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Science

Lab-Grown Meat Chunks - It's What's For Dinner 596

Posted by michael from the other-white-meat dept.
jonerik writes "CNN has this story on a NASA-funded project being conducted at Touro College in New York. In the experiment, segments of muscle are cut from large goldfish and placed in a vat of 'nutrient-rich liquid,' with the fish chunks growing by 16% within a week. It is hoped that future developments will permit astronauts on long-term missions to include fresh meat in their diet without having to bring along actual animals and fish into space. New Scientist is also reporting the story."
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Lab-Grown Meat Chunks - It's What's For Dinner More

Lab-Grown Meat Chunks - It's What's For Dinner

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  • The Matrix? (Score:4, Funny)

    by dimer0 ( 461593 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @02:49PM (#3208644)
    Getting closer to the "single-celled protiens packed with amino acids" that the guys from the Matrix were eating..

    Why don't we just skip all this inbetween crap and go straight to that? .. As long as it has a zesty orangle flavor, I'm all over it.
    • Yeah, but at least it doesn't taste like "Tasty Wheat".

      I figure one day there will be a big market for vat-grown filet mignon at one-third the price of the real thing. Of course, it will probably be cost-prohibitive for many years.

      Forget Soylent Green, just reach into the vat and scoop out a couple of pounds of boneless filets, grill and eat. I'm sure the animal rights fanatics would like that.

      • Re:The Matrix? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:27PM (#3208992)
        > I figure one day there will be a big market for vat-grown filet mignon at one-third the price of the real thing. Of course, it will probably be cost-prohibitive for many years.

        I could go for that -- for non-steakeaters, the filet is a prized cut because it's tender. The filet's tenderness is a function of the fact that it's a muscle that doesn't get much use.

        Before I commit to a lunch of vat-grown meat, I'd like to know how the hunks of meat develop a grain or texture.

        Part of what makes "fish" meat good is the flaking and separation of the rows of flesh created by the intervening bones; likewise, the fibers of muscle that comprise the filet are organized in a grain. Steak are cut across the grain to allow any spices/marinades the maximum ability to penetrate the steak, and so that (after cooking), the chunks you cut off the steak are more easily-processed by the molars.

        Cuts of meat cut cross-grain (i.e. steaks) are also perceived as more tender because the grain is parallel to the direction of the motion of your teeth, facilitating the work of your molars. (This also applies to your incisors; if you're hungry enough, skip the fork, and if you're really hungry, skip the cooking.)

        I have no idea what kind of structure a large mass vat-grown steak (fish or beef) would develop, but I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to induce the cells to create their own structure by passing electric currents through the chunk as it forms, and/or to use a ceramic rod as a substitute for a bone to provide an initial alignment.

        • Re:The Matrix? (Score:3, Interesting)

          by lkaos ( 187507 )
          I could go for that -- for non-steakeaters, the filet is a prized cut because it's tender.

          Screw the traditional cuts of meat. Just by analyzing what makes meat taste good (as you point out in your post), we could make _even_ better tasting meats. It seems reasonable to me that in the future, meat the highest quality meats would be lab-grown.

          I don't know about the whole vegan thing though, the culture has to be organic in some way so animals would still be killed probably...
    • I like the food David Bowman discovers in 2001 (the novel). If I remember correctly, it was a blue-colored stuff that takes on the properties (taste, texture) of the food you think it is. It's been maybe 15 years since I read it, so my recall might be off.

      I thought it was pretty cool, anyway.

    • Because yeast tastes wrong, and mushrooms are cheaper. When quoting bad science from movies, the thing that goes after the close-quote is [sic]. Yeast, incidentally, is eukaryotic (big cells, like what we're made of). Blue-green algae, an even faster growing variety of slime, is prokaryotic/bacterial (little cells, such as cause diptheria and the beubonic plague.) Although we (almost entirely) share our genetic code with bacteria, after the code is used to generate protein sequences, the proteins undergo post-processing which is very different, so a given gene (a sequence of DNA that codes for a particular protein) from, say, a Cow, may not "work" in yeast and probably will not "work" in blue-green algae; i.e. the gene will not produce the same result-protein as in Bessy.

      Actual meat has blood cells and blood vessels; it has proteins (with distinctive scents/tastes) which are unique not only to animals, but to animal muscle tissues (likewise liver or kidney, if that's your taste). It contains a highly distinctive mix of small molecules. It has a texture which it is difficult to duplicate (even ground), especially if you start out with powder or ooze. If you want to know the state of meat-texture duplication technology, from powder, buy a can of Hormel chili and see if you can differentiate the meat and the textured vegetable.

      Anyway, you could clone the proteins into a yeast or a mushroom (see above). You'd have approximately the same chance of success either way. However, mushroom's already form tissues, which single celled organisms (yeast, pond scum) don't. Ground, textured, flavored mushroom products don't taste a whole lot like meat, but the approximation of the texture is pretty good.

      Now, Yeast or Algae is easier to cultivate in (say) hydroponics. So, if you wanted to duplicate the (much derided, unfairly to my mind) nutritional properties of meat, and did not concern yourself with taste or texture, it would be the way to go. However, the post-processing to texture it into something meat like (instead of a slime, powder or slurry) would, almost certainly, take up more space than the extra support facilities to grow a mushroom.

      The best solution, from a synthetic meat standpoint, would be a cube of fillet minion that just kept growing forever in a nutrient bath, complete with blood vessels and whatever components you throught your meat needed (not, for example, nerves). Tumor, it's what's for dinner. This is a (probably) technologically easier proposition that churns out beef grown in tanks. I presume that this is what the group in the article is moving towards.

      Of course, trying to do any of this in space is pretty silly. It seems like a frivolous thing to use up weight/space on; unless the beef industry is willing to pay for the space program as an advertising stunt.

  • Oh great... I can see my next year spam header... (Score:3, Funny)

    by tcc ( 140386 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @02:50PM (#3208652) Homepage Journal
    GROW YOUR PENIS 16% BIGGER IN JUST A WEEK WITH THIS NEW HIGH-TECH CREAM DEVELOPED BY NASA blablabla

    The scary part about this is... you know it will happen :).

  • First of all... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kaimiike1970 ( 444130 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @02:50PM (#3208653) Homepage
    This doesn't have to be for 'astronauts and the like'. How about hungry people right here on earth? I imagine these meat cubes would be easy to store and cook (due to the uniform size and shape) and no bones = no waste...
    • And you think this will be less costly than the other method of meat production - you know, actually breeding the bloody fish?

      Uniform size and shape isn't an issue... just ask Van De Kamps or Gorton's.

    • The problem isn't food supply, it's distribution.
    • If you can get the armed thugs that are starving people right here on earth to stop:

      1. Attacking UN and other humanitarian organizations from delivering the PLENYFUL food we already have

      2. Stop the other nonsensical organizations that keep blaming the West for every ill in the world as they watch us attempt to feed the world

      then...

      You will not need this new process right here on earth and it can go into space where it belongs!

    • Re:First of all... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Eryq ( 313869 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:07PM (#3208823) Homepage
      It would probably be cheaper and easier to just give those hungry people soybean products, which:

      - contain protein (the best thing about meat),
      - can be textured/flavored in a number of ways, and
      - are a hell of a lot cheaper/easier to produce in large quantities than 'fish muscle in a can'.

      But in agreement, I do think it would be a great way to create meat products which are cruelty-free, untainted by BGH (one would hope), and free of bacteria picked up on the killing floors.

      • Or even Quorn (Score:4, Informative)

        by Dephex Twin ( 416238 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:25PM (#3208970) Homepage
        There's also Quorn [quorn.com], which according to NPR is a popular european meat-substitute. It's made from fungus (not mushrooms, lower than that), and doesn't even require being farmed like soy beans. It can simply be made in a fermentation plant.

        Sounded interesting, and apparently it tastes pretty good.

        (Mmmm... Quorn Dogs...)

        mark
      • "are a hell of a lot cheaper/easier to produce in large quantities than 'fish muscle in a can'"

        Why would it be easier to grow soybeans than to cultivate meat in a vat? It strikes me that you would need a lot more space to grow soybeans hydroponically that you would need to grow blobs of meat to get the same amount of protein. The meat would probably need less user intervention as well. Open the vat, cook, and eat. With soybeans there are other time and energy intensive processes that must occur in order to turn soybeans into those textured/flavored forms.

      • FLAMEBAIT? He answers the question then adds a truthful insightful addition... you should be dragged out and shot. please read up on some basics of Systems Theory [ouc.bc.ca] it does make a lot of sense...
    • It's a common misconception that there isn't enough food in the world to go around. According to a recently published book the name of which I've forgotten (sorry), world food output averages out to something like 4 pounds of food per day per person, worldwide. That statement is grossly oversimplified, of course, but the point is that the world, on average, has a pretty significant food surplus.

      The problem with hunger is that there are places in the world where one of two things is true: either the place is so far from arable lands that getting food to the people there is expensive and difficult, or the people who live there are so poor that they can't acquire the food that's already available to them.

      So finding new ways to produce food isn't really going to help the problem much, unless we reach a point where food production is so cheap that you can literally give food away to anybody that asks for it. (If you look at the segment of the world's population that is directly engaged in food production activities, it sinks in what an unthinkable economic disaster it would be to make food production that cheap. Something like three billion people would be immediately without income.)

      The real solution to the world's hunger problem is going to be one of distribution. If we can get food from Buttwad, Iowa, to Mogadishu, Somalia, for fractions of a cent per pound, the hunger problem suddenly gets a lot easier to solve.
    • There was a Dilbert anime episode where he accidentally discovered a growing meat substitute which, on top of it, resembled a cow furr, which he thought could be mass-produced and sold to poor countries like Elbonia (the mud-covered country).

      Anyhow, from that story, growing meat substitute would be unmarketable.

  • hydroponic meat? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by myc ( 105406 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @02:51PM (#3208661)
    would any vegans care to comment on what your views would be on "hydroponic" meat? That is, meat grown from cloned cells and/or DNA, instead of that harvested from live animals. I think that hydroponic meat will be the wave of the future. "Growing" meat using livestock is simply not environmentally cost effective.
    • People are vegetarian (and vegan) for lots of reasons. Cloning clearly would not help solve any of the health problems associated with meat-eating.

      It does seem to help solve a lot of the ethical problems, although there are definitely animals being killed to research the technology, as well as initial animals that are killed to begin the meat farms.

      Most likely, the crossover between the animal rights crowd and the anti-food-modification crowd is large enough that there won't be much of a decrease in veganism/vegetarianism.
    • Vegetarian-approved meat.
      Now there's a fascinating concept.
      It might help with the moral vegetarians (who, i'm sorry but sometimes are just totally obsessive), but not much with the ones who just don't like meat.
      Sounds weird... but most of the vegetarians I know fall into the latter category. They're just grossed out by the taste and texture of meat.
      On a personal note, this article turned my stomach.. I'm allergic to seafood and the thought of chunks of goldfish brewing in nutrient broth makes my stomach churn.

    • Re:hydroponic meat? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Schlemphfer ( 556732 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:11PM (#3208868) Homepage

      Well, since I publish Vegan.com, that request for comment seems tailor made for me.

      You know, I'm not sure there are any ethical considerations to growing "hydroponic" meat. The stuff would not have a brain or the ability to feel pain and fear any more than plants do. It'd be creepy, for sure. But not nearly as creepy as having to kill an animal back here on earth.

      The better question is, why would NASA want to create this stuff in the first place? It's obvious that, barring undreamable technology breakthroughs, putting livestock into space is unworkable -- sheesh...it's practically unworkable keeping livestock on earth once the population starts approaching 10 billion ;)

      One thing that's also obvious is that space food is gonna suck...no matter if it's vegan or made from synthetic veal calves. There are some superb vegan recipes available now, and I think NASA would be better advised to experiment with some of the great flavors that contemporary vegan cooking can produce. It's not like the 1970s, when plant-based foods were blobs of tasteless brown rice and tofu. I think this NASA meat idea is a holdover from 1950s thinking, when everyone thought meat had to be the center of the meal, for both taste and nutrition.

      I'd like to see NASA devote its (too scarce) resources to making plant-based foods taste fantastic in a space environement. It sure beats the thought of microwaved synthetic meat. Spending money developing weird meat substitutes seems like a gross misappropriation of this agency's funds, when better and cheaper food alternatives are available. After all, shouldn't Nasa's money, as much as possible, go to space exploration?

      • Re:hydroponic meat? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by sane? ( 179855 )
        Simple really, would you like to share a confined space with someone who only would only eat beans and pulses?

        I mean really ?

        Confined space; says it all really.

      • This sort of research and experiments would apply to manned missions to other planets: Places the trip would be measured in years.

        If I'm not a vegan (and I'm not) on this trip, and all I get is vegan food, no beef, chicken, or fish, I'm gonna' go ape shit. I mean, it's gonna' be one ugly scene. Sorry, but I'm making a big enough sacrifice (possibly even dying in the effort) to go on this 3 year journey to Mars. Come Saturday night, I want a goddamn steak. Period. More meat, for the meat eaters.

        Also, (offtopic) a good way to keep the population from reaching 10 billion is to bomb Africa and South America with condoms. Maybe the odd instructional pamphlet.
      • | I'd like to see NASA devote its (too scarce) resources to
        | making plant-based foods taste fantastic in a space
        | environement. It sure beats the thought of microwaved
        | synthetic meat.

        NASA spent several million dollars and years of research
        to make a Pen that works in Zero-G...

        the russians just used a pencil...

        typical. :-\

        storm's nest [earthlink.net]

      • Re:hydroponic meat? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ocelotbob ( 173602 ) <ocelot@nosPAm.ocelotbob.org> on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:41PM (#3209092) Homepage
        The better question is, why would NASA want to create this stuff in the first place?

        Face it, people like meat. To a large portion of the population, it tastes good, and is an easy way to get a large amount of protein.

        it's practically unworkable keeping livestock on earth once the population starts approaching 10 billion ;)

        I don't think so. You do realize that right now an incredibly large amount of food goes to waste due to a number of sociopolitical reasons. I'd say that a huge amount of hunger is caused by corruption, not livestock.

        There are some superb vegan recipes available now, and I think NASA would be better advised to experiment with some of the great flavors that contemporary vegan cooking can produce...I think this NASA meat idea is a holdover from 1950s thinking, when everyone thought meat had to be the center of the meal, for both taste and nutrition.

        I partially agree with you here. Most meals for long space trips are going to be plant-based, and justifiably so. Once again, though, most people like meat, and so a low-impact way to create something that will more than likely be an occasional treat will be a great morale booster.

        I'd like to see NASA devote its (too scarce) resources to making plant-based foods taste fantastic in a space environement. It sure beats the thought of microwaved synthetic meat. Spending money developing weird meat substitutes seems like a gross misappropriation of this agency's funds, when better and cheaper food alternatives are available. After all, shouldn't Nasa's money, as much as possible, go to space exploration?

        The people working for NASA are no fools, they're not putting all their eggs in one basket. Sure this one research lab is working on ways to create meat suitable for space travel, but the lab down the hall is probably working on good tasting vegetable-based meals. It's all a matter of personal preference and taste.

        Besides, there are people who do develop allergies to plant-based proteins as well; I think you'd agree that it's a good idea to have a contingency plan in place before any problems develop. This, if anything else, could be a contingency plan if someone were to develop an allergy to the primary protein source - just move them over to a fish-based diet and let the mission continue without many worries about allergic reactions.

      • I would imagine it's because that meat is higher in energy, pound for pound. With spacecraft, weight/storage considerations are of paramount importance.

        When you talk about sending people to live in space (either in the ISS or on a trip to Mars), you want to be able to pack as much nutrition into as small a space as possible. With launch costs somewhere around $10000 per pound, taking several extra pounds in vegetables means NOT taking several extra pounds in fuel, air or equipment more so than it means spending more money.

        When you're in as hostile an environment as space, survival dictates what you do. Tastiness takes a back seat to that.

        As for the ethical considerations of killing animals, you could just as easily take tissue samples. As for the nutritional downsides of eating meat, that's where genetic engineering (still in the future) comes in.

      • Re:hydroponic meat? (Score:5, Funny)

        by cperciva ( 102828 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @04:12PM (#3209283) Homepage
        it's practically unworkable keeping livestock on earth once the population starts approaching 10 billion

        Once the population reaches 10 billion, we don't have to *keep* livestock any more. It's already there. 10 billion worth, in fact.
    • Although, I'm not officially vegan, I'm quite close. While I am not against hunting for food, I am against factory farming and other conditions which create a prolonged, suffering life.

      Predator/prey relationships and the food chain are a part of nature, creating what essentially amounts to animal concentration camps, is an abomination, fueled by nothing more than money.

      The first thing I thought of when I read this is "no more cows lined up in a factory farm". It could end a lot of misery and suffering, and make factory farming as we know it extinct. The meat industry wouldn't go out of business, and they could probably decrease production costs.

      Personally, I don't think I'd eat the hydroponic meat. However, I don't see many ethical problems with this, aside from the initial animal that gets killed for this purpose. This one animal makes a sacrifice that saves literally billions of other animal's lives. This is a complicated issue, of course.

      As a person who grew up on meat and potatoes and making my little sister cry at the table by making "crying lamb" noises, I'm surprised to find that I've grown to think meat itself is gross, aside from the ethical factors.

      Disclaimers:

      1.) I don't like PETA, they make a mockery of serious animal rights concerns. I don't evangelize my beliefs on others. If people ask me, I will explain these beliefs, and hope they gain a little insight into the issues at hand.

      2.) I'm not fat, or skeletal. I eat good, and exercise a lot and can run miles and miles. I reason that if I don't need meat to exist, so eat it?
      • However, I don't see many ethical problems with this, aside from the initial animal that gets killed for this purpose.

        Actually, no animals would need to be killed. The initial tissue samples could be obtained surgically with no long-term impact other than a small scar. This is no different than what's done to humans for cancer screening, for example.

        If this technology were perfected, people could find exotic meats on a restaurant menu and be comforted that no endangered animals were killed for their meal. This would be perfect for those people who insist on shark-fin soup or other snake oil that currently threatens many animal populations.
        • This is no different than what's done to humans for cancer screening

          That gives a whole new meaning to "chicken nuggets". (They're tumorific!)
    • You know in 1984, when Orwell talks about getting "real" chocolate from the proles, or sneaking out to get some covert "real" coffee?

      IRL, people are already accustomed to nasty freeze-dried coffee, plasticky chocolate, and ice cream that's hardly cream and when it melts, turns into some sort of foam (try it; unless you buy premium ice cream, it's gross).

      Leave my meat alone.

    • Re:hydroponic meat? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by catbutt ( 469582 )
      I'm not vegan/vegetarian, because I love meat and cannot imagine a diet without meat. But I also love animals, and would happily pay more for meat that didn't involve killing a sentient being (or involved killing far fewer of them).

      I also think that eventually, this would be a much cheaper and more efficient way to produce meat.

      My girlfriend is a PETA member and doesn't eat meat for ethical reasons, she has said if they could grow meat in a factory like this she would eat it. And I'd be happy because accomodating her no-meat diet is a pain in the ass every time we go out to eat.
    • Would any vegans care to comment on what your views would be on "hydroponic" meat?

      As this development requires (I believe the phrase was) "fluid extracted from the blood of unborn calves", I can't really support this line of research as a vegetarian or vegan friendly alternative. It's also not clear in the article if the fluid from one calf is capable of "feeding" more than one calf worth of meat. It may be that this idea (currently) requires more lives than the status quo.

      I've seen a few stories like this in the past year, and if the goal is to reduce animal suffering, the ability to grow animal cells in a (vegetable based) nutrient bath would certainly go a long way towards that. There is still the issue of the source cells however, and there's no way that I can see where these cells could be freely given unless they came from humans, which the marketing department might have a problem with.

      That being said, if all ethical considerations were satisfactorily resolved, would I eat "hydroponic meat"? No. Putting aside the fact that it's really really creepy, and that I don't feel a need to eat flesh, the original health based motivations that inspired me to go vegan in the first place still apply. In this case, I would likely side on the non-scientific side and argue that it's very hard to prove that something's safe, but not the other way around.

      I'm trying to stick to answering the question without going into a vegan rant (that's what Vegan Porn [veganporn.com] is for), but I should point out that I really wish scientists would at least consider the option of just (now this is a bit crazy) not eating meat in the first place. It really isn't that hard, and it's got to be cheaper to research...

      HT
  • I recall a web site showing how to grow mushroom and assorted veggies (so to speak) on a piece of steak in the sun under a glass dome.

    Combine this with this story's poltergeist-inspired pickled fish meat piece and you've got a full meal!
  • Hmmm..."unappetizing bovine-based laboratory concoction" that keeps fresh for long-distance trips. Sounds familiar. [spam.com]

  • Soy Looking Better All The Time (Score:3, Funny)

    by ksw2 ( 520093 ) <[obeyeater] [at] [gmail.com]> on Friday March 22, 2002 @02:54PM (#3208709) Homepage
    From the story:

    "They said it looked like fish and smelled like fish, but they didn't go as far as tasting it," Benjaminson said in a statement.

    Hmm, they haven't the courage to even taste it yet? I guess soy burgers aren't so disgusting anymore... I can't say goldfish soaked in 'grow juice' sounds too appealing, either.
  • Why don't the astronauts just drink the "nutrient-rich liquid" and save some effort?
  • cut from large goldfish and placed in a vat of 'nutrient-rich liquid,'

    And how will these astrounauts replenish this supply of 'nutrient-rich liquid'? I don't know how long one vat will keep a piece of goldfish flesh growing, but you're gonna run outta nutrients sooner or later. There are some things you can't get from recycling your own feces. Let's face it: any manned long-term space missions are gonna be munching on algae steak.

    • The idea is to get "fresh" meat into the mission.
      algae steak would also require a vat of nutrients.
      Your going to have to take the nutrients with you some how, cearly a vat of netrients(algea or otherwise)is a very eonomical way to go.

      Of course you could always just take a bunch of chikens with you, but there noice will give you away to the fire giants..oh wait, thats DnD..
  • I thought if you made a large trip in space, having cattle would be like a biosphere. You would grow plants and tend animals, which would also keep you sane doing routine chores.

    And wouldnt you want to have the ship spin, so you can have some artifical gravity? Then you could slaughter the animals, and not worry about the mess.

    BTW, slaughtering might sound bad, but doesnt stop you from eating at McDonalds.

  • Spam 2.0, another white meat.

  • Oh yeah!! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Havokmon ( 89874 ) <rick.havokmon@com> on Friday March 22, 2002 @02:56PM (#3208727) Homepage Journal
    You think this "Nutrient rich" fluid for growing muscles is just for food... Wait till the spammers get a hold of this!

    Forwarded mail follows:

    From: bigwhopper@yahoo.com
    Subject: Increase your penis size by %16 in one week!!

    Ever take a shower? Now you can give your penis a bath, and have it grow 16% in one week!! How does it work? We don't know! But we're all REALLY happy around here!

    WARNING! Don't leave penis unattended. Potential side affects include: Better Sex, Longer Sex, and mothers no longer saying "There's plenty of room in the crotch."

  • Aren't there limits to how many times an animal cell can divide, before it just stops dividing, lives out it's life and dies?

    IANAB (I am not a biochemist), but there have been different articles on this subject over the years. Wouldn't that be an impediment to large scale implementation of this?

    Just asking....
    • Yes, I had the same problem. There are two ways around this that I can think of:

      a) take multiple biopsies of animals and grow from that, as the animals are still alive and healthy, most of the ethical issues go away.

      b) find a cancerous growth and grow from that- cancers are immortal

      I have a feeling that b) is pretty safe; but I have a stronger feeling that nobody would allow you to feed fish cancers to humans, even though humans immune system would deal with it with ease.

  • Sure they'll tell the folks it's "fish", bit it'll really be Soylent Green [imdb.com].

  • Anyone who reads a.r.k will see this as pepsico finally admitting that they have Animal 57 [kibo.com]

    This is freaking creepy. Maybe less creepy than Quorn [quorn.com], which is made from slime mold (mycoprotien) but it's far too creepy for me.

  • Already done! (Score:5, Funny)

    by seanadams.com ( 463190 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @02:58PM (#3208746) Homepage
    Amazing device turns grass into meat!!! [sciencenews.org]
  • The CNN article makes it sound as if this technique produces no waste whatsoever. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but won't these muscle cells be generating plenty of waste as they use up the nutrients provided to them. Granted, you won't have fecal matter to dispose of, but you're still going to need to filter the cell waste out of this serum that the muscles are grown in...

  • Red or White (Score:3, Funny)

    by blamanj ( 253811 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:00PM (#3208767)
    This presents a serious problem. Since they started with fish muscle tissue, you might assume that the resulting "tissue" was fish, but since it was grown in "a vat of fetal bovine serum", would that make it beef?

    What to serve, red wine or white?
  • So THAT'S how Jesus did it! Now I'm all anxious for the scientific procedure that shows us how to turn water into wine!

    -Craw

  • I hope that McDonalds doesn't see this (Score:3, Funny)

    by wackysootroom ( 243310 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:01PM (#3208776) Homepage
    When burgers are dropped on the floor, the meat is usually thrown away. Maybe instead they will break them up and put them into the 'Burger Vat'.

    Oh well, the food can't get *that* much worse, can it?
  • The real question is:
    What do you get if you let the meat continue to grow?

    With 16% growth in 1 week, I wonder what you'd have in a year? A huge blob of "living" meat, or something similar to a complete fish?
  • Okay, so you take some fish up, and it gains in mass by 14%.

    But, you also took up a bunch of cow abortions, which lost the equivalent mass, if not more.

    So, where's the savings? Seems to be they'd be better off shipping up 14% more freeze-dried goldfish.

    During launch, you put in a big box full of ice. After launch, you tie the fish to the outside of the spaceship (like beer, when ice fishing), melt the ice to use as drinking water, and collapse the box into a corner somewhere.

    Seems pretty straightforward to me.
    • you relized there is no tempurature in space?
      and when the particle from a star hit it, it will get hot?
      the advantage ot this is, its easier to maintain a vat of nutrients.
    • you also took up a bunch of cow abortions, which lost the equivalent mass, if not more.

      If the lost mass *isn't* exactly equivalent, then this research is definately worth NASA's time...
  • researchers finally got up the nerve to try some... and it tastes like chicken.

  • Eh? (Score:2)

    by Lethyos ( 408045 )
    without having to bring along actual animals and fish into space.

    Fish aren't animals?
  • "SMEAT, its whats for dinner!"

  • Human Flesh? (Score:3, Funny)

    by kramer ( 19951 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:11PM (#3208863) Homepage
    So, what happens when we can vat-grow large amounts of meat from small pieces of human flesh? Will human flesh become an item on the menus? Eh, it'll probably taste like chicken -- everything else does.

  • Could vegetarians eat this sort of meat?

    I mean, specifically, the PETA tribes. It may cause some discomfort to the first animal, but if the process turns out to be sustainable indefinitely...it's certainly less harmful to animals in general than some farming practices.

    Personally, I think this concept is cool and not the least bit spooky. Nope. Petri steak isn't spooky at all...
  • They say that this chunk of tissue was kept in a nutrient rich liquid. I don't understand. The tissue would then be composed of the nutrients in this liquid. Therefore, consuming the tissue would be the same as consuming the meat. However, it would much less wasteful to consume the nutrient liquid rather than the meat - which people would desire to cook and of course, would not be as well digested.

    So for a space mission, you're talking about bringing a few thousand liquid tons of nutrient to produce a substantially lower quantity of food. Am I getting this wrong?

    Why not just consume this nutrient liquid directly - something I'm sure a human body would digest better than meat. Space travel requires practical designs. I'm sorry the astronauts will not get a juicy Texas steak every now and then. :)
    • Therefore, consuming the tissue would be the same as consuming the meat.

      Yes, obviously this is true. I meant to say "consuming the tissue would be the same as consuming the liquid."

      Sorry... my revision skills are lacking... but no more than CmdrTaco's [goatse.cx].

  • Bill Cosby (Score:3, Funny)

    by sharkey ( 16670 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:19PM (#3208926)
    What's next? Growing a chicken heart in a vat?

  • Illegal? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jhines0042 ( 184217 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:23PM (#3208949) Journal
    The U.S. Food and Drug Administration must approve the mutant meat before people can legally consume it, according to NewScientist.com, which first reported on it on Wednesday.

    Does that mean that it is actually _illegal_ to eat crayons, glue, boogers, pieces of carpet, lead paint chips and dirt?

    Time to start arresting some children if you ask me.

    • Does that mean that it is actually _illegal_ to eat crayons, glue, boogers, pieces of carpet, lead paint chips and dirt?

      Eh, no, because those things are not sold as food. By "legally consume", the article is implying that it can be legally sold as food.
  • Soilent green is made of people!!!

    :)

  • Why not just cut out the middle man (or fish):)? With stem cell research, couldn't one of our multi-generational space cadets just give up an arm or leg for dins and then regen the limb?

  • They expect people to eat this carp? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:41PM (#3209089) Homepage Journal
    It seems to me that this is a promising idea. The various foods we like to eat are often made in the bodies of animals, but there's no reason that the cells that do it have to be in something with a nervous system. Of course, it couldn't have evolved that way, but the reason that meat is an inefficient food source is that it tends to wander around and look for food. We've just replaced the rest of the fish's body with a vat.

    If this sort of research continues, we ought to be able to build what amounts to an ecosystem with the routing between various animal organs done with pipes instead of the rest of the animals.

  • funny (Score:3, Funny)

    by _ph1ux_ ( 216706 ) on Friday March 22, 2002 @03:41PM (#3209091)
    reading this - I just had a vision of some student rubbing this nutrient liquid all over his privates hoping for that 16% in a week....

    but maybe im just sick....
  • "Because he had a good agent, he had a good contract. Because he had a good contract, he was in Singapore an hour after the explosion. Most of him, anyway The Dutch surgeon liked to joke about that, how an unspecified percentage of Turner hadn't made it out of Palam International on that first flight and had to spend the night there in a shed, in a support vat.

    It took the Dutchman and his team three months to put Turner together again. They cloned a square meter of skin for him, grew it on slabs of collagen and shark-cartilage polysaccharides They bought eyes and genitals on the open market The eyes were green."

    William Gibson Count Zero
  • Goldfish my butt,

    Remeber Soylent Green,

    There was also Soylent Red and some other colors I dont remeber,

    This is the first step, Soylent GOLD !!!!

    Soylent-Green for the masses [soylent-green.com]

    Its people my god, SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE !

    Does this mean human self cannibalism is a profitable possibility, they say the meat is kinda sweet and all.

    Seriously, Do you want to eat something thats GROWN in a "nutrient rich" (thats the people part I bet) , this is just so wrong to my pallete, mind, and sense of what is natural I cant see it.....

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