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Behind the Hype of 'Lab-Grown' Meat (gizmodo.com)
In an exclusive report via Gizmodo, Ryan F. Mandelbaum discusses the hype surrounding "lab-grown" meat: Some folks have big plans for your future. They want you -- a burger-eatin', chicken-finger-dippin' American -- to buy their burgers and nuggets grown from stem cells. One day, meat eaters and vegans might even share their hypothetical burger. That burger will be delicious, environmentally friendly, and be indistinguishable from a regular burger. And they assure you the meat will be real meat, just not ground from slaughtered animals. That future is on the minds of a cadre of Silicon Valley startup founders and at least one nonprofit in the world of cultured meat. Some are sure it will heal the environmental woes caused by American agriculture while protecting the welfare of farm animals. But these future foods' promises are hypothetical, with many claims based on a futurist optimism in line with Silicon Valley's startup culture. Cultured meat is still in its research and development phase and must overcome massive hurdles before hitting market. A consumer-ready product does not yet exist and its progress is heavily shrouded by intellectual property claims and sensationalist press. Today, cultured meat is a lot of hype and no consumer product.
"Much of what happens in the world of cultured meat is done for the sake of PR," Ben Wurgaft, an MIT-based post-doctoral researcher writing a book on cultured meat, told Gizmodo. Wurgaft finds it hard to believe many predictions about cultured meat's future, including the promise of an FDA-approved consumer product within a year. The truth is that only a few successful prototypes have yet been shown to the public, including a NASA-funded goldfish-based protein in the early 2000s, and a steak grown from frog cells in 2003 for an art exhibit. More have come recently: Mark Post unveiled a $330,000 cultured burger in 2013, startup Memphis Meats has produced cultured meatballs and poultry last and this year, and Hampton Creek plans to have a product reveal dinner by the end of the year.
"Much of what happens in the world of cultured meat is done for the sake of PR," Ben Wurgaft, an MIT-based post-doctoral researcher writing a book on cultured meat, told Gizmodo. Wurgaft finds it hard to believe many predictions about cultured meat's future, including the promise of an FDA-approved consumer product within a year. The truth is that only a few successful prototypes have yet been shown to the public, including a NASA-funded goldfish-based protein in the early 2000s, and a steak grown from frog cells in 2003 for an art exhibit. More have come recently: Mark Post unveiled a $330,000 cultured burger in 2013, startup Memphis Meats has produced cultured meatballs and poultry last and this year, and Hampton Creek plans to have a product reveal dinner by the end of the year.
Meat is on its way out. The planet will NOT survive if humans keep wastefully cultivating animals for food and letting their leaders steal the rightful elections belonging to others because of foreign interference.
When have the initial versions of a product not been hard to produce, expensive and limited?
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers"
I still wouldn't eat this and I don't know any other vegans that would.
The real problem with cultured meat - tastes like despair
Or you could just dump the meat. It's really not very good for you, certainly not in the quantities/balance with other foods found in the standard American diet. The idea that a vegan would choose to put that in their mouths is laughable.
What kind of immune system does lab grown meat have?
What is its defense against bacterial infection?
In theory, lab grown meat sounds good. Until you start to think about the rough biological science in the details.
One day, meat eaters and vegans might even share their hypothetical burger.
I don't know about those pesky vegans, but as a vegetarian, my main reason these days to not eat a beef hamburger is that those minced meat patties taste horrible.
But hey, some like it and its eco-friendly, so all the best to this industry.
Just curious.
This was a one-sided hit piece if I ever saw one. What's with all the lobby-driven drivel increasingly being accepted to Slashdot?
Given all the people still wary of eating GMOs or anything 'artificial', there will be a large demand for animal meat even if this becomes cheaper. It'll be like HFCS vs. sugar, or vanillin vs vanilla.
Personally I'd try it out of curiosity, but I can't shake that quote from Judge Dredd: "Eat recycled food: good for the environment, ok for you." There's something depressingly dystopian/cyberpunk about eating fake meat, conceptually, that reminds me of how in "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" people only own electronic pets because there aren't the resources to support living ones.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Absolutely disgusting.
I'm not holding my breath for this one.
Why is Snark Required?
I'd say vat-grown meat is closer to being a reality than AI, cheap fusion or quantum pretty much anything, and this swipe reeks of the desperation of an industry that has just seen the terrible threat and is trying to spin against it already.
"They want you -- a burger-eatin', chicken-finger-dippin' American" Last time I checked I was Irish and try to eat healthily. But thanks for assuming everyone on the Internet is American.
It was hyped as it was a clear defined successes in the lab-grown meat research. Unlike other startups or researches, they completed the lab-grown meat research. If the research was never completed or no product was ever produced, then fine it was all PR. But they did create a lab-grown meat for consumption. One luck guy did ate the burger and it was extremely expensive to make.
It was fair PR based on actual event and hyped for the actual 'potential'.
What a whiny article!
> Cultured meat is still in its research and development phase and must overcome massive hurdles before hitting market.
Just like any new product based on a new technology.
> A consumer-ready product does not yet exist and its progress is heavily shrouded by intellectual property claims and sensationalist press.
Again, just like any new technology.
> Today, cultured meat is a lot of hype and no consumer product.
Bullshit. It's been edible for years, but hasn't had the right texture. And there are some products out there, but the FDA is making them jump through hoops which are reasonable under the circumstances. Google this: "FDA casts doubt on safety of Impossible Burger's key GMO ingredient".
I hope they get there in the end. This is a whiny article: All good tech takes time.
Meat is more than just a combination of cells. Its the result of the how the animal from were it was cut lived and died.
You have different cuts of meat, based on the muscle of the animal were its cut from. Depending on the animal, how it was raised, and how it was killed, a piece of meat can have different texture and flavour that the same cut from a different animal, raised in different environments.
"life is a joke, and someone is laughing at me"
So I was just on some retarded site trying to find an answer for a coding problem. I'm using Chrome because all the browsers suck these days.
So I hit Ctrl+F and up pops the website's custom search box completely overriding the browser. Now Chrome obviously is to blame for allowing this. Is Google smoking meth? What kind of MORON thought that would be a good idea? It's like these Google retards refusing to add back the case-sensitive in-page search or Microsoft removing the "z" key because it is at the end of the alphabet and no one uses it much anyway.
By the way, it was on the C.H.I.P. forums, a bunch of rpi hipster wannabes.
In our new 'behind the hype' series:
Fully self driving cars - maybe not ready just yet!
Phone batter life improvements - some of these may not hit the market any time soon!
Desktop Linux overtaking Windows - still any day now...
"More have come recently: Mark Post unveiled a $330,000 cultured burger in 2013, startup Memphis Meats has produced cultured meatballs and poultry last and this year, and Hampton Creek"
What the hell does that mean? "Memphis Meats has produced cultured meatballs and poultry LAST and this year"?
If they have produced cultured meatballs and poultry this year, then doesn't that mean they have succeeded at growing lab grown meat?
People will be growing their own meat in their kitchens within ten years, maybe five, with a machine about the size of a microwave oven, producing disease free meat, only the amount that the user wants, so no waste, and ANY meat you want - so you can eat the meat of any animal you like, (within reason). You will be able to grow meat with a specified amount of fat. Just as technology has allowed us to do things today that were impossible fifty years ago, this will be the same. Shortly after this is being eaten by 50% of the population, there will be a campaign to ban all animal farming, which will succeed, because nobody will be able to justify torturing and killing animals to obtain something that can be obtained without violence of any kind.
And last of all, the maching you use to grow the meat in your kitchen will eventually be CHEAPER than any form of normal meat you can buy.
Why do people assume vegans and vegetarians crave meat? We don't. We don't hate meat because we think animals are for petting, but because meat tastes like sh*t. Or at least like something that produces sh*t.
Meat is on its way out. The planet will NOT survive if humans keep wastefully cultivating animals for food
Yes, I agree that we must find alternative to feeding animals to produce food for us to eat.
BUT
Launching a start-up to sell vat-grown-burgers at the current state of research and development is like launching a start-up promising to put man on the moon by the end of the decade... back when mongols used their first gun-powder based rockets (and we know how well that one went~ ).
Currently vat-grown meat is still a lab experiment and has a long way of R&D to go until it can successfully be used as a viable commercial product with low ecological impact.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Oh FFS; there's nothing wrong with eating meat, especially in moderation and from sustainable sources.
Over-population in many countries, (who are now moving towards a more meat-intensive diet), intensive & abusive agriculture, over-fishing etc. are the real villains.
From the fine article:
"But despite what you may have heard, the evidence as to whether cultured meat is better for the environment is inconclusive. “On the environmental studies, the work that’s been done is very preliminary,” Hampton Creek’s Fischer said. A 2011 study estimated that the product might produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, but use about the same amount of energy as the European pork industry. One 2015 study found potential environmental benefits in China, but another 2015 estimate found it could use just as much energy as animal-based meats. The common theme is uncertainty."
So, the financial viability and environmental impact of all this seems most vague at this point.
Steve Jobs should have crushed them like a bug when they stole that iPhone prototype and tried to destroy the career of the engineer they stole it from. Shame on /. for sending them traffic.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just about any other thing we now use. Seriously this is an anti-vision, anti-progress piece that could be applied to any technology before it became commonplace.
This has no place on a tech site where people are a bit more "progress friendly" .
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers"
On the other hand, back when he did said that, the total market of then-era computer was indeed probably around five.
There's more than half a century of R&D between him and the modern-day ubiquitous computer in everybody's pocket (smartphones).
Having a start-up promising within year to sell vat-grown-burgers at the current state of research and development...
Is like a start-up promising to put man on the moon by the end of the decade... back when mongols used their first gun-powder based rockets (and we know how well that one went~ ). It's a little bit precocious and over-optimistic.
Currently vat-grown meat is still a lab experiment and has a long way of R&D to go until it can successfully be used as a viable commercial product with low ecological impact.
Nobody is saying that it's impossible. It's just that we're currently at the "world market of five units" stage.
Spend a few more years in university research and maybe we can get closer to something that can actually be commercially successful on a large scale, cheap price and low ecological impact.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This article does not deserve a considered comment. The only comment this article deserves is the one given in the subject line.
Really? If something like vat-grown meat ever takes off, every farm animal in the country will be dead within a few years. Because farmers don't raise cows and pigs and chickens because they enjoy their company, they raise them for income. Once the animals become unsellable, they're going to be exterminated.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
So, lets assume that this lab-meat takes off and in short order we grow all the beef, lamb, pork, & chicken in a factory...
What do we do with all the cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens that we no longer have a need for?
Do they become endangered or extinct?
. . . refuses to call the "burger" safe for consumption.
To wit, the ingredient of soy leghemoglobin:
"arguments presented [by its creators] ... do not establish the safety of soy leghemolgobin for consumption.”
Interestingly enough, Impossible Foods asked the FDA to STOP the approval process on their cultured meat substitute.
Jonathan Swift had a modest proposal that could solve environmental problems, animal cruelty, and overpopulation... and provide tasty burgers, or other most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
I prefer real meat with antibiotics, hormones and steroids in it.
This was a one-sided hit piece if I ever saw one. What's with all the lobby-driven drivel increasingly being accepted to Slashdot?
The owners not seeing enough revenue flow, and trying to hike it up by trolling the audience, I think. Riling up the readers cause more posts, which is Slashdot's only real asset.
When we start seeing the pushback from established industry players. Soon there will be discussions of "real" meat (meaning raised on a farm rather than in a laboratory). The minute this is price competitive, I can't imagine buying meat from an actual animal.
*cough*
https://soylentnews.org/
'scuse me.
It's all but given that cultured meat will someday be common. That meat will be high-quality without the bacterial/parasitic risks of animal meat, be more consistent and physically indistinguishable from animal meat, and taste great.
Eventually most countries will ban animal meat, though some will get it through the black market, insisting it's either "more natural than the synthetic crap," or as a perverse status symbol, like safari hunting for sport today.
A consumer-ready product does not yet exist and its progress is heavily shrouded by intellectual property claims...
I'm sure RMS disapproves of proprietary wetware as much as he disapproves of proprietary software. Let's start an Open Meat movement. LibreChicken, anyone? How about Moo-nix? OpenBSE?
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It's only a matter of time. How about we just get rid of a whole bunch of humans? Through attrition? OK, fine.
It seems to me they are going after the wrong market. The first lab-grown (excuse me, "cultured") meat should be sushi-grade Ahi tuna. Tuna is expensive, over-fished, potentially mercury-laden, and it already looks like it came out of a vat. And people already eat imitation-crab in their California rolls anyway.
"Protecting the welfare of farm animals"
If this takes off, there won't BE any farm animals, so there will be no welfare to protect.
They don't seem to realize that almost nobody has a cow for a pet.
If we stop harvesting cattle, we will also stop GROWING cattle - why would we continue? And cattle these days won't make it without human assistance - we've bred them to where they can't give birth unassisted.
"protecting the welfare of farm animals" -- there won't be any farm animals. Some will call it "ironic" that cows went extinct after we stopped killing them. Do you think there will be wild cows roaming free? Chickens too?
"will be delicious, environmentally friendly, and be indistinguishable" -- someone seems to have forgotten the only important adjective: what about nutritious?
Every time we "take control" over a process, especially a consumer process, we've made things MUCH worse for the environment. Humans used to kill animals to make clothing. They'd go out into the forest, kill 25 animals, and make a fur coat. But good news everybody! Now we can make synthetic coats from nylon and plastics and never need to kill an animal to do it! Let's just cut down six acres of forest, build a factory, ship raw materials from china by ship polluting the oceans, run our factory 24/7, polluting the air and the ground-water, we've already destroyed the forest so ain't no 25 animals a'gonna be killed here, and we can produce coats that degrade within three years so we can sell more!
Habitat loss from clothing factories has been far worse than my soon-to-be 80-year old racoon fur coat made by one hunter and one furrier and 25 racoons.
The point is that we value things that we use, and we save things that we value. Cheetahs are endangered because most of us don't value them. So there are movements to save the cheetah, and no one cares. Chickens are arguably the most successful species on this planet. I eat close to a hundred each and every year -- plus another 100 of just the wings, plus another three-hundred eggs, five-hundred if you include chocolate cake and grand marnier soufflés.
I know that it takes a while for a cow to eat enough grass to make the meat nutritious for me to eat. I know that the cow converts the nutrients within the grass (which I cannot digest) into beef that I can digest -- so I'm getting the nutrients from the grass, which itself absorbed the minerals in the soil.
I don't know where lab-grown meat gets its nutrients. Let's see if I can guess. The lab sprinkles magic pixie dust onto the stem cells. Obviously. A powder called nutrient-42b. It's basically a protein-powder I'm sure. Now I wonder where the protein-powder comes from? Let me guess, it's produced in a factory. So, we'll start by clear-cutting this forest over here, then we'll build a factory. I'll bet the factory grows plants from which to produce the powder too. So it'll be a factory, and grass, and no cows. We'll have successfully replaced cows with factories.
Doesn't sound cheaper. Doesn't sound better for the cows either.
Anyone else hearing a Amanda Marshall singing "Save-The-Cows"?
So, vegans, riddle-me-this. How come the cow deserves your protection but the carrot does not? I'm sure the carrot species would prefer to not be slaughtered also.
Because everyone has moved on to other social media platforms. Those who still use the web largely use reddit. Slashdot owners are just making their last buck in a failing website.
"Some are sure it will heal the environmental woes caused by American agriculture while protecting the welfare of farm animals." -- I'm sorry -- if we are all on lab grown meat, there won't BE any farm animals. These things aren't pets, they are PRODUCT. Without any market value, they won't exist!
In a culture where people think that trees scream if you cut them, do you really think that they would eat living tissue? I can see the headlines now, "Artificial Meat, if you cut me do I not bleed?"....
Cow, chicken, pork, exotic meat, veggie-protein, lab-grown meat, all compete with each other for my wallet:
If they taste good, cook easily, look okay, and provide nutrition, and there aren't any reasons to boycott the particular product, then I'll go with the cheapest.
Right now, exotic meat and lab-grown meat are way too expensive for me, and most veggie-burgers I've tried are either too expensive or they don't have the taste, texture, or other qualities I'm looking for.
However, if someone wants to give me a meat-like veggie burger, exotic-meat-steak, or lab-grown meat that is "close enough" to cow, chicken, or pork, I wouldn't turn them down. Heck, I'd even pay for it - but not more than whatever other meat is cheapest at the supermarket that week.
So that the number one complaint (by vegetarians) is eliminated
Even if cultured, we will finally be sure our hot dogs are made of real dog meat.
My vegetarian SO and their vegan sibling are both in love with the Impossible Burger and the Beyond Burger. Those aren't cultured meat, but they are designed to resemble real burgers as much as possible.
So unsurprisingly in real life people are vegetarian or vegan for many different reasons. Some of them will enjoy cultured meat, some won't touch it but will still enjoy well made "fake" meat, some will stick to things like veggie burgers and tofurkey, and some will avoid anything that even vaguely resembles meat.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
I am currently standing one floor beneath ARMI (https://www.armiusa.org/). This is a DoD-backed program to grow replacement organs for living people out of their own DNA. In a way, this is the same thing--growing meat, except that in this case it's medical-grade and delivered live. Meat labs will likely be able to spin off of this technology, perhaps finding ways to make it cheaper to fabricate since there's no need to surgically implant it in someone's body.
I don't often eat antibiotics, hormones and steroids, but when I do, I prefer it to come from beef.
Somehow I doubt that this 'nu-meat' or whatever you want to call it is going to have an overall lower carbon footprint than, say, raising free-range chickens.
So, let's just say that a better than meat lab grown alternative is created. What happens to all the millions of domesticated animals now no longer of any value. I guess we euthanize them and wipe out whole species?
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
"burger will be delicious, environmentally friendly, and be indistinguishable from a regular burger."
And the burger will be brought to you by Big Corp...
Industrial production of food will mean not local and not small business and not family farms.
Animal agriculture is tightly interwoven with vegetable, fruit and grain production on a sustainable basis. By separating them and becoming dependent on industrial systems you make the entire system more centralized and fragile as well as less sustainable.
That's very bad.
There was an episode of the American TV Show "Elementary," about the issue of whether lab grown meat would be Kosher or not. I forget the details. A murder occurred, not important.
But imagine the sales potential of lab grown bacon if it deemed Kosher. Or passes Muslim restrictions on eating pig.
We need the one that makes the blood and the one that makes the fat. You need a little blood and about 20% fat to make a hamburger taste good on the barbecue grill. Otherwise it is dry. .. Come to think about it. If we could make fat, we could make fuel!
"product reveal dinner" scare me?
Lobby driven drivel is permeating the entire media sphere. Why would /. be exempted form it? The best thing to do is check out. I will come back in a year or two and see how things have progressed. Right now, I'm in the Patagonian rain forest and loving it...
Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
Everyday cultured meat could be produced much more efficiently than through corporate farms. The actual product will probably be healthier since it won't be necessary to feed animals an unnatural diet because it's cheaper. Moral vegans will all but disappear but vegetarianism will continue.
Animals will still be slaughtered but only for those willing to pay the premium. Those animals will be raised by high standard small farmers and corporate animal farms will by and large disappear. You will be able to look up the pedigree and health reports on your real steak but will cost like $100. Most striking will be a resurgence of people raising chickens in cities. The oceans will get some time to heal once 90% of the fish eaten is cultured fish meat. Most of the real fish will come from fish farms to limit exposure to sea pollution. All this will happen over the next 70 years.