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Lab-Grown Meat Is In Your Future, and It May Be Healthier Than the Real Stuff (smh.com.au)
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.
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.
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.
Pretty sure in the future we will probably be eating each other. Human will be the cheapest & readiest available meat to be found.
Be seeing you...
The article says it would cut down land use for farm animals by 99%, but you can't make meat without some raw materials. Its hard for me to imagine they don't require some equivalent biological feed into the process, so that matter has to come from somewhere. Fish?
Currently all parts of an animal are used, so we get all the different cuts, and lower grade meat too. We won't stop killing animals until we get all the products we need from other sources.
Obviously, with cultured meat, nobody need suffer the lower grade cuts! But when cooked correctly, they can have their own unique flavours.
Also, I hope it will be more than just beef being made, in the long run. We can open up manufacturing of all types of meat that are rarer now - Zebra, Alligator, Sloth, Human, etc.
However I fear it will lead to less choice in the long run, unless you pay a lot lot more for real meat. Good for the environment though, meat production isn't exactly an efficient use of agricultural resource.
I wonder just how low the cost of cultured meat can go?
If it tastes the same, I'd probably eat it.
But at $435,000 per burger, I might have to go for the combo-meal deal.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Every last bit of lab-created swill that has been released has had the phrase "May be healthier than the Real Stuff" attached to it. It's all been a lie, every time.
* Heart-Attack inducing trans fat (margarine vs. butter)
* Low-Fat anything (with sugars and thickening agents added in to replace the missing flavor and texture)
* "Vegetable" Oil - industrial crap like cottonseed oil
* Nutrasweet
Seriously, just eat real food. There's too many people to afford real food? Maybe we should be aggressively attacking the other side of that equation.
It would make sense that manufactured meat could be healthier and tastier than meat slaughtered from animals.
Quality meat comes from animals which are Happy and Healthy (Who should only have one bad day in their life) (Less toxins from stress), and live a rather passive life without much exercise (more tender meat). This is hard combination to perform. Lab Grown meat can be grown without stressing an animal and exercising it. creating a good quality meat without the bad stuff.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Meat flavor is about the fat. Go make a burger witb steak tartar if you don't believe me. Cook it without oil in a teflon pan, and no mayo or cheese.
This "perfect burger" is completely gross.
I even had a perfect, fatless, medium rare filet mignon from a snooty but clueless restaurant, no bacon wrap, no blue cheese crumbles, no cream sauce.
Completely gross.
These lab guys even said they had to add fat to the lab grown meat the first time this came up last year.
Lose the meat and come up with some other much tastier and healthier and no-calorie substrate to pour fat on.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
But sure as hell not in mine.
Not sure about the rest of us though
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.
No thanks. I'll stick with the real thing. I'm not eating anything that was born in a petri dish. How many times have we heard over the years that this or that man made thing (ex. margarine) is supposed to be better for you only to find out the opposite? Yeah....gimme a grass fed steak any day.
Perhaps we should stop calling it "lab-grown" meat (or even worse, "in vitro" meat). Perhaps "cultured" meat might be a better term.
Proverbs 21:19
Moo, moo. Cows.
Have gnu, will travel.
I like this idea for creating ground or processed meat products: hamburgers, brats, chicken strips, chicken nuggets, bacon, jerkey. I don't think we will get to a point where you are lab-growing a pork chop, a steak, or an entire turkey leg. Would these products be kosher? vegan? Is it still an animal product if it doesn't come from an animal?
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
Feeding livestock chemically synthesized feed would also cut environmental impact. https://slashdot.org/journal/2...
Would you like to add fries and a soda to that for only $0.49 more?
No way; everyone knows that's where they rip you off and make most of their profit!
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.'
This is only a surprise to people that have given up on self-reliance and no longer cook for themselves.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
GMOs are bad enough, and with the GMO genie already having escaped from it's bottle, it's too late to even worry about anymore (GMOs will either ruin us or they won't, nothing can stop that now). 'Lab-grown meat', though? At least it can't infect the genome of meat animals. We'll just have to wait and see if this lab-grown stuff ends up ruining people's health.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
How will this contribute to MeatHab?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I'm surprised they don't just play the cancer card at that point. Your vegans must have a poor understanding of Darwinism.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I like this idea for creating ground or processed meat products: hamburgers, brats, chicken strips, chicken nuggets, bacon, jerkey. I don't think we will get to a point where you are lab-growing a pork chop, a steak, or an entire turkey leg.
I think you're getting at a major point I think about: texture. Meat gets its texture from exercise and marbled fat. Meat cells passively grown in a vat will lack definition. Think "pink slime" or meat that's been in the food processor for too long. Probably would make an excellent Swedish meatball, okay burger or sausage, but horrendous steak. I love the flavor of beef liver, but hate the texture due to lack of long muscle fibers.
Would these products be kosher? vegan? Is it still an animal product if it doesn't come from an animal?
In-vitro meat is manufactured by placing existing meat cells in a bath of nutrients causing them to multiply. The new cells will be genetically identical to the original. It will not be vegan nor vegetarian. As for kosher, the Jewish authorities would have to decide.
Tastes like ... despair? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Chicken! Hmm...
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" - Einstein
Lem: Maybe the meat blob's not taking in enough nutrients. I guess I could try and give it a mouth. Ted: I'm gonna say no to the meat blob getting a mouth. Mostly because I don't want to hear what it has to say : : Jerome: It tastes familiar Ted: Beef? Jerome: No Linda: Chicken? We’ll take chicken. Jerome: [Shakes head.] Ted: What does it taste like? Jerome: Despair. Ted: Is it possible it just needs salt?
... but i don't *want* germ-free food. i want food for myself and my children that encourages our immune systems to fight and become stronger, so that we become HEALTHIER. vat-grown food will have no such challenges for our immune system, thus actually make us WEAKER.
this is fast getting to the point where the clear disadvantages - the FAILURE - of the three laws of robotics - is actually rolling out in real-life. it took several decades for asimov to explore the three laws fully to the point where he felt comfortable eventually spelling it out, but the "Calvanist" 3 Law Robots were actually a danger to humanity's evolution and advancement. why? because there were literally billions of checks and assessments PER SECOND being performed by the robots, calculating which nearby humans were POTENTIALLY going to be harmed... without any kind of restraint, limit or safeguards on what the robot(s) decided constituted "risk" or "danger".
with no risk comes no challenge. with no challenge, comes no evolution. i do not understand why people do not understand this.
I've been growing meat in a lab in my back yard for years.
Agriculture is one of the most high-tech industries on the planet and has been for a long time.
You think that chicken you enjoy is natural?
I guarantee you that every gram you eat was part of a control group or a test group of some kind. All the inputs are measured and analyzed. All the outputs are measured and analyzed. Feeding times, quantities, ingredients, application methods; sleeping patterns, cell structure, light exposure, ambient humidity... You name it, it is controlled, monitored, and experimented with.
Some people just don't recognize a lab when they see one.
At least, good old Sir Arthur thought he knew the next step, as related in his history "The food of the Gods" :-)
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
I have been wondering why in the future everything tastes like chicken. This explains it perfectly.
If a meat ball is what I think it is, the majourity of the taste comes from spices.
I ate a burger last night in a restaurant that has a burger day once a week. I usually don't eat burgers, did not eat one since 20 years, and that one ruined my interest for the next 20 years (the meat actually was ok, but the way of how sweet it was spiced was hard to get down into my stomach). How can it be that people think some "sweet" ketchup or a super thin "artificial cheese" on top of it makes meat tasty?
Meat that is "sweet"? Hellllllo? If I want sweet meat I put into a "sause" over night (don't know the american term, we call it marinade). Or I paint it in honey before I grill it, or grill it a bit, paint it in honey and grill it again.
So artificial meat is good enough to make burgers (meat balls) from it? Wow, who would have doubted that? There are people who make vegetarian "meat balls" and an average customer would not taste the difference.
If you like meat you only need a few spices: some herbs like Thymian or Rosmarin, a good oil like olive oil and then depending on taste gallic, pepper, perhaps chilly ... and if you want salt: most meats you salt after cooking, not before.
A piece of meat without any spices at all put on a grill is 10 times better than a meat ball full with spices and sugar.
Call me back when you have an artificial steak, preferred lamb, beef is ok, I don't eat pork, goat is ok, too, a steak that tastes good with simple cooking/BBQ without ketchup or other stupid sauces.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I understand logically how the thought of killing another living thing and eating it can be stomach turning. I am surprised at my own reaction--that eating artificially-grown flesh is creepy to me. OTOH, using real meat to make busts does creep me out whereas I would have no problem with artificial meat sculptures.
"Eating meat is completely unnatural for human beings" - you sure about that? Even given the existence of the specialized organs in all people that are necessary to live well eating meat? The organs that needed many thousands of years to evolve into their function?
I like my steak rare enough that if you applied electricity, it would jump off the plate. No chance of that happening now.
'Organic grass fed beef' is crap. Often downer cattle that had to be slaughtered early. Didn't live to see the feed lot.
What you want is 'USDA Prime'.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
What you want is a wet aged steak...yuck, no accounting for taste.
Just buy beef in a sealed slaughterhouse pack and forget it at the back of the meat drawer for a couple of weeks. Assuming your meat drawer maintains sub zero C, but above freezing point of meat.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Would these products be kosher?
Kosher is more a question of cooking as in mixing milk with meat etc.
However regarding the "bleeding out" some die hard fundamentals might subject as the meat is not from a bleed to death animal. (The background however is simple: in hot climates you don't want meat lying around to long that is full with coagulating blood. This actually a scientific issue and not religion.)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
How does this work if I want to smoke a slab of ribs, pork shoulder, brisket, etc.? The structure of the cut of meat (muscle, fat, bone) all contribute to the result. Will I end up smoking 'blobs' of meat in my Big Green Egg?
I don't think that people fully understand that the vast majority of people really don't like killing animals for food. The advertising for these cultured meat products will be easy. Just remind people that slitting Betsy's throat is required to get the burgers out. Show poor Mrs Piggy squashed into a pen with no room to move, etc. Then point out that they can have all the benefits of meat with none of the negatives. Vegetarians have long pushed this same thing, but with little profit motive. Now there will be a profit motive.
I presently pay double normal meat prices to get grass fed, no hormone, no antibiotic beef. So as long as they can convince me that the meat is equally healthy as that, then I will pay a premium for cultured beef. The key is that there can't be compromises other than price.
Another win will be a more stable supply which ought to make the distributors quite happy.
"...our coffee-rubbed Kobe beef is read the book Are You My Mother by a Guatemalan child." -- Patton Oswalt
If it can be done without the fetid stink of feed lots (which we that live near them call 'The Smell of Other People's Money'), then I'm all for it.
Would these products be kosher?
That discussion has already started amongst some of the legal authorities, and it's going to be a very interesting discussion. If the starting cells had been entirely synthesized, then it wouldn't be an animal product at all, and it would almost certainly be classified as pareve (neither meat nor dairy). Since this cultured meat is starting from animal cells, it might be classified as being derived from meat; in that case, the next issue is whether the starting cells came from a kosher animal that was slaughtered accordingly. There's also the possibility that there wouldn't be enough "animal" in the cultured meat for it to count as being an animal product, though personally I doubt that's what the ruling will be.
http://www.terrybisson.com/pag...
THE SOFTWARE, IT NO WORKY!!!
This is real meat. It's simply cultured from stem cells. But I do wonder if they could make it "cancerous" and eliminate the death mechanism they could probably culture it more easily. The more difficult part is getting different types of muscle, fat and structure cells to grow together. When it comes to meat we do care about the texture. And we need gelatin and cartilage in our diet So I guess I sort of answered my own question as to why not use cancerous cells. Stem cells are programmed to grow into something with it's supporting structure. Eventually we will be able to dictate that structure.
Science aside people will still be able to get traditional animals raised in natural ways as a luxury. But it will be the end of industrial beef and chicken farms. Milk farms too eventually. The food should be much cheaper. Fifteen cents for a pound of hamburger anyone? $2 tenderloin anyone?
At least a hundredfold reduction in methane for the meat. No more grazing land needed. It can be turned into farm land or made into homes for people where the weather is nice. Alternatively it can be turned into nature preserves and just let the animals live as they use to. All the forests cut down for grazing land can be regrown with trees again.
This also means we can produce meat for space voyages.
I asked a Jew that question and they sent me a bunch of links about it - many of them leading to a StackExchange network site, as I recall. So, if you're interested in it then you can just hit up the Google and all will become clear. Or not... What it will do is let you know what the current thinking is. Basically, it's all good so long as the originating stock, should it come from one, was kosher and the originating stock material was butchered in the kosher manner.
If you know anything about Judaism then you'll also be aware that there's surely different views and that the approach will be different but the above is pretty consistent between the varied views. I should also mention that Jews don't have to starve themselves if there is, literally, no choice in the matter. Eating an unclean animal is acceptable (but not kosher!) if one believed that not doing so would result in death or great harm.
Like all religions, there's some variations and there are different degrees of dedication and adherence to the rules. Strangely enough, most people aren't really very binary.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I can't see such meat ever really being "healthier" if it is grown in a soup of antibiotics and antivirals to compensate for the fact that real meat grows under the protection of an immune system.
... This exists right ? We aren't just saying something is safe for human consumption without a nice long test are we ?
Now. Time to change the sig.
...is people!
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain