In Vitro Grown Meat 'Nearly Possible' 260
Bruce66423 writes "An article at The Guardian discusses the prospects for food from radically different sources than the ones we're used to. 'Sweet fried crickets' anyone? Quoting: '... artificial steak is still a way off. Pizza toppings are closer. The star of the Dutch research into in-vitro meat, Dr Mark Post, promised that the first artificial hamburger, made from 10bn lab-grown cells, would be ready for "flame-grilling by Heston Blumenthal" by the end of 2012. At the time of writing it is still on the back burner. Post (who previously produced valves for heart surgery) and other Dutch scientists are currently working over the problem of how to turn the "meat" from pieces of jelly into something acceptably structured: an old-fashioned muscle. Electric shocks may be the answer. ... The technological problems of producing the new hi-tech foods are nothing compared to the trouble the industry is having with the consumers – the "yuck factor," as the food technology scientists across the world like to put it. Shoppers' squeamishness has turned the food corporations, from whom the real money for R&D will have to come, very wary, and super-secretive about their work on GM in America.'"
Re:why not use meat (Score:3, Informative)
People have no idea the absolutely unbelievable amount of agricultural and hydrological resources the world pours down a veritable black hole to make meat. Put it this way: The amount of grain and water it takes to raise the meat eaten by Americans alone could feed everyone in the entire world.
Chinese Faux Meats (Score:4, Informative)
This technology isn't really needed. Chinese Buddhists have been making faux meats for centuries. They are quite good.
There are also newer, Western faux meats that are quite good. Check out brands like Gardein and Beyond Meat.
Throughout most of human history, meat in the quantity Westerners are used to has been quite rare. The result are ethic cuisines thousands of years old that use little, if any meat, for tasty, complete ( and healthier ) nutrition.
Re:why not use meat (Score:5, Informative)
Most of the meat eaten in the US is beef and chicken. What do we feed most of the beef and chicken? There's some forage, sure. But the majority of it is corn and soy, grown on commercial farms. This is particularly true in large-scale commercial lots where the overwhelming majority of our meat is produced.
And I hate to burst your bubble, but alfalfa doesn't come falling out of the sky into fully formed hay bails. You have to plant it, fertilized it, and harvest it like all the other crops. That requires arable land, water, gasoline, and labor costs that could easily be used in a much more efficient way than producing meat, which was the GP poster's point.
But I guess having a understanding of basic economics [wikipedia.org] makes us stupid goddamn hippies.
Re:Speaking as a vegan (Score:5, Informative)
So now you want to conflate eating meat with rape, and then tell me I need to study formal logic a bit more?
What he used is called an "analogy." Using an analogy is not at all the same as saying that two things are exactly alike. Rather, what he was trying to say is that just because something is natural, that doesn't mean it's automatically good. So no, he very likely wasn't trying to say that eating meat is like raping someone.
Re:Speaking as a vegan (Score:5, Informative)
In your second post you have used two fallacies again: the first was another straw man fallacy - GP gave a perfectly reasonable, though unrelated, example of the naturalistic fallacy and you have made an argument against some concoction of your own, where you've put the GP's example together with the previous topic. Your second fallacy is called an appeal to ridicule. Example: you used the appeal to ridicule fallacy because you are an obstinate idiot incapable of critical thought and resentful of those who are, the very idea that you have anything worthwhile to say is preposterous.