First Ever Public Tasting of Lab-Grown Cultured Beef Burger 303
vikingpower writes "Today, at 14:00 Western European Time (9:00 am Eastern), Professor Mark Post of Maastricht University (the Netherlands) will present a world first: he will cook and serve a burger made from Cultured Beef in front of an invited audience in London. The event will include a brief explanation of the science behind the burger. You can watch the event live, online. The project's fact sheet is to be found here (pdf)." The BBC is reporting that Sergey Brin is the mystery backer behind the project.
Zealouts and Luddites (Score:2, Interesting)
This will divide the extremists. The anti-GM Luddites will go crazy because this is arguably the most anti-organic food on the planet. The vegetarians will celebrate because they get to eat 'meat' once more without killing animals. The vegans will note that animal byproducts are still required for this process to exist at all and still turn their noses up at it.
Will brains explode with delight with the idea that humans can have their meat without killing cows and all of their related carbon emissions? Will brains explode because the lab grown meat is so expensive that only the very rich can afford it? What will the conscious do with the idea that people get to have meat at all? Will the meat connoisseur snub this lab grown meat versus a nice hamburger from cow #156? Will the greens go nuts because a carbon based food source is being replaced with a lab equivalent that will inevitably be owned by the giant food corps?
So many heads to explode, so little popcorn.
Re:You would think. . . (Score:4, Interesting)
I made the mistake of eating a hamburger in London in 2001. I was on a long business trip and just wanted something quick to eat, so I ducked into a McDonalds.
Little did I know that, thanks to the outbreak of Mad Cow Disease, this simple act would make me ineligible to become a blood donor for years to come.
Re:You would think. . . (Score:5, Interesting)
The point of that is for people who can't tolerate dairy products. I suppose vegans as well, but I think it's mainly for those that can't tolerate dairy.
And that's a much larger group than a lot of people realize, I didn't realize that I had trouble with dairy, until I moved to a part of the world where dairy is hard to get, and I felt physically better than I had in years.
Re:You would think. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
How exactly is laboratory grown meat more disgusting than a factory-farmed alternative? If it tastes similar enough* and the price can be made competitive I predict a lot of high-yield subspecies will go nearly extinct.
*within acceptable tolerances - factory farmed meat is a poor substitute for free-range meat, but is so much cheaper that most people will choose it anyway. Same with most high-yield fruits and vegetables that have been bred (or genetically modified) to have huge yields with little or no regard for flavor.
Re:Zealouts and Luddites (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't forget the methane, IIRC cows are the #1 source of emissions of that far more powerful greenhouse gas. It's short-lived, less than a year in the atmosphere as opposed to CO2's 50+, but when you're on the tipping point those extra forcing factors are important to consider.
But really cows are horrendously inefficient meat sources - they consume 10kg of grain for every 1kg of meat they produce. Presumably most of that inefficiency isn't in the muscles taking up nutrients, so potentially lab meat could be almost 10x as efficient. And given that this is an early stage proof-of-concept I expect most electricity will be generated in much more environmentally friendly ways by the time it's ready for widespread deployment. It better be or we're likely to be screwed for completely unrelated reasons.
Of course insects are already producing high quality protein at a rate of 9kg of meat per 10kg of feed, so I suppose it's a question of whether Westerners are more freaked out by lab-grown meat or locust-burgers.
Re:Zealouts and Luddites (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not sure why you insist on it tasting the same since real beef is not necessarily a local optimum of taste. They're aiming in the same general direction and if they get it wrong it won't necessarily taste worse. They got unlucky this time but a priori there was some chance it would have tasted better.
Re:Solving Canibalism (Score:5, Interesting)
Kosher bacon!
if it's grown in a petridish, it's not from a pig, right?
Re:dupe (Score:5, Interesting)
They can keep it.
Hell, I'm just trying to eat beef/animal products that are more natural than the normal stuff you see in the grocery stores.
I'd rather cut down my meat intake (quality over quantity), and have say beef, that is grass fed, allowed to eat what it normally eats, and not needing all the hormones and anti-biotics....
I'm certainly not wanting to swing the complete other day and have synthetic "dead animal".
Why are we trying to go so far away from foodstuffs that mother natures put on earth for us...?
It isn't like most of us (in the west) are starving or anything.
I would argue that if it's possible to grow meat that's just as wholesome as grass-fed beef (arguably more so because it won't have any environmental contaminants at all) and at the same price, the practice of raising and killing of animals is no longer justified in the slightest. It's a morally tough call today as it is.