Bill Gates and Richard Branson Back Startup That Grows 'Clean Meat' (bloomberg.com)

A large global agricultural company has joined Bill Gates and Richard Branson to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells. "Memphis Meats, which produces beef, chicken and duck directly from animal cells without raising and slaughtering livestock or poultry, raised $17 million from investors including Cargill, Gates and billionaire Richard Branson, according to a statement Tuesday on the San Francisco-based startup's website," reports Bloomberg. From the report: This is the latest move by an agricultural giant to respond to consumers, especially Millennials, who are rapidly leaving their mark on the U.S. food world. That's happening through surging demand for organic products, increasing focus on food that's considered sustainable and greater attention on animal treatment. Big poultry and livestock processors have started to take up alternatives to traditional meat. To date, Memphis Meats has raised $22 million, signaling a commitment to the "clean-meat movement," the company said.

Comments

"clean" "meat"

[KiloByte]

Can we please have some labelling laws so this thing can't be legally called "meat"?

There's enough problems with processed food already. Here we have a processed thing that did not even start from being food.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Tailhook]

But millennials and stuff don't you know.... they hate big-cow and big-chicken and big-pig and want clean organic vat meat. So you just stop it with your "labels" and your anti-vat meat anxiety because Bloomberg says that millennials have decided what they will and won't tolerate you eating.

Vat-to-table, pal.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[alvinrod]

I would imagine that they'll label it in some way just because I can't imagine vegetarians or vegans objecting to eating it. Otherwise if it's molecularly the same, who cares if it came from a factory where it was grown artificially or if some critter carried it around before having it shorn off. As long as it still tastes good (some meat isn't just the muscle, but also the intramuscular fat) I'll eat it. If it eventually means I can get a great cut of steak for $2 at the market because this is cheaper than feeding an actual cow, I think it would go a long way towards being able to supply more of the world with protein.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Anonymous Coward]

No, because it will be chemically indistinguishable from the meat you get from slaughtering an animal. This isn't some soy based substitute, it is actual meat.

You can have "not actual cow" on the labelling if you like, but it's still meat.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[arth1]

Can we please have some labelling laws so this thing can't be legally called "meat"?

Good luck with that. With process cheese not containing cheese, marshmallows not containing any marshmallow, "beer" being rice brews, and perhaps worst of all, "real mayonnaise" neither being real nor mayonnaise, I am fairly certain that this will be called meat.
Which is why you go to a butcher when you want meat.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Ol Olsoc]

But millennials and stuff don't you know.... they hate big-cow and big-chicken and big-pig and want clean organic vat meat. So you just stop it with your "labels" and your anti-vat meat anxiety because Bloomberg says that millennials have decided what they will and won't tolerate you eating.

Yeah yeah look traditionalists, when you harvest and skin all of the meat you eat, killing it with tools you made yourself, cooking it over an open firem and wear it's skins while you gather nuts and berries, then come back and act all paleolithic on us.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm vegan and still wouldn't eat this, and I don't know any others that would either.

I'm sorry. Not sorry that you won't eat this, just sorry that you're vegan.

I've met lots of vegans. I've never personally seen a vegan man with decent muscle mass. I've never personally seen a vegan woman with pleasing curves and supple breasts. I don't imagine I will either. You require artificial supplements just to stay something resembling healthy.

We're omnivores, from our dentition to our digestive tract to our prehistoric diet and everything. Back in the day, meat was a smaller fraction of our diet of mostly fruits and vegetables, but it was a regular part of it all the same. The best way is to have meat be a regular 10-20% of your diet, let red meat be a very rare treat, and let the rest be fruits and veggies while going light on the grains.

Ovo-lacto vegetarians come close to this, if they also allow fish. Except I would avoid dairy whenever practical. You're not a suckling calf and don't need all the hormones and bGH and shit that often comes with milk. Neither do you need fat droplets that have been homogenized and rendered a micro-size that your body doesn't really know how to process.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Ol Olsoc]

Good luck with that. With process cheese not containing cheese,

Negative, there are specific standards that process chees has to adhere to specific composition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... . From the page: These products tend to be classified as cheese food, "cheese spread", or "cheese product", depending on the amount of cheese, moisture, and milkfat present in the final product.

marshmallows not containing any marshmallow,

"Pâte de guimauve", the French confection that was originally made from the Marsh Mallow plant, was changed to a gelatin/sugar/starch mixture a long long time ago. And the fact that the marsh mallow roots once used have a medicinal connection, It probably would not be used for more than the also fact that we'd probably extinct the plant. It's a gorgeous plant, better looked at than eaten unless you are using it for medicine.

"beer" being rice brews,

Rice is one of the adjuncts that is sometimes used in brewing. Loke corn, and even wheat if you are a strict Reinheitsgebot adherent, there are a multitude of ingredients that make them completely acceptable to call beer.

and perhaps worst of all, "real mayonnaise" neither being real nor mayonnaise, I am fairly certain that this will be called meat.

Oh hell, which type of "real Mayonnaise" are you talking about? There are so many types made in so many countries and the recipe has changed over time just like everything else, and some of the changes are pretty helpful, like those to avoid botulism poisoning.

Which is why you go to a butcher when you want meat.

Yes, I go to the butchers at the moment. I process venison from relatives who hunt and share the results with them. I even eat vegan hamburgers made out of Fusarium venenatum. It's mycoprotein, naturally occurring and pretty darn good. That's all I require in my food, good taste, natural and organic if possible. But I'm not going to pretend that What is organo-trendy is the only good diet. And i'm suspecting that this synthetic meat can be processed organically.

And my last response is that I believe that this synthetic meat will advertise as such because a lot of people will want it.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[jandersen]

... I can't imagine vegetarians or vegans objecting to eating it.

I think it is merely a popular misconception, that vegetarians et al avoid meat simply because they object to the slaughter of animals and feel they have eat vegetables as a sort of penance. Maybe there are some of that kind - otherwise there wouldn't be a market for all those horrible meat-imitations. Personally, though, I tend to eat vegetables because I like them more than meat - the taste, the texture, the fact that I don't feel as if I had eaten a bowl of cement after eating etc. - and I think I have more energy for longer after eating. It's all about how you cook things - I find meat tastes about the same no matter how it is prepared (and I have tried some very well made meat dishes, believe me), but vegetables are so varied - if you know how to cook them and especially when to stop cooking. I still recall with loathing the brussel sprouts that had had all nutrition boiled out of them - as the saying went: "If you can count them, they haven't had enough".

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Maritz]

Jesus. It's embarrassing that you think that's a good analogy.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Opportunist]

This has a lot of a religious sermon: Lots of postulation, little in terms of evidence. Or at least any kind of hint resembling something akin to a shred of an inkling that any of this is based in reality and that we should believe any of it on anything other than "I told you so".

You can grow this stuff in a controlled environment. No antibiotics needed because when there are no bacteria there is no need to use something to kill them.

To the rest of the drivel, well, "chemistry baaaad" sums it up pretty nicely. Why do I have the feeling I'm dealing with a homeopathetic anti-vaxer?

Re:"clean" "meat"

[drinkypoo]

The sad part is that anyone thinks 'natural' is an adjective of much relevance. Our natural state is eking out a miserable, parasite-ridden existence for three or four decades. Everything better than that comes to us from artificiality.

Natives of the west coast and the northwestern USA regularly lived to be over a hundred years old, in societies which lasted over ten thousand years that we know of so far. (The estimates keep creeping upwards, last I heard they were looking at fourteen thousand.) And they weren't even parasite-ridden, because they didn't practice animal husbandry. They didn't have to, because they did practice land management. They ignited yearly controlled burns to keep the understory clear, and they had clear agreements on who could fish where and on not overfishing. They tended to build a new communal house every year to live in through the winter, and then burn it when they were done with it, so they didn't even have problems with mold.

Most humans have poor resource management skills, and so your description is accurate enough. The white man deliberately destroyed the environment of the native (and everyone else, of course) so that lifestyle is now not accessible to anyone. Here in Lake county, CA, homesteaders were paid a dollar a tree to plant black walnuts, in a campaign designed to displace oaks. The walnuts have literally never been a notable economic benefit to the region, as pears and grapes have been, but they are a benefit if your strategy is to permanently destroy a way of life. You can live on acorns alone, but you can't live on walnuts.

Artificiality, like most anything else, is a blade which cuts in both directions.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I would imagine that they'll label it in some way just because I can't imagine vegetarians or vegans objecting to eating it.

You must be new to this planet. Of course some of them, maybe even most of them, are going to object to this. People who are vegetarian for religious reasons (ie. Hindus, Buddhists, etc.) may not object to it. The main religious objection is that meat comes from killing a creature with a soul and you incur a karmic debt by participating in the killing it took to get you the animal flesh. This doesn't mean you can't find people with religious beliefs that oppose eating animal flesh that will do so anyway at times, but the main religious objection should be taken away. Still, don't be surprised if some of these folks still object because they will likely claim that the original source of the cells came from a killed animal.

Some vegetarians and vegans are going to object but not for religious reasons. There are plenty of people who are vegan and vegetarian because they think that eating animal flesh is a really bad idea from a health standpoint and this isn't going to change that kind of belief at all.

Does nobody consider the possibility that consumers may consider such meat to be inferior in terms of taste? If so, unless it's really cheap it may not sell very well. I wouldn't be surprised if this idea fails in the developed world and only finds an audience where cost is the number one factor. And if they price it higher than regular meat, yeah, that's just never going to work.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[Opportunist]

Unfortunately it's pretty hard to feed the global population with this method. Arable land isn't available in unlimited quantity and "organic" agriculture cannot compete in terms of pure output with industrial crops production.

It's nice that you can grow in your own garden what you need, but I hope you have a solution for the millions of New York or Mexico City.

Re:"clean" "meat"

[drinkypoo]

Unfortunately it's pretty hard to feed the global population with this method.

At the moment, it takes a lot more hand labor. So what? There's a lot of unemployed people. You can produce more food per acre by planting crops in guilds instead of monocultures, and feeding the soil. We're on the cusp of being able to automate that kind of farming with advances in robotics, so if we can just avoid destroying the biosphere in the mean time, that'd be great.

Start at the animal level!

[RhettLivingston]

I think Mr. Herbert had it right. We should start the engineering at the animal level and shoot for a creating a mindless animal that grows continuously without movement. Just shovel garbage in one end and slice meat off the other.

The slig is an awesome idea!

You gotta be kidding me

[Tablizer]

"Microsoft meat" sounds about as appetizing as cockroach pie.

Does it include an EULA? It might really end the user.
     

Re:$22 Million is Chicken Feed

[gnick]

No burgers. I only eat veal because of the cruel way cattle are butchered. Veal calves are left to die of loneliness, the way nature intended.

Re:$22 Million is Chicken Feed

[damn_registrars]

Geeez, Americans spend that much on hamburgers every hour.

Ahh, yes, body shaming from the "tolerant" Leftist.

Where is the "body shaming"? The first post seemed to be pretty close to factual. One source suggests that the annual consumption of hamburgers in the US is around 50 billion burgers. If we say that on average a burger costs $2 (assuming more are consumed at inexpensive places than not), that is $100B per year on hamburgers in this country. Divide by 365 days and we're looking at ~$273M per day, divide by 24 and we're around $11.4M per hour - assuming that the average burger is $2. If the average is closer to $4 then we hit the $22M the original comment was pointing to.

Re: Richard Branson!!!!

[arth1]

I will eat the new clean meat overlords as long as they taste like chicken or pork chops.

One of the enjoyable things about pork chops is how the taste and texture differs across the chop, with the most succulent meat being next to the fat rind and along the bone. I think that's a target that will be hard to reach for vat grown meat.
Similar with chicken - unless associating chicken with nuggets, crispy skin and meat that varies depending on where it is is part of the experience.

I can see it more as a substitute for ground meat and pink slime.

My main concern is that the vat doesn't have a working immune system, unlike the animals. What will they have to do to ensure the meat is safe?