Meat not from Animals

I saw this on TV last night...scientists are trying to develop actual meat, not soy or other protein, in a lab that will make killing animals unnecessary. Its of course a long way off, I think they might be using stem cell technology. It really captured my imagination. Of course I think many folks would be resistent to it as it would be a new thing and there would be a biased against something seemingly fake and made by technology. So the question is would you try this meat if it were to become available? If to be effective it would have to taste as good or better than regular meat and also be cheaper in price and more environmentally friendly and humane. I see visions of fake and cheap lobster meat tails floating in my head........

Pass

RAB wrote:Pass

Got to agree. It feels like ill eating to me.

As if there's not enough "fake" meat already. We are so far removed from what our ancestors ate that it isn't funny. My grandparents had a farm in Ohio and the hogs and cows were products of a free-ranging natural lifestyle. No growth hormones or antibiotics. We butchered them ourselves and used every last bit.

Ever notice what "pork cutlets" look like in the supermarket? That slick sheen on the meat is not a natural substance, but injected "flavor enhancers". Yuck.

No thanks!

Depending on the quality issues there is no reason not to do this.

First, from an enviromental standard this is nothing but a victory. If we can grow meat directly from amino acids and lipids extracted from plants instead of growing the crop, feeding it to the animal with attendant energy losses, bringing animal to slaughter, cutting it up and eventually bringing it to our houses. Imagine the fuel and time savings without the intermediate animal based step.

Also, imagine if instead of all the land necessary for raising the grain and corn to be fed to the animals there was perhaps 10% of that necessary. More marginal lands can be returned to nature (or turned into golf courses). Cities can have local meat labs. Or we could make our own at home.

Imagine also if we could tweak the fats used to be more healthy?

Finally, the ethical issues with meat eating go away.

There will be huge disruptions. Farmland value will plummet - this is a non-trivial issue since insurance companies own a lot of farmland. Fewer people will be needed in the countryside, hurting rural areas and depriving their governments of income. Cities become more dense. If the price is right more humans will be eating meat - obesity? Human population will go up.

AngrySarah wrote:Depending on the quality issues there is no reason not to do this.

First, from an enviromental standard this is nothing but a victory. If we can grow meat directly from amino acids and lipids extracted from plants instead of growing the crop, feeding it to the animal with attendant energy losses, bringing animal to slaughter, cutting it up and eventually bringing it to our houses. Imagine the fuel and time savings without the intermediate animal based step.

Also, imagine if instead of all the land necessary for raising the grain and corn to be fed to the animals there was perhaps 10% of that necessary. More marginal lands can be returned to nature (or turned into golf courses). Cities can have local meat labs. Or we could make our own at home.

Imagine also if we could tweak the fats used to be more healthy?

There will be huge disruptions. Farmland value will plummet - this is a non-trivial issue since insurance companies own a lot of farmland. Fewer people will be needed in the countryside, hurting rural areas and depriving their governments of income. Cities become more dense. If the price is right more humans will be eating meat - obesity? Human population will go up.

To your first point - one issue I have with faux anything is that, in general, it overlooks the end-use of it's analog. For instance, the end-use of a hanger steak is not to wind up on your plate, it's to keep a cow (or steer) breathing. As long as the engineered meat has nothing to do with it's functionality on an animal, it won't be the same quality; we'll wind up with meat-tofurky.

To the second point - I doubt sincerely that engineered meat is going to materialize out of thin air - they're going to have to provide raw materials and energy from somewhere. It's very rare that an engineered version of anything that occurs naturally has less of an impact on the environment: I can't imagine this process being anything other than an even larger energy and resource-hog. Since it's still theoretical, it's obviously difficult to say with certainty - but I'm very, very skeptical that this will have any positive effect for the mainstream.

I can't find the short story now, but I remember one of the Hugo winners when I was a kid was about a couple of bored astronauts who tried to engineer milk in space...they wound up with an entire room of equipment to create a "cow," and it took huge amounts of plant material to make one glassful. I think the story was prescient.

AngrySarah wrote:
Finally, the ethical issues with meat eating go away.

For those that have such issues - would they not then be troubled by these species vanishing as there is no longer any reason to raise them?

I'm also curious about the cost-effectiveness of manufactured meat (not to mention health issues, since mass processing of conventionally produced meat has its issues). Scientists generally cost more than grass, which is all you need to grow meat in the real world. In a world where most people don't have access to this kind of technology, and many also don't have enough food, it seems kind of goofily effete. Almost anyone on the planet can raise a chicken, but poorer countries wouldn't have the ability to utilize this technology. I don't see this benefiting those who would be most likely to need the additional protein.

Of course, there is a kind of "Star Trek asking the computer for something that imitates Earth food" quality to the experiments, not to mention a "how to avoid Soylent Green" aspect, but I don't see it as being a real solution to anything, other than possibly offering a mediocre steak to someone who has issues with killing cows.

It's really amazing how much one can assume about a situation when you know nothing about it.

This is fun. Maybe we can talk about other crackpot ideas next, like a computer that can fly a plane or 60,000 tons of metal that can be formed into something useful and then used to float on water!

i feel like this is promoting eating for the sake of survival. you might as well have a protein shake. there would be no flavor development, no variance in texture due to muscle type, etc. while it solves feeding on a global scale, in the long run it subtracts from the idea of eating for the sake of enjoyment. for the flavor!

This also isn't the end game. Research like this is useful and helpful to dealing with issues on feeding an ever-increasing population. So maybe it won't replace aged steaks at Peter Lugar, but it could address a need for plentiful protein in the Third World. I found an article on the program and it stated that by 2050 world meat production would need to double to meet increased demand. Assuming we don't want to double feedlot animal production, providing enough grassland to support this increased demand is untenable (not to mention dealing with double the waste products).

Kman wrote:

AngrySarah wrote:Finally, the ethical issues with meat eating go away.

For those that have such issues - would they not then be troubled by these species vanishing as there is no longer any reason to raise them?

The estimates I've seen are that 9 billion chickens are eaten every year - I don't think that replacing some of those boneless chicken breasts or McNuggets with a substitute is going to suddenly cause chickens to go extinct.

Even if it did, the people I know who are concerned with the ethical issues are focused on the ethics of bringing an animal in to the world with the only intent to kill it for food, and likely treat it poorly along the way. An animal that isn't born is never mistreated or killed. I doubt you'll find a PETA member who is worried about the genetic abnormality that is the Cornish Cross going extinct.

-Dan

Here are actual news clips somewhat old about the lab grown meat. Its a far away thing but my guess is eventually it will come to pass.

As I understand it, its not meat made from vegetable sources. It would be actual meat, muscle tissue, but grown in a lab or a production facility.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/ ... geNumber=1

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... d=90235492

Research on this is moving briskly. There was a story on Fox News with a scientist who developed a "3-D printer" which made things like heart valves. The device had clear panels so one could view the stylus (?) moving and several tubes of stuff, painting the material.

little500 wrote:Research on this is moving briskly. There was a story on Fox News with a scientist who developed a "3-D printer" which made things like heart valves. The device had clear panels so one could view the stylus (?) moving and several tubes of stuff, painting the material.

Apologies for getting off track. Below are two links to stories that The Economist magazine did on 3-D printing.

Here is a teaser:

THE industrial revolution of the late 18th century made possible the mass production of goods, thereby creating economies of scale which changed the economy—and society—in ways that nobody could have imagined at the time. Now a new manufacturing technology has emerged which does the opposite. Three-dimensional printing makes it as cheap to create single items as it is to produce thousands and thus undermines economies of scale. It may have as profound an impact on the world as the coming of the factory did.

http://www.economist.com/node/18114327? ... N=73718572

http://www.economist.com/node/18114221? ... N=73718572

Over the top? Maybe. Here's the point: It is very difficult to predict which new technologies will be successful, which will transform the world (for better or worse), which will find applications that the original inventor never thought of, and which turn out to be as crazy as they sound. As someone who gets the heebie geebies at the thought of buying meat at Jewel, I cannot wrap my tiny mind around the idea of eating a hanger steak that didn't first serve a useful function on an actual cow. But what do I know? I never thought I'd have a GPS locator in my pocket!

little500 wrote:Research on this is moving briskly. There was a story on Fox News with a scientist who developed a "3-D printer" which made things like heart valves. The device had clear panels so one could view the stylus (?) moving and several tubes of stuff, painting the material.

3D printers can be purchased relatively cheaply online (or you can upload your designs and have them printed: http://i.materialise.com/)

The novelty is in the application of the technology to organic matter.

I'd rather eat tasty well made lab meat than real snake or raccoon or half the stuff A. Zimmern eats...........just sayin.

Okay folks here's a good one......from You Tube regarding lab grown meat.............very clever and funny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lslk2X7XHVo

toria wrote:I'd rather eat tasty well made lab meat

cilantro wrote:

toria wrote:I'd rather eat tasty well made lab meat

He is about another two to three months before being ready for the dinner table.

He's a labm. In two or three months, he'll be labtton.

Hasn't anyone read "The Space Merchants"? Pohl and Kornbluth were writing about this stuff in 1952.

Even outside science fiction, this is fairly old news. The FDA approved the concept in 1995. Cultured pork was created in the Netherlands two years ago. Here's a recent overview.

Ha ha good one.......that is of course not what I meant. I would never eat dog or cat. Funny though. Cute dog.

toria wrote:Ha ha good one.......that is of course not what I meant. I would never "knowingly" eat dog or cat. Funny though. Cute dog.

There, I fixed it for ya.

toria wrote:Ha ha good one.......that is of course not what I meant. I would never eat dog or cat. Funny though. Cute dog.

Why not? Every night the ASCPA is running ads about the terrible overpopulation of dogs. It is a modest proposal that would relieve the suffering animals of their misery and the poor of their hunger.

I am dead serious.

Lab Meat, Rebranded.

(This accompanies a longer article available to subscribers of The New Yorkers.)

toria wrote:Ha ha good one.......that is of course not what I meant. I would never eat dog or cat. Funny though. Cute dog.

Why not?

It's an animal. Many folks enjoy both-- as in they eat it by choice, not out of necessity. Perhaps we could solve world hunger by adding this protein, at least from healthy strays, to the mix instead of just putting them down and dumping them at the pounds or animal shelters.

Anyone who knows me or has been to my home knows how much I adore our dog. She eats animals. I don't. Anyone who has ever dined with me knows I'm not troubled by folks eating animals, this includes dogs, cats, horses, and if it's an emergency and they are already dead ( you can't kill them or hasten their death)-- humans.

I always wondered what to season people with.

Pie Lady wrote:I always wondered what to season people with.

I've been told human flesh is sweet, like pork, but I don't know if a long period of time on the smoker or GWiv's Green Egg would do the trick.