moratoriums' on protesting places like McD), the fact is PETA doesn't oppose killing animals - they oppose killing animals without their *permission*. That's what their track record is, at least.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Gavagai80]

Feel free to show me where PETA as an organization has suggested similar penalties for eating animals as for willful cannibalism -- life in prison presumably. Saying that they want animals treated as people is an oversimplification which makes for an easy strawman.

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Parafilmus]

PETA has this crazed idea that animals are better off dead than owned...

Where on Earth would they get such a crazy idea? http://www.farmsanctuary.org/w...

Seriously, though, its not correct to suggest that chickens can't survive in the wild. Feral chickens (descended from farm animals) do well in many parts of the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: Why didn't they leave it in place?

[Meski]

meh. Chicken breast is the worst part of the chicken, IMAO.

Revolution in a year

[mwvdlee]

They've dangled a $1 million prize in front of everybody, with an impossible deadline, and when science actually does start coming close to earning it, they kill it.
That's chicken.

Re:Revolution in a year

[jrumney]

Science isn't close to making a competitive substitute for chicken. They've made a hamburger that cost over $500k, which isn't even close to competitive with Wagyu Beef in price, and judging from the response of those who ate it, barely competitive with a McDonalds ammonium-hydroxide patty in taste. Given that a typical broiler chicken only eats about 2.5 times its body weight in feed over its short lifetime, making a synthetic meat that can compete will be a hard task that will most likely take decades.

Re:Revolution in a year

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they should eat crow

Re:Revolution in a year

[Sun]

Do you have any citation for the taste claim? From what I heard, taste was actually pretty good.

Here's what I have (from wikipedia):

There is really a bite to it, there is quite some flavour with the browning. I know there is no fat in it so I didn't really know how juicy it would be, but there is quite some intense taste; it's close to meat, it's not that juicy, but the consistency is perfect. This is meat to me... It's really something to bite on and I think the look is quite similar.

Shachar

Re:Revolution in a year

[drinkypoo]

Do you have any citation for the taste claim? From what I heard, taste was actually pretty good.

No, that's not what you read. The taste was intense, but nothing was said about it being intensely good. The texture was lauded, but the flavor was only mentioned. English is not your strong suit. Don't try to interpret it for us.

Re:Revolution in a year

[RabidReindeer]

Vegemite has intense taste!

Re:Revolution in a year

[bws111]

'Bite' usually means an acidic or sour taste. That is not something most people are looking for in hamburger. Add in the fact that it has an 'intense' flavor and I don't see how you could say it was good.

Re:Revolution in a year

[interkin3tic]

It mentioned in the sublinked article that PETA had actually provided for a research fellowship. That involves actually giving out money to promote research. A two pronged approach seems reasonable in theory: give money directly to research, but dangle a prize out there to attract attention to the goal and attract more money than you would have directly.

Lets be honest, if there's one thing PETA is very effective at, it's PR. If there's another thing PETA is good at, it's getting more money flowing.

Re:Revolution in a year

[cryptizard]

I think he meant that it had a good texture when you bite into it. Like it didn't fall apart or was soggy or something.

Re:Revolution in a year

[Anonymous Coward]

They probably just realized that artificial chickens, well roosters, have been available for a long time. In fact, so has artificial cat. Men and women have been enjoying them for ages.

Re:Revolution in a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it just be easier to kill your chickens ethically? Then there is no need for a chicken analogue, is there?

Re:Revolution in a year

[Anonymous Coward]

So the "cost of the burger" represents the total costs of the RESEARCH project.
The patty itself was basically the pure muscle, fat means more work. But it could be used in some places even with the 0% fat incarnation.

It's not going to take decades.

Re:Revolution in a year

[sudo]

They need to add another zero if they were serious about the challenge.

It was a flimsy PR stunt, which will give others ammunition to make more fun of them.

Wouldnt want it

[ruir]

Who would want it? Die hard long time vegetarians (like me) abhor fake meats as much as real meats - they are disgusting the (almost) the same way. Even fake cheese smells like wet socks... Then everything that matters is price, and I seriously doubt any commercial venture of fake chicken, no matter how good, will be able to compete in price with an inhuman industry that cuts so many corners to be profitable. And even then, where would the eggs come from? PETA is too crazy and bordering fanaticism in my book.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would want it?

People who are vegetarians because they feel sorry for animals (almost never is related to the taste, feel, or looks of meat). People who, although not vegetarians, would prefer to eat food that doesn't require the death of an animal. So... a few people.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[MSTCrow5429]

Artificial meat isn't meat for vegetarians, you aren't the target market. It's meant for omnivores. And experience has shown that some will pay extra for perceived ethical improvements, e.g. cage-free eggs vs. battery eggs. People would also be willing to pay some amount more for artificial meat.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Anonymous Coward]

Not all vegetarians have your broken taste buds.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[nyctopterus]

What the hell? There are a hell of a lot of vegetarians that don't eat meat for ethical reasons! There are also a lot of meat-eaters, like me, who have a sense of unease about eating animals but can stop because they are so delicious.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Anonymous Coward]

Artificial meat isn't meat for vegetarians, you aren't the target market. It's meant for omnivores. And experience has shown that some will pay extra for perceived ethical improvements, e.g. cage-free eggs vs. battery eggs. People would also be willing to pay some amount more for artificial meat.

We want Free/Open Source artificial chickens.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Chrisq]

Who would want it? Die hard long time vegetarians (like me) abhor fake meats as much as real meats - they are disgusting the (almost) the same way.

I'm a vegetarian and I disagree. Some fake meats are bad, particularly the cheap rehydratable variety, but others taste OK. They are not my favourite option but if I eat with non-veg friends and the vegi option is a vegi-burger I will have it and enjoy it.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[nyctopterus]

Or, you know, a typo. If you want to rail against 'could care less'ers, why not go find an actual example?

Re:Wouldnt want it

[hawkinspeter]

I think it'd be far more interesting for a company to start producing lab-grown long pork. That would start the real ethical debates.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[RabidReindeer]

I think it'd be far more interesting for a company to start producing lab-grown long pork. That would start the real ethical debates.

You joke, but I can pretty well guarantee that once artifically-produced meat is a reality that someone's going to invent new types of it.

Consider the green ketchup they tried to sell.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[hawkinspeter]

Mmmm! Finger-lickin' good! (Especially with green ketchup)

Re:Wouldnt want it

[khallow]

People would also be willing to pay some amount more for artificial meat.

Some people. And some people, I'd wager much more, would not. After all, there are a number of artificial meat products already in the market. I think that it will take artificial meat being significantly cheaper before it will replace most of the meat from animals market.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[gstoddart]

I'm a vegetarian and I disagree. Some fake meats are bad, particularly the cheap rehydratable variety, but others taste OK.

I don't think the OP meant 'meat analogues' like soy or what have you. Most vegetarians have learned to deal with those, and some of them are pretty well done.

I think he meant 'fake meat' -- as in vat grown cells of animals which are somehow supposed to be a good thing and which some vegetarians suggest would be OK because there's no animal cruelty involved.

For me, the idea of vat grown animal cells in some industrial version of pink slime meets soylent green elicits an big "ewww", and would not be something I'd ever eat.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[markass530]

I'm pretty sure it's meant mostly for ethical vegetarians and for possible ecological benefits. I'd pay more not to have to eat lab grown meat.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[nabsltd]

Some fake meats are bad, particularly the cheap rehydratable variety, but others taste OK. They are not my favourite option but if I eat with non-veg friends and the vegi option is a vegi-burger I will have it and enjoy it.

Why is it that vegetarians go to such lengths to procure food that tastes like meat but doesn't actually contain meat? If a vegetarian diet is so great, they wouldn't try to make their food taste like meat.

You don't see the rest of the population whining because their steak doesn't taste like tofu.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Anonymous Coward]

It needn't be slime, though. The obvious solution to that is some sort of horrid electrode array.

Weak-kneed members of the public will have to be kept away from the giant culture vats, where hideous amorphous flesh lumps, studded with electrodes, thrash and strain; but they should be able to get exactly as much exercise as they need, without becoming excessively tough.

The possibilities are endless!

"Hey Kids!

Sick of that boring old vat hamburger? Dive into Kraft's Ultracheese Burgernator! We genetically modified sentient meat into producing it's own cheese, which layers itself thick and rich with genuine Kraft-like flavor! We promise that it won't cause the zombie apocalypse!*

*Guarantees against the zombie apocalypse not guaranteed."

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Anonymous Coward]

For me, the idea of vat grown animal cells in some industrial version of pink slime meets soylent green elicits an big "ewww", and would not be something I'd ever eat.

Because there's nothing disgusting about the way most meat is grown today?

Re:Wouldnt want it

[ruir]

My late godfather and myself went into it because we believe it is a far sane way, and then there are others who proclaim their body is a temple. Of course it helps going without meat for decades for the yuck factor to kick in. I definitively am not into yet because of the animals, and I am not alone.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[ruir]

Vegetarians searching for products that taste like meat is more a western thing for ex-meat eaters, and many dont too; after 2 decades without eating meat, I too dont like even the smell of it. There have been vegetarians in India for thousand years, the first cow in Japan soil was killed in WWII by americans, and tofu has been made for 3 thousands years, without nobody caring if their food tastes like meat. Actually there also proofs Samurais were strictly vegetarians, the roman gladiators where mostly vegetarian (due to cost of meat and logistics of scale feeding large populations), and roman soldiers carried vegetarian alternatives as combat rations - spelt cakes for instance (because meat and fish would rot).

Re:Wouldnt want it

[bluefoxlucid]

I knew a girl who was very skinny... she became vegetarian and almost died. She resorted to eating only fish and vegetables because vegetarian diet would kill her. That happened over years of research, support groups, health spa meetings, general fraternization with vegetarians and vegans everywhere.

Me, I didn't bother. My immune system fails and I start getting open wounds and sores out of nowhere if I stop eating meat--after two weeks! So fuck that.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[ruir]

The problem is that most vegetarians also avoid processed foods, if you get my gist. Manufactured foods are not kosher for many vegetarians, like for instance india with an astonishing 90% of population being vegetarian.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Vegan Cyclist]

It's also to help people transition...would you be more likely to go vegetarian or vegan if you can continue eating familiar-tasting foods? It's also a good option for people trying to reduce calories (obesity is still a huge problem...pun intended.)

For me, i enjoy the occasional veggie burger or Gardein 'chicken nugget' because it's a fun, different flavor and texture. I'm not trying to eat 'chicken', and would also be fine if i never had it again. There's no doubt we enjoy certain flavors. If it can be done without harming another animal, why not?

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Gavagai80]

People naturally like a variety of tastes in their diet? Anyway, as an omnivore I actually like veggie burgers a lot -- I'll often eat them instead of meat burgers, though I'll eat both.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[D1G1T]

Only about 30% of Indians are Vegetarian. Chicken is very popular.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with current artificial meat products is that they don't taste like real meat.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[f()rK()_Bomb]

I'm pretty sure you can't assume your opinion applies to everyone. I agree with the original statement, as an omnivore, who does pay more for free range stuff than than factory farmed. You can be sure there are many more like me given the huge amount of organic and free range stuff in the supermarkets. I'm very interested to know why you would pay more to not eat lab grown meat, that is immensely mind-boggling.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Stuarticus]

Tell me about it, I know a guy, very tall, got into his car, crashed it and died! Every time I get into a car and drive it bumps into things all over the place!

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Stuarticus]

One reason for this that should be fairly obvious is that lots of recipes call for meat and as a lot of people on here have proven with their idiotic tales of "I turned vegetarian and my face melted because my diet was so unhealthy", finding good recipes and getting a healthy diet can be quite tricky at first. Also inour house if I am making something carnivorous for myself but vegetarian for my partner I can do everything the same except add quorn chicken or whatever, it's almost as efficient as doing one meal except double the dirty pans...

Re:Wouldnt want it

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes, but did he drive his car into a steel pylon at 100mph for ethical reasons? Are you going to be ethical and do the same, to decrease the damaging human population?

If I went vegan, I'd die. Slowly. Like someone dying of AIDS and leprosy at the same time.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Stuarticus]

The fact you believe that is may even make it true, however it is clearly absurd, there are millions of people eating a vegan diet and doing very well on it. I prefer a full balanced diet myself. If you were cooked a proper vegan diet and fed it every day you would be fine, you are not some special flower, your dietary requirements are the same as everyone else's.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[bluefoxlucid]

It's not absurd if it's true. Peoples' dietary needs and tolerances are highly variable; I know people who are vegetarian because they can't eat meat, it actually makes them physically ill on the level of a medical emergency (I suspect a red meat allergy, but I am not a doctor). I don't have a dietary fiber requirement--my optimum level of fiber is strikingly close to zero, and some 4 grams of dietary fiber without a substantial amount of animal grease in a day causes severe constipation. I don't need to avoid plants; I just need to avoid salad.

It's absurd that you think that people on one side of the world have the same dietary requirements as people on the other side of the world; it's still absurd that you think people on one side of the street have the same dietary requirements as their neighbors. In some parts of India, people are largely vegetarians; some of them eat insects as well, which is meat. Neanderthal man required at least 5000 calories per day to sustain, and had an incredibly long digestive tract; caucasian, asian, and negro man are quite physiologically different, and within these groups there are hundreds of variances. Some caucasians--a group largely raised on dairy, i.e. Europeans--are lactose intolerant by some damnable magic.

Those fallafels and rice cakes and red bean paste dishes and sweet potatoes are all nutrient rich, even protein rich, but they don't manage to give enough of what I need in a way that I can absorb it. Bioavailability of choline from soy is exceedingly poor--lack of choline will stunt neural development and reduce the amount of brain activity you can sustain. B12 is extremely rare in plants, but common in meat. Amino acids are readily available in meat, but they're available in different amounts and in different protein chains in plants--chains that don't always break down as effectively as those in meat. Fat is hard to find--avocados have plenty of it, that's about it.

The point is that "all the pieces are there" in the same way that all the pieces of a house are in the house next to mine, which was just demolished after tearing them down. Bricks, lumber, and mortar are readily useful; however I would have to scrape mortar from the bricks from the old house--doable--and use chemical resins and reagents to process wood and mortar into useful material--I'm not equipped for that. And of course much of the material is damaged (burned wood, contaminants, etc.), so I can't access it in any useful way at all.

Your haughty idea that we can slop the same nutrient-rich gruel in front of anyone and expect them all to grow up equally as healthy with no deviant impacts from their diet is pure delusion. It doesn't match with science, it doesn't match with anecdote, it doesn't match with the world around you if you stand back and look for a minute. You may as well claim the world is flat while you're at it.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[Stuarticus]

caucasian, asian, and negro man are quite physiologically different,

Where are from, the nineteenth century? The problems you personally experience are probably more a result of imbalanced gut flora from a life spent eating what sounds like a terrible diet. You'd probably find it would normalise quite quickly if you ate a decent diet. Good luck.

Re:Wouldnt want it

[bluefoxlucid]

My gut flora is fine. I drink a lot of lassi. My blood pressure, when sedentary, is usually 123/81 or thereabouts, up to 125/83, with a heart rate of 90-95 resting. When active--bicycling 200-400 miles per month--my heart rate eventually drops as low as 70-73 resting. I've hit 68 once. I maintain a weight between 142 and 158 at a height of 69 inches. Food-born illness has minor effect for 3-5 hours--I once ate raw ground meat, two burgers worth, which had been developing a rather ripe aroma for about two weeks... it gave me stomach pain for 5 very long hours, unlike raw chicken which gives me a headache and terrible gas when I'm unlucky--and influenza has once put me near-comatose for two to three days, otherwise been a relatively nasty head cold (I never vaccinate for seasonal illness; I am, however, overdue for tetanus and need to get that).

I consider myself in marginally fair physical health. Mental health is not something I can internally judge well; however, I have a mild obsession with rational evaluation, including a minor obsession with numbers and an odd tendency to be a bit too precise when possible. When psychotic, I dissociate into a directed collective consciousness to stay relatively stable; afterwards I make firm note not to let the doctors prescribe shit like Prednizone and Methylphenedate anymore, as it turns out I'm highly susceptible to drug-induced psychosis and that's less than thrilling. My indiscretion with what I eat stems from repeatable lack of consequences and thus an analysis of low risk, although every time I've had poorly-cooked chicken it's been because I tried to cook it right and simply failed; beef and fish simply haven't caused me too much trouble.

Are you trying to deny that various races are physiologically different? The fact that we can identify an Asian man or a black man from skeletal structure doesn't strike you as odd at all? How about the well-known fact that negroes have better heat tolerance and denser muscle structure, providing for better strength without so much bulk? Hell, even the hair--caucasians and asians have straight linked proteins, but only caucasians carry lighter pigmentation; negro hair is denser, and the cuticle links unevenly, which causes the curls and frizzy structure. Modern society of course has decided that negroes are uncomfortable, and so tried to Europeanize them--to the point that a radio host was fired after a customer complained that she should be more "normal" and put stuff into her hair to make it straight instead of frizzy.

Physiological differences from regional selection pressure. Dietary differences from regional selection pressure. Genetic mixing, mutations, normal chance selection. Environmental impacts causing normal variations in development. These create permanent, inherent differences in each person on the planet; some are small, and some are quite striking. Some are common and even normalized to an ethnic group; others are random and only significant on an individual level.

Beyond Meat

[Anonymous Coward]

A commercially available white-meat substitute made from plant proteins. Of course, just because it satisfies the spirit of the prize is no reason to award it...

Placing bets

[TimMD909]

I was always placing my bets on advertising the 5th piece from this: http://www.ted.com/talks/jack_... New slogan: "Gotta love getting some juicy tail at KFC!" Subheader: "For a limited time, get your tail with or without a bone!" Artificial chicken for the foreseeable future is as real as Robot Chicken.

Cat, the other white meat

[mendax]

As I sometimes say to my evil black cat when she gets a bit crazy and decides to sink her claws into me, "Cat, the other white meat." So far she hasn't worked.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Try explaining to your cat what happened, or did not happen, to Schrödinger's Cat.

It might, or might not, work.

Anyway, the UK used to have some artificial food stuff called Turkey Twizzlers that were kinda sorta artificial. But celebrity twat chef Jamie Oliver made a fuss about them, so they got banned from school lunches. Kids seemed to like them with chips (fries), though.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[cyborg_zx]

Anyway, the UK used to have some artificial food stuff called Turkey Twizzlers that were kinda sorta artificial.

I don't think they were artificial in any way - not any more than any other food - they were just made from all the bits of meat swept off the floor at Bernard Matthew's factory and that offended the sensibilities of the do-gooder middle class who are always shocked and appalled at what the working classes eat.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[RabidReindeer]

As I sometimes say to my evil black cat when she gets a bit crazy and decides to sink her claws into me, "Cat, the other white meat." So far she hasn't worked.

(Cat) "Human, the other fish meat."

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[gstoddart]

Or, because they don't think the working classes should be forced to eat the bits of meat swept off the floor of a factory because it's all they can afford.

Because, really:

Researchers in Mississippi examined chicken nuggets at two different fast-food chains and found that only about half of the nuggets were made of muscle meat
The rest of the nuggets were made of other chicken parts like fat, blood vessels, nerves, bones and cartilage

that's pretty nasty stuff.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[cyborg_zx]

Or, because they don't think the working classes should be forced to eat the bits of meat swept off the floor of a factory because it's all they can afford.

Not really. It's just a part and parcel of how "mission doc"'s work.

This pretty much sums it up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

that's pretty nasty stuff.

Why exactly other than a feeling that you don't like offal?

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[gstoddart]

It's not a question of me not liking offal (I don't eat meat, so I wouldn't eat it anyway).

Offal is organ meats, which still have nutritional value. But the blood, bone, cartilage, skin, beaks feet and bums ... that's not offal, that's awful.

I'd be less concerned about using gizzards and hearts than the junk they grind into a paste for these things.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[RabidReindeer]

It's not a question of me not liking offal (I don't eat meat, so I wouldn't eat it anyway).

Offal is organ meats, which still have nutritional value. But the blood, bone, cartilage, skin, beaks feet and bums ... that's not offal, that's awful.

I'd be less concerned about using gizzards and hearts than the junk they grind into a paste for these things.

I'll pass on the blood pudding and black sausage, but some of that stuff is what jello is made of. And pork cracklings are the next best thing to bacon when it comes to meat candy.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[Anonymous Coward]

Researchers in Mississippi examined chicken nuggets at two different fast-food chains and found that only about half of the nuggets were made of muscle meat
The rest of the nuggets were made of other chicken parts like fat, blood vessels, nerves, bones and cartilage

that's pretty nasty stuff.

Evidently not when in nugget form.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[cyborg_zx]

Exactly - gstoddart may very well choose not to eat any meat but the idea that because one considers a part of an animal "icky" implies that they are in any way fundamentally "bad" for human health is nothing more than bad reasoning - the same sort of bad reasoning that says slapping "organic" on a label makes the food fundamentally "good" for human health.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[bluefoxlucid]

Chicken of the rail yard.

Re:Cat, the other white meat

[RabidReindeer]

What do you call a pig's bum?

Ham.

Ah PETA...

[Mashiki]

Killing 90% of all the animals they take in while claiming to be an "ethical" organization. The sooner the sink into the dustbin of history along with various other wingnut organizations the better.

Re:Ah PETA...

[metamarmoset]

Quoting the daily mail should get you modded down, not up.

The daily mail has a long record for making up statistics and deliberately misunderstanding facts, so as to push an an agenda which includes anti-animal-welfare.

Also, you seem to have upped the statistics from 84% in one shelter (according to the mail) to 90% for all animals (according to you). Silly you.

Re:Ah PETA...

[Mashiki]

Quoting the daily mail should get you modded down, not up.

A-typical case of "boo hoo, I don't like the source," so I'll throw a fit over it even if it's correct. How odd that there's no shortage of other papers that have reported on exactly the same thing now is there. But don't worry, I didn't up the statistics. Rather I posted a singular story, but didn't directly apply it to one shelter. After all, even you could spend the 30 seconds to use google and find out that I'm still right.

Re:Ah PETA...

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoting the daily mail should get you modded down, not up.

The daily mail has a long record for making up statistics and deliberately misunderstanding facts, so as to push an an agenda which includes anti-animal-welfare.

Also, you seem to have upped the statistics from 84% in one shelter (according to the mail) to 90% for all animals (according to you). Silly you.

Still he did pretty well for a daily mail reader. He raised it above 84% but knew not to go above 100. It was also still connected with animal euthenasia. Many readers would have come up with something like "they machine gunned 120% of all the people who worked in the shelter".

Re:Ah PETA...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it with you people? Is it totally unimaginable that the pets that ends up at PETA are the un-adoptable ones - the ones that other shelters have turned away? So, in order to fit your very narrow and black-and-white worldview, PETA would have to magically "create" suitable families to adopt the pets. Face it, the world is a dark and hopeless place, and sometimes the most humane way to help is to euthanize. The other option would be for the pet to starve in a ditch somewhere.

Re:Ah PETA...

[RabidReindeer]

Quoting the daily mail should get you modded down, not up.

A-typical case of "boo hoo, I don't like the source," so I'll throw a fit over it even if it's correct. How odd that there's no shortage of other papers that have reported on exactly the same thing now is there. But don't worry, I didn't up the statistics. Rather I posted a singular story, but didn't directly apply it to one shelter. After all, even you could spend the 30 seconds to use google and find out that I'm still right.

The point is, that if there are more credible sources, use them. If a liar salts his lies with occasional truths, that doesn't entitle him to be considered a truthful source.

Re:Ah PETA...

[Anonymous Coward]

You are the one who's unethical. You'd rather left the animals to die by starvation or let them destroy the natural ecosystem.

Re:Ah PETA...

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a credible source. Daily Mail is less reliable than opening a can of alphabet soup and picking out facts.

The be clear: I've found similar numbers from real papers, so I happen to already know what you're saying is true-ish. If I didn't, I would dismiss it as a lie *because* it was published in Daily Mail.

Re:Ah PETA...

[fermion]

If this is true or not, it reminds me of the sacrifice of the giraffe in Copenhagen. Now, I am sure that many of us would rather live in captivity than be dead, but speaking for me captivity would not be such a good life. Here is the thing. I choose to minimize the number of animals that are necessary for me to kill to live. It is a choice and I don't expect others to make the same choice. I realize that some people think it their right to maximize the destruction. That is OK. But, unlike those that fight PETA, I realize that an animal is an animal and a human is human and that those things are different, so I am not going to fight PETA on the basis that killing an animal is the same as killing a human, or that some animal deaths, like some human deaths, are acceptable. I don't think even PETA claims to want to stop all animal deaths, any more than evangelical Christians want to stop all human deaths. Many, for instance, support the death penalty, and many in the us support stand your ground laws. In both cases there is a thoughtful process by which we examine and take responsibility for our impact on the world. The later is the critical thing. Take responsibility for your actions.

Re:Ah PETA...

[operagost]

This has been reported by media outlets you probably like, such as Huffington Post, so dispense with poisoning the well and admit PETA is an extremist organization.

Re:Ah PETA...

[hawkinspeter]

If someone quotes the Daily Mail to me, I'll just disregard their argument without bothering to check if it's one of the very occasional accurate articles. If someone quotes a more credible source, then I'll take time to investigate.

To be honest, you'd be better off quoting some drunk who's living homeless on the street rather than the Daily Mail as the drunk wouldn't bother to twist everything to fit an evil agenda.

Re:Ah PETA...

[Sockatume]

The Daily Mail is an anti-source: facts uniquely found there are more likely to be wrong than right, so using it tends to count against your argument.

Re:Ah PETA...

[Anonymous Coward]

^_ Thoughtful response from a well read person.

They got a lot of mileage out of that unspent $1m

[ReallyEvilCanine]

The prize was bogus to begin with, as explained in this Slate article from 2008. In short, it wouldn't be paid out unless the contestant was selling a ton of the stuff in stores and restaurants across 10 states over three months... at the same price as real chicken.

Science prizes are supposed to encourage development of things not yet commercially viable; this was a phony small tip for someone already successful. "Phony", because even if someone had the breakthrough needed on the day after this was announced, there's no way in hell that it could be approved for use and on market shelves in time to meet even the extended deadline.

And then there were the contest requirements, including full disclosure of ingredients and methods (trade secrets), carte blanche use of any- and everything related for PeTA's promotional purposes, rules subject to change without notice, and so on.

This was never a serious offer, just serious marketing, something PeTA mastered long ago. This "prize" retraction just got them some more free air time and, no doubt, some new members & donations... saith an older and hopefully wiser former member & supporter.

Why, oh why ?

[alexhs]

Aren't chicken nuggets artificial enough already ?

Re:Why, oh why ?

[davester666]

*may have once been in close proximity to a real dead chicken.

Re:Why, oh why ?

[gstoddart]

Oh, it's made from '100% real chicken'. It's just not "meat" in any sense most of us would recognize.

You take all the leftover parts, puree them, add fillers and binders, stick 'em back together -- it's just the parts of the chicken with little or no nutritional value.

They can still call it chicken, and it isn't artificial. But if someone gave you a pile of what it really is (either before or after they grind it up), you sure wouldn't eat it.

Re:Why, oh why ?

[Quimo]

McDonaldsâ(TM) uses 100% chicken breasts for its chicken nuggets for both the US and Canada (I suspect for the rest of the world as well but I donâ(TM)t know that for certain.) That does unfortunately mean they use the skin as part of it but once in a while it is not bad to have some chicken nuggets. Some of the cheaper supermarket varieties do use mechanically separated chicken but if you look at the package it is listed there and you can avoid those.

Re:Why, oh why ?

[Anonymous Coward]

They can still call it chicken, and it isn't artificial. But if someone gave you a pile of what it really is (either before or after they grind it up), you sure wouldn't eat it.

I wouldn't eat a pile of soy beans either.

Re:Why, oh why ?

[Anonymous Coward]

McD claims they aren't:

Re:Why, oh why ?

[Reziac]

Oh, now I understand: Chicken nuggets are actually homeopathic chicken!

impossible

[confused one]

impossible deadline to create something which will be entirely too expensive to manufacture and will have a very limited market given the price of a real chicken is only a few dollars.

Damn those evil PETA people

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare they expose what really happens to the animals you eat... they're evil, just evil. And hypocrite too.

(There, that lets me off the hook, now I can go back to paying people to torture and kill animals so I can eat them, and convince myself I'm a 'good' person...)

Re:They got a lot of mileage out of that unspent $

[phantomfive]

it wouldn't be paid out unless the contestant was selling a ton of the stuff in stores and restaurants across 10 states over three months... at the same price as real chicken.

Wow, you're not kidding. If you've got that, you've got revenue much higher than $1million, and are probably readying for a billion dollar IPO.

Fun exercise

[phantomfive]

Find some vegetarian, and ask them if they would eat meat if it came from artificial means. If they're the type that doesn't eat meat because they feel sorry for animals, they will get a really confused look on their face, say, "well, uh......" and say something very entertaining and random. That's not something they think about normally.

Re:Fun exercise

[Chrisq]

Find some vegetarian, and ask them if they would eat meat if it came from artificial means. If they're the type that doesn't eat meat because they feel sorry for animals, they will get a really confused look on their face, say, "well, uh......" and say something very entertaining and random. That's not something they think about normally.

There are all sorts of motivations - environmental, concern for animals, religious, or ethical based on a relative valuation of animal lives that differs from the norm. All will have different reactions to this. Some may also have a yuck factor - just the same as many carnivores would have if offered a meal of cultured human tissue - and may say that though logically they can't object, they wouldn't want to try it.

Re:Fun exercise

[Sockatume]

Wouldn't a human being who was a carnivore fall down dead from malnutrition pretty quickly? Everyone I know is an omnivore.

Re:Fun exercise

[Chrisq]

Wouldn't a human being who was a carnivore fall down dead from malnutrition pretty quickly? Everyone I know is an omnivore.

Yes I meant omnivore - though on the carnivore question I don't know. I believe Inuits were traditionally carnivores for most of the year, so I don't think you would suffer from malnutrition quickly, if you ever would.

Re:Fun exercise

[Sockatume]

Well now I'm clearly going to have to spend all afternoon looking up how the Inuit diet works, physiologically.

Re:Fun exercise

[Sockatume]

I'm pretty sure one of the senior scientists in last year's artificial burger project was involved exactly because he was a vegetarian who wanted to eat artificial meat.

Re:Fun exercise

[Muad'Dave]

There was research into whether carbs were "essential"; that is, if the human body could not synthesize anything it needed instead of getting it from carbs. The result - carbs are NOT essential. You can get everything you need from being a carnivore. I can't find the paper right now, but it was written a long time ago by a doc that put people on different diets for 30+ days to find out what was/wasn't essential.

Re:Fun exercise

[swb]

Inuit diets were up to 90% fat. High protein, low-fat diets are associated with "rabbit starvation", a phrase derived from a phenomenon of hunter-gatherers only being able to obtain rabbit meat and eating until they were distended but still being hungry due to inadequate fat consumption.

Gary Taubes writes about an experiment run in the 1920s where two men ate an all-meat diet. About the only consequence they could find from this was that one man's gingivitis cleared up.

He also writes about an anthropological study that found no "stone age" diets that were vegetarian, most were very high in animal protein and fat.

It's believed that prior to organized agriculture (which is very recent in terms of human history) that humans diets were dominated by meat eating. Outside of the tropics, native plants and fruits are seasonal and have a limited natural availability.

Re:Fun exercise

[hawkinspeter]

That's an interesting question as it will separate vegetarians into different groups according to their reasons for eating vegetarian. A lot of people assume that vegetarians are a single group with a shared set of beliefs and aims, but that's not the case at all. I'm a pescetarian (vegetarian with fish) for a whole bunch of reasons: health, resource usage, mistrust of modern animal husbandry etc.

Animal welfare is not a major concern for me (although I like animals and abhor cruelty), but I think I would abstain from lab-grown meat as I'm not convinced that it would necessarily be a healthy addition to my diet. I'd wait until there were some positive reasons to eat lab-grown meat as I'm not convinced that it would be anything other than a rich-person's food and thus not sustainable world-wide.

Re:Fun exercise

[Chrisq]

Well now I'm clearly going to have to spend all afternoon looking up how the Inuit diet works, physiologically.

I've had a look too and some sites seem to say that to thrive on a carnivorous diet the chewing of raw blubber was essential as some vitamins degrade when cooked.

Re:Fun exercise

[Sockatume]

Fat-soluble vitamins, maybe? I wasn't being facetious, I'm dangerously close to losing an afternoon on reading up on restricted diets here.

Re:Fun exercise

[50000BTU_barbecue]

No, why would they? The Inuit people do just fine eating nothing but meat and so did Vilhjalmur Stefansson when he tried it.

Re:Fun exercise

[Rich0]

Well now I'm clearly going to have to spend all afternoon looking up how the Inuit diet works, physiologically.

I can't imagine that humans are obligate omnivores. For the most part you need a more complex digestive system to live without meat - living only on meat should be a lot simpler. I'm sure there are meat sources of vitamins, and if not there are always pills.

Re:Fun exercise

[retchdog]

Huh? When I was a vegan, I'd have immediately said 'yes' to that question.

On the other hand, one of the primary benefits of being a vegan was that I had to reevaluate my diet and make conscious choices. I suppose if artificial animal products existed, I wouldn't have had that benefit. Nonetheless, I'd rather they did exist. I would hopefully have learned self-control some other way.

Re:Fun exercise

[phantomfive]

Well that's actually a fairly interesting reaction, though it's definitely different than that of someone raised as a vegetarian.

Re:Fun exercise

[bluefoxlucid]

Are you the chick from my voice class a few years back?

Re:Fun exercise

[hawkinspeter]

Probably not. Being male and everything. Also, voice class?

Re:Fun exercise

[bluefoxlucid]

Yes, an elective to fill a slot in college with a useful personal development skill.

Re:Fun exercise

[liquidsin]

Have yourself a look at the diet of the Maasai; meat, milk, and blood - all raw. Some groups eat small quantities of fruits and veg, some do not.

Efficency?

[Blaskowicz]

I have trouble believing artificial meat would be remotely competitive in terms of nutrients use and various supporting chemical agents, energy inputs, costs of installation, maintenance and even the need for an artificial immunological system.

Chicken are incredibly efficient, and their eggs are even more efficient, this is reflected in the low price of the meat and eggs. Yeah I've had a philosophy that when fossil fuels aren't directly involved, cheaper is mostly synonymous with ecological.
It's possible that successful artificial meat on a massive scale would lead to more resource depletion and more global warming, in my mind. It would perhaps create incredibly resistant, "superbug" viruses or bacteria. I'm not terribly concerned with killing chicken in that scheme.

What certainly could be done is regulation to give way more space for the hen / chicken, small tariff on imports from countries that don't have a strong enough regulation yet. Yes, regulations, I hope that doesn't sound too evil and bureaucratic (weird how digiliently global regulations on IP are made up and applied yet libertarian corporate overlords don't bitch about them).

Re:Efficency?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we don't know what technologies the future holds. That's the point. Sure, with our current knowledge, we have trouble believing that these ideas are viable, but that's usually true of any inventions or discoveries that are even moderately impressive.

weird how digiliently global regulations on IP are made up and applied yet libertarian corporate overlords don't bitch about them

Libertarian corporate overlords largely don't exist. Corporate overlords mostly just do and say anything that will benefit them, and it just so happens that they like pretending to be conservative/libertarian/whatever. Of course, as you pointed out, their support of imaginary property reveals them for the hypocrites they are.

Re:Efficency?

[Alejux]

First of all, what may be expensive now, could be much cheaper than actually raising chickens in a few decades. It's just a matter of perfecting the methods of mass production. Second of all, you missed the whole point of making artificial chickens, which is to avoid cruelty. 99% of the chickens consumed in the world are not happy chickens that roam around free in their pens, but rather they're raised their entire lives in little cubicles. This type of cruelty will no longer be needed if we're able to just grow their meat.

Re:Efficency?

[operagost]

No, he didn't miss the whole point. YOU missed this sentence:

What certainly could be done is regulation to give way more space for the hen / chicken, small tariff on imports from countries that don't have a strong enough regulation yet.

Just like the Proof of Evolution prizes

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many restrictions and additional requirements. PETA made a big deal of no one doing it after making quite sure that it could not be done within their own parameters. And it seems that just in case, they threw in a 'requirements subject to change' clause?

Re:They got a lot of mileage out of that unspent $

[Sockatume]

Alternatively, they genuinely thought we had a meat replacement ready to go and were just refusing to use it out of pettiness or evil. Given the way PETA talk about their ideological opponents it seems alarmingly plausible to me.

And I thought PETA stood for

[Anonymous Coward]

And I thought PETA stood for Please Eat The Animals

Fuck PETA

[Opportunist]

If animals were not meant to be eaten they wouldn't be so damn tasty.

Re:Fuck PETA

[drinkypoo]

PEOPLE EATING TASTY ANIMALS

Fuck domain-stealing PETA. Fuck them right in their thieving, lying asses. #neverforget :p

Re:Fuck PETA

[horm]

Yeah, FUCK BETA! ...wait.

Better use for money?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they found a better use for the money? Like starting wars and helping people kill each other?

Tyson

[EzInKy]

Tyson has the artificial chicken market cornered. Seriously, try cooking up one of their birds and see if it actually taste like chicken. They are the reason why brining and marinating has become necessary before you can consume breast meat.

Yes PETA's prize was always irrelevant

[Anonymous Coward]

PETA could best promote artificial meat by simply asking their *major* donors :
"Would you be interested in providing venture capital to an artificial meat startup?"

And they should post a page on artificial meat that says "Any scientists, engineers, or entrepreneurs interested in developing artificial meat should contact PETA representative [NAME & EMAIL] to be introduced to venture capitalists with similar desires."

Just introducing a couple rich guys who hate animal cruelty and a few scientists working on the problem will accomplish more than any prize.

Re:Yes PETA's prize was always irrelevant

[khallow]

Just introducing a couple rich guys who hate animal cruelty and a few scientists working on the problem will accomplish more than any prize.

Depends how big the prize is and what those people end up doing. Also, I'd have to favor the results-oriented reward over the process-oriented reward.

A million bucks?

[Chas]

Well, yeah. Not that I'm sure a million bucks wouldn't be useful to SOMEONE.

But for the kinds of heavy-duty R&D and vetting required for food products? That's a drop in the bucket.

Quorn

[DrXym]

If you want a chicken like texture then eat quorn. It tastes remarkably close and has a similar texture. It's not so good as a substitute for other kinds of meat though. Not that I have any qualms about eating meat but some vegetarian alternatives are quite nice in their own right and just for a bit of variety.

Re:Quorn

[DiamondGeezer]

Quorn is fine just so long as you're not violently allergic to it and realise that it's artificially fortified because it is naturally low on vitamins and minerals.

Re:Quorn

[DrXym]

People are violently allergic to lots of things. People are allergic to soy too. I'm not sure how it matters for people who are NOT allergic and a casual reading of the evidence suggests that the CSPI is vastly inflating the risk possibly due to a conflict of interest.

Re: Quorn

[Anonymous Coward]

Bad grammar: You meant "Chickens, they have down."

Re:Quorn

[garyebickford]

Amusing - according to Wikipedia, egg albumin is used as a binder. Oops, not so vegan after all!

hhah

[MrShaggy]

Mock Bock??

Why the prize went unclaimed. The true story.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

This is the true reason the prize went unclaimed: A lonely researcher from a poor religiously vegetarian family from the South Indian town of Saivakkadu developed such a chicken and was about to claim the prize. But Tyson food spies found out about it, bought the invention from the inventor by out bidding PETA and have rolled the process into production some three years ago. Suddenly all those animal cruelty sneak videos from the chicken farms reduced greatly in volume. Coincidence? I think not. Tyson finds it far more profitable to peddle vegetarian lab grown petri dish meat as the real thing instead of selling it to wimpy vegetarians susceptible to temptation as ethical meat. Look how uniform all those chicken legs and thighs packed in plastic. Nature is going to be that uniform?

Think about it people. Lab meat is here. On your table. Already.

Re:Why the prize went unclaimed. The true story.

[Anonymous Coward]

And there were many sneaky videos from chicken farms, but there are *none* of this lab meat in production? Sure...

The poet said it best:

[grunter]

"Man has never really built a decent chicken" - Kehlog Albran, The Profit

Already There

[amiga3D]

The chickens they mass produce today are artificial. They're so full of synthetic hormones and other chemicals they grow to 5 pounds or more in 6 weeks. I used to raise chickens when I was a kid and the average chicken breast in the store today weighs almost as much as an entire fryer from my flock used to. It's incredible. I flipped through a poultry catalog and they have things like "brandX." BrandX has to have special supplements in it's feed so their legs don't break because they weigh too much too fast for their bone structure.

Re:Already There

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but they have no flavor. And it's not chemicals as much as the selective breeding. Also, eggshells are much thinner than they used to be. Probably a selected trait as well. You know, so it doesn't cost as much in supplements for the chicken to grow a thicker shell.

Quorn

[Anonymous Coward]

Quorn already is indistinguishable from chicken. Seriously try some, it's cheaper and you won't be able to tell the difference. Red meat is harder, but chicken they have down.

OMG

[Anonymous Coward]

OMG, ya'll are so funny, it's like no one ever said that before in every single conversation where vegetarian comes up. It's like it's not one of the literal first defensive things to say because you feel guilty that someone else can do something you obviously can't. Har har...you're such a real big guffaw inducing blastoma.

Re:OMG

[Opportunist]

Guilty? For what?

I'm not guilty, I'm fed up. Yes I eat meat. Yes I know the animals were treated poorly, lived like sardines in too small cages, stood in their own feces, were transported thousands of miles without food or water to be brutally murdered with a hammer or worse, then cut open while still alive and so on.

Can I now continue my steak or did I forget anything you were about to lecture me with?

Vegetarianism seems to be some sort of messianic religion. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind people who don't eat meat. Just like I don't mind people who think it's necessary to drag their body once a week on the only day they could sleep in to some church to score some points in the afterlife. To each their own, and everyone should live the way that makes them happy.

Personally, I think it does NOT make them happy, though. It makes them miserable, and at the same time jealous of the people who don't follow their self imposed creed. So they feel the urge to convert the unbeliever because if everyone is miserable together, it's a bit less painful.

Fuck that. If you don't want to eat meat for $reason, do it. But stop the preaching. It's not your position to tell anyone else how to live their life if they don't want to hear about it. It's bad enough that you can fill your children's ears with your messianic voice.

Re:OMG

[drinkypoo]

It's like it's not one of the literal first defensive things to say because you feel guilty that someone else can do something you obviously can't.

If PETA were in the right, they wouldn't be PETA.

It gets worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Anybody that is on the fense about PETA needs to watch this. I'll rattle off a few points off the top of my head:

1. They oppose animal testing, but one of their C-men has had life saving surgery that involved an animal implant.
2. They oppose killing animals, yet have euthanized more animals than they have saved.
3. They believe animals should be given equal rights to humans. That's right, they're not pets, they're not companions, they're citizens. Lets give Fido a drivers license and send him off to prom.
4. As a public organization, you can look at their purchases in depth. What use could they possibly have for a full-size walk-in meat freezer? Do they honestly need that much ice cream? The only real use is, of course, for storage of meat, or the freezing of animals. Ethical my ass.

There are a lot of good points in that show. I'd wager that the reason nobody took PETA up on the offer of $1 million is because nobody in their right mind would want to be associated with such an organization.

Re:It gets worse

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets give Fido a drivers license and send him off to prom.

I distrust PETA as much as the next person, but even humans aren't just handed a driver's license. Despite evidence to the contrary (ie, all the assholes on the road that don't seem to know how to drive), humans do still need to pass a test before the state will give them a driver's license. So presumably, canine citizens would still need to pass some kind of test, right?

Peanuts

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's your giant warning about peanuts, coconuts, insert x here? Seems like you contributed just to see your own words on the screen, because that's such a useless comment. I don't see mom's up in arms over fortified cereals or milk which has been fortified with vitamin D. Stop being such an uninformed industry shill.

PETA is not the org to award this prize

[Applehu Akbar]

You can bet that as soon as some inventor hands a plate of vat-grown chicken to PETA and claims the prize, that PETA's general membership will turn it down as being "artificial." The foodies will spurn it for the same reason, no matter how good the taste becomes, and will have loads of fun ridiculing it in the fashion-magazine columns and on their obscure little cable channels.

  When such meats are made, they will appeal to people who are concerned specifically about the ethics of factory farming, and will probably win some of these folks back from vegetarianism. But PETA, no.

Try McDonald's

[slapout]

Have they talked to fast food companies? I'm pretty sure some of the stuff they sell isn't really meat.

Chicken pot pie!

[Megane]

When we were young, Bernie's Deli was down the block
(Ooh ooh ooh ooh)
He made a great liver pâté
(You know he did, you know he did, you know he did)
But if there's one thing in this world that I like better
Than a corned beef on rye

It's Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken Pot Pie

(chorus of chicken-cluck imitations)

Keep your crummy appetizers
Don't want no turnip-flavored fries
Or mustard pizza squares
Sorry but they don't compare!

(chicken-clucks)

(instrumental)

He made a great tuna soufflé
(You know he did, you know he did, you know he did)
But if this fast food-eating world in which we live in
Leaves you hungry and dry

There's Chicken Pot Pie
Chicken Pot Pie

(chicken-clucks, fade out)

Fuck PETA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll be damned if I'll have some spoiled 1% bitch tell me what to eat.

Protest at Sturgis

[jabberw0k]

It would be worth a ticket to see PETA protest leather at the annual motorcycle festival.

Say what?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was assured we are on the cusp of the 3D printing revolution. Artificial meat, I was told, is the same thing as artificial organs. What happened? No one needs an artificial chicken because we all have 3D printers at home?

They didn't really care

[RogueWarrior65]

They've been brow-beating Americans to stop eating meat so those who were, in one way or another, influenced by that campaign turned to chicken when what PETA really wanted was for everyone to become a miserable vegan. I guess they missed the memo that explained that PETA stands for People Eating Tasty Animals.

Re:They got a lot of mileage out of that unspent $

[Anonymous Coward]

The prize was bogus to begin with[.]

It doesn't matter since the idea is bogus to begin with. Abusing chickens using existing infrastructure is by far the cheapest option. If it wasn't, the massive ag industry would have already scienced up the cheaper meat analog.

I say again: The profits to be made from raising *meat cells* would have already prompted the industry to replace the industrial chicken animal. Therefore under current technology and infrastructure, meat cells aren't profitable. Q.E.D.

People need to understand what a market is and what it does. In this case, it has ALREADY chosen the cheapest and most effective option. Offering a "prize" for another options is literally the stupidest thing you could do.

Eat celebrities

[Sockatume]

There's a joke site about setting up a cloned-celeb-meat sausage co:

http://motherboard.vice.com/en...

scaffold of chicken breast cells..

[strstr]

What PETA was probably hoping for, that some med tech company developing artificial organs growing cells on scaffolds would take their technology and use it to create food instead.

Essentially growing chicken breast cells into a scaffold that's shaped like a chicken patty, or chicken breast for BBQ. I am surprised no one took these guys offer up to do this for $1 million, because this is the future of meat production, growing only the parts necessary for a particilar purpose or meal. Meat itself I think will also gradulally get replaced with more and more vegetables, while pesticides are replaced with artificial environmentally controlled facilities in order to grow a perfect crop year round every time..

Benefits of scaffold meat: no animals harmed, no disease if product is kept clean. Can be grown in space and no need for large animal feed/care facilities/land use drops, etc.

What would we do with the real chickens?

[jfdavis668]

If we stop eating chickens, what would we do with the ones we have? No farmer is going to feed them for no purpose. There are no natural habitats for them. If you stop eating chicken and eggs, it would be species genocide.

You found me, and I'd do it

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted I'm a biased sample because I'm already on Slashdot, but as an ethics-motivated vegetarian I would totally jump at the chance to eat fake meat. I wasn't born vegetarian and miss the taste sometimes, but would feel the same kind of remorse you would if you ate a human.

read before you decide who they are

[houghi]

PETA's Secret Slaughter of Kittens, Puppies. Just to let you know that they might not always be what they claim to be.

I am against animal cruelty (mostly because it ruins the taste of the meat) but I am more against hypocracy.

When asked to explain this, PETA posted...

[theendlessnow]

PETA has posted a video response to questions concerning the abandonment of the award here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

While the whole presentation is packed full of interesting parts and pieces, the final question is where the truth finally takes roost.

Francisco

[Anonymous Coward]

It is surprising to discover the progress and direction taken by science in human development continuity.
Continued population increase causes decrease resources and human ingenuity for it tries to solve the problem, the solutions presented are controversial in some cases, but certainly end up being accepted.
Regards from Tot Dental

People Eating....

[carbonUnit42]

Terraformed Animals* *TM Pending

Gardein is already there

[TheSync]

For chicken, I feel Gardein is pretty much already there with soy protein isolate. No real need to culture animal cells.

Steak & Fish a bit more challenging to pull off though...

Re:They got a lot of mileage out of that unspent $

[ReallyEvilCanine]

Abusing chickens using existing infrastructure is by far the cheapest option. If it wasn't, the massive ag industry would have already scienced up the cheaper meat analog.

That rationale is why we only get energy from horses... I mean steam... I meant oil...

It's also why we still can't fly heavier-than-air craft. Well, not more than a few hundred feet... certainly not distances over 100 miles...
OK, well definitely not across oceans...
Fine, but flying them for days on end is utterly impossible

This comment was a lot cleaner and cleverer with the <s[trike]> tag, no longer available on /.

I think you are the one with the Strawman

[Chrisq]

Not defending them, but it's not murder unless they're killing humans. "Slaughtered" would be a better word to use.

Feel free to show me where PETA as an organization has suggested similar penalties for eating animals as for willful cannibalism -- life in prison presumably. Saying that they want animals treated as people is an oversimplification which makes for an easy strawman.

legally yes ... but sometimes its nice to judge people by their own criteria

You are the one bringing up the strawman. The claim is that "killing animals is murder", which PETA claim in the link.

A strawman is an argument that you bring up yourself just to defeat that the other party does not old. - for example suggesting " similar penalties for eating animals as for willful cannibalism", not sticking with exactly what they say.

Correction from a Vegan

[Anonymous Coward]

Not intentionally AC here, but Slashdot login is broken (keeps redirecting me to asking me not to use NoScript....which I don't).

Veganism is about avoiding animal products because the way the animals are treated is cruel, not because of whether or not animals like us. Human meat would be vegan if the human has given you consent to eat it.

Also a slight correction on your comment:

Chickens will lay eggs regardless, but cows produce milk for calves (just like most humans), and without having a baby they will stop producing as much milk as the consumer demands. The pain comes from over breeding and hormones which force them to produce massive amounts of milk (to make it cheap).

Sheep managed for thousands of years without us sheering them, they'll survive without us (especially if we don't transport them around the world to unnatural climates).

You most certainly do not suffer more in your car than a farm animal in today's industrial farms, not even those falling under the marketing term of "free range", though you are correct that the problem here is humans.

p.s Wow, this comment system is terrible.