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Lab-Grown Meat Is In Your Future, and It May Be Healthier Than the Real Stuff (smh.com.au)

Posted by msmash on from the grow-your-own-meat dept.

An anonymous reader shares an article on The Sydney Morning Herald:Scientists and businesses working full steam to produce lab-created meat claim it will be healthier than conventional meat and more environmentally friendly. But how much can they improve on old-school pork or beef? In August 2013, a team of Dutch scientists showed off their lab-grown burger (cost: $435,000) and even provided a taste test. Two months ago, the American company Memphis Meats fried the first-ever lab meatball (cost: $23,700 per pound). Those who have tasted these items say they barely differ from the real deal. The Dutch and the Americans claim that within a few years lab-produced meats will start appearing in supermarkets and restaurants. And these are not the only teams working on cultured meat (as they prefer to call it). Another company, Modern Meadow, promises that lab-grown "steak chips" -- something between a potato chip and beef jerky -- will hit the stores in the near future, too.

8 of 274 comments (clear)

  1. And better for the enviroment by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If they can get this to work it will also be better for the environment in terms of energy use, CO2 and methane production. Right now, my wife and I are both not complete vegetarians but very rarely eat any form of meat. This is for ethical, environmental and financial reasons. In her case, she'd be probably pretty happy never eating meat, whereas I've got a strong craving for it generally that is a little annoying. I'm really looking forward to vat meat.

    1. Re:And better for the enviroment by StikyPad · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm not a vegetarian, and I don't necessarily have any ethical qualms with killing and eating animals, but if I could eat meat without killing an animal most of the time and save energy in the process, I'm good with that.

      --
      https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
    2. Re:And better for the enviroment by jeremyp · · Score: 3, Interesting

      From TFA

      a 2011 study calculated that growing meat in labs would cut down on the land required to produce steaks, sausages and bacon by 99 per cent and reduce the associated need for water by 90 per cent. What's more, it found that a pound of lab-created meat would produce much less polluting greenhouse-gas emissions than is produced by cows and pigs, even poultry.

      Who to believe? An AC on Slashdot or a proper scientific study?

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
    3. Re: And better for the enviroment by ljw1004 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Vegetarianism a current fad?

      I'm not sure how to reconcile your claim with it being the dominant diet in the Indian subcontinent for millennia....

  2. No GMO but FrankenBeef OK? by Registered+Coward+v2 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It will be interesting to see how this plays out with the public, especially in areas such as the EU that have come out strongly against GMO foodstuffs. Will they accept completely synthetically produced food? I would imagine farmers would oppose this simply because it threatens their very existence; with some producing "real" food at expensive prices so that having a real steak becomes a luxury item.

    --
    I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
    1. Re:No GMO but FrankenBeef OK? by houghi · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As a European I am against GMO, but not perhaps for the standard reasons people think.

      I would first like the Copyright and Trademark issues dropped (not solved, dropped) before looking at the health issues.
      And concerning the health issues: I do not trust companies with my and even more important humanities health. They have shown again and again that they can not be trusted with things like that. And the comparisons that are made are good for your small farmer, but not when you start looking at a world level. Monoculture is only one of the disadvantages.

      The companies already are unwilling to be clear with food and health as we speak, so why should I trust them? Till now they do not deserve that trust and I do not see anything changing in that.

      To me health of myself and my species is a tad more important than the new cars of some CEO.

      So first give up the rights to food and then we will see about the health part as then the incentive to cheat the system and screw over the public are much, much lower.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
  3. Actually healthier or too clean? by yakumo.unr · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Will it really be healthier? or will it's lab grown nature actually be terrible for us in the long run, I'm thinking along the lines of the bacterial diversification we are finding we need in our gut to be truly healthy, or the way we're finding growing up in overly clean environments compromises our immune systems.
    I think growing meat is a great step forward, but I'm not free of concern.

  4. Not necessarily good for the planet, though by BoRegardless · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Numbers of real world tests have shown the need for real world herbivores to inhabit valleys to keep the vegetation growing properly on the land. Introducing herds of sheep roaming a rather vegetation depleted land resulted in dramatic vegetation growth.

    Of course, when you fence off, kill off and replace herbivores with chemical agents for plant growth, fungicides, herbicides, etc, then you don't need the herbivores.

    Life is increasingly becoming 'artificial.'