Behind the Hype of 'Lab-Grown' Meat (gizmodo.com) 342
In an exclusive report via Gizmodo, Ryan F. Mandelbaum discusses the hype surrounding "lab-grown" meat: Some folks have big plans for your future. They want you -- a burger-eatin', chicken-finger-dippin' American -- to buy their burgers and nuggets grown from stem cells. One day, meat eaters and vegans might even share their hypothetical burger. That burger will be delicious, environmentally friendly, and be indistinguishable from a regular burger. And they assure you the meat will be real meat, just not ground from slaughtered animals. That future is on the minds of a cadre of Silicon Valley startup founders and at least one nonprofit in the world of cultured meat. Some are sure it will heal the environmental woes caused by American agriculture while protecting the welfare of farm animals. But these future foods' promises are hypothetical, with many claims based on a futurist optimism in line with Silicon Valley's startup culture. Cultured meat is still in its research and development phase and must overcome massive hurdles before hitting market. A consumer-ready product does not yet exist and its progress is heavily shrouded by intellectual property claims and sensationalist press. Today, cultured meat is a lot of hype and no consumer product.
"Much of what happens in the world of cultured meat is done for the sake of PR," Ben Wurgaft, an MIT-based post-doctoral researcher writing a book on cultured meat, told Gizmodo. Wurgaft finds it hard to believe many predictions about cultured meat's future, including the promise of an FDA-approved consumer product within a year. The truth is that only a few successful prototypes have yet been shown to the public, including a NASA-funded goldfish-based protein in the early 2000s, and a steak grown from frog cells in 2003 for an art exhibit. More have come recently: Mark Post unveiled a $330,000 cultured burger in 2013, startup Memphis Meats has produced cultured meatballs and poultry last and this year, and Hampton Creek plans to have a product reveal dinner by the end of the year.
"Much of what happens in the world of cultured meat is done for the sake of PR," Ben Wurgaft, an MIT-based post-doctoral researcher writing a book on cultured meat, told Gizmodo. Wurgaft finds it hard to believe many predictions about cultured meat's future, including the promise of an FDA-approved consumer product within a year. The truth is that only a few successful prototypes have yet been shown to the public, including a NASA-funded goldfish-based protein in the early 2000s, and a steak grown from frog cells in 2003 for an art exhibit. More have come recently: Mark Post unveiled a $330,000 cultured burger in 2013, startup Memphis Meats has produced cultured meatballs and poultry last and this year, and Hampton Creek plans to have a product reveal dinner by the end of the year.
Early Adoption Costs (Score:5, Insightful)
When have the initial versions of a product not been hard to produce, expensive and limited?
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers"
Context (Score:3)
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers"
On the other hand, back when he did said that, the total market of then-era computer was indeed probably around five.
There's more than half a century of R&D between him and the modern-day ubiquitous computer in everybody's pocket (smartphones).
Having a start-up promising within year to sell vat-grown-burgers at the current state of research and development...
Is like a start-up promising to put man on the moon by the end of the decade... back when mongols used their first gun-powder based rockets (and we [wikipedia.org]
This is not the Slashdot articles I signed up for (Score:4, Insightful)
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This was a one-sided hit piece if I ever saw one. What's with all the lobby-driven drivel increasingly being accepted to Slashdot?
The owners not seeing enough revenue flow, and trying to hike it up by trolling the audience, I think. Riling up the readers cause more posts, which is Slashdot's only real asset.
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*cough*
https://soylentnews.org/ [soylentnews.org]
'scuse me.
Do Sheeple Dream of Electric Meat? (Score:2)
Given all the people still wary of eating GMOs or anything 'artificial', there will be a large demand for animal meat even if this becomes cheaper. It'll be like HFCS vs. sugar, or vanillin vs vanilla.
Personally I'd try it out of curiosity, but I can't shake that quote from Judge Dredd: "Eat recycled food: good for the environment, ok for you." There's something depressingly dystopian/cyberpunk about eating fake meat, conceptually, that reminds me of how in "Do androids dream of electric sheep?" people only
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people only own electronic pets because there aren't the resources to support living ones.
people only own pets because they don't have the emotional resources to associate with humans
Re:Do Sheeple Dream of Electric Meat? (Score:5, Funny)
A dog only shits on my rug, not my entire life.
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You should talk to an ex of mine.
"Not a maternal bone in my body", but she always had a pet dog, and then she ended up breeding horses.
Seriously - one pet died, and she had another within days.
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I don't blame people for not being able to deal with other people — I have the same problem. It's ironic and even odd, because I am actually at least better than average at interfacing with people in a professional context, but on a personal level I have all kinds of blind spots due to a lacking upbringing.
We "have" a cat in our home. She was hired to do rodent control, but she has become a part of our household. Throughout most of my life, I have been violently allergic to cats. When coupled with the
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I think it's great that you've overcome an allergy and formed a bond with another creature, even if she does prefer to show you her ass :-) I have yet to conquer seasonal rhinitis (hay fever).
I have children, and they shit me sometimes, but I like them.
My preferred animals at the moment are the magpies and currawongs that visit for food. There's definitely a brief moment in eye contact when I leave some food nearby, and they come to collect it, look at me, and fly off.
Some days I'd prefer to never have to d
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gosh, you wouldn't do too well on the Voight-Kampff test
We host a cat because we have vermin problems. But in this era we have more mice than we can use. On a modern Voight-Kampff test, I'd do just peachy. Death to Vermin.
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I'm not so sure. The factory grown fungus made into highly processed food, Quorn, has really taken off with vegetarians and many people you'd think would shy away from anything artificial.
Pork, chicken and farmed fish are not likely to go away any time soon but beef could end up being a luxury item in a decade or two.
Eat your lab grown burger in your flying car (Score:2)
Don't believe the 'don't believe the hype' hype (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd say vat-grown meat is closer to being a reality than AI, cheap fusion or quantum pretty much anything, and this swipe reeks of the desperation of an industry that has just seen the terrible threat and is trying to spin against it already.
$330,000 cultured burger in 2013 (Score:3)
It was hyped as it was a clear defined successes in the lab-grown meat research. Unlike other startups or researches, they completed the lab-grown meat research. If the research was never completed or no product was ever produced, then fine it was all PR. But they did create a lab-grown meat for consumption. One luck guy did ate the burger and it was extremely expensive to make.
It was fair PR based on actual event and hyped for the actual 'potential'.
meat is not only meat (Score:4, Interesting)
Meat is more than just a combination of cells. Its the result of the how the animal from were it was cut lived and died.
You have different cuts of meat, based on the muscle of the animal were its cut from. Depending on the animal, how it was raised, and how it was killed, a piece of meat can have different texture and flavour that the same cut from a different animal, raised in different environments.
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Let's cut through the bullshit, please. (Score:4, Informative)
Oh FFS; there's nothing wrong with eating meat, especially in moderation and from sustainable sources.
Over-population in many countries, (who are now moving towards a more meat-intensive diet), intensive & abusive agriculture, over-fishing etc. are the real villains.
From the fine article:
"But despite what you may have heard, the evidence as to whether cultured meat is better for the environment is inconclusive. “On the environmental studies, the work that’s been done is very preliminary,” Hampton Creek’s Fischer said. A 2011 study estimated that the product might produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions, but use about the same amount of energy as the European pork industry. One 2015 study found potential environmental benefits in China, but another 2015 estimate found it could use just as much energy as animal-based meats. The common theme is uncertainty."
So, the financial viability and environmental impact of all this seems most vague at this point.
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there's nothing wrong with eating meat
Eating it? No. Acquiring it without the enslavement and murder of animals is trickier.
Replace "lab-grown meat" with... (Score:2)
Just about any other thing we now use. Seriously this is an anti-vision, anti-progress piece that could be applied to any technology before it became commonplace.
This has no place on a tech site where people are a bit more "progress friendly" .
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people are a bit more "progress friendly"
Not for a while. Have you read any Slashdot recently?
Protecting the welfare of farm animals??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Really? If something like vat-grown meat ever takes off, every farm animal in the country will be dead within a few years. Because farmers don't raise cows and pigs and chickens because they enjoy their company, they raise them for income. Once the animals become unsellable, they're going to be exterminated.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is blowing smoke....
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Re:Protecting the welfare of farm animals??? (Score:4, Informative)
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Really? If something like vat-grown meat ever takes off, every farm animal in the country will be dead within a few years. Because farmers don't raise cows and pigs and chickens because they enjoy their company, they raise them for income. Once the animals become unsellable, they're going to be exterminated.
Not only that, but I have a sneaking suspicion that vegans may refuse to eat it and backers of this plan are going to be shocked when they do so. On top of that, there are people who have religious objections to eating animal flesh such as Hindus and Buddhists because they believe that doing so makes you a participant in the death of a living creature and gives you bad karma. I'm not a member of those groups so I can't speak for them, but I can certainly guess that some of them may end up having problems
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So, your argument is that it'll take a while, and even then, less than 1% of the livestock will survive. Because rich people aren't going to be needing anywhere near so much livestock as we use now.
Which is pretty much what I said, yea
Lack of need... (Score:2)
So, lets assume that this lab-meat takes off and in short order we grow all the beef, lamb, pork, & chicken in a factory...
What do we do with all the cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens that we no longer have a need for?
Do they become endangered or extinct?
And now the FDA. . . . . (Score:2)
. . . refuses to call the "burger" safe for consumption [nypost.com].
To wit, the ingredient of soy leghemoglobin:
"arguments presented [by its creators] ... do not establish the safety of soy leghemolgobin for consumption.”
Interestingly enough, Impossible Foods asked the FDA to STOP the approval process on their cultured meat substitute. [fda.gov]
Jonathan Swift had a modest proposal... (Score:5, Funny)
Jonathan Swift had a modest proposal that could solve environmental problems, animal cruelty, and overpopulation... and provide tasty burgers, or other most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee, or a ragout.
It's disgusting (Score:2)
I prefer real meat with antibiotics, hormones and steroids in it.
This is how we know that cultured meat is coming (Score:2)
Inevitable (Score:2)
Eventually most countries will ban animal meat, though some will get it through the black market, insisting it's either "more natural than the synthetic crap," or as a perverse status symbol, like safari hunting for sport today.
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That meat will be high-quality
Looking at what the food industry has provided so far, we can safely assume it will be very tasty, but poor quality. Quality cost money, and people aren't going to be able to tell the difference, anyway.
Time for an "Open Meat" initiative! (Score:5, Funny)
A consumer-ready product does not yet exist and its progress is heavily shrouded by intellectual property claims...
I'm sure RMS disapproves of proprietary wetware as much as he disapproves of proprietary software. Let's start an Open Meat movement. LibreChicken, anyone? How about Moo-nix? OpenBSE?
Lumps of test tube flesh have human rights too! (Score:2)
Why not Ahi tuna? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me they are going after the wrong market. The first lab-grown (excuse me, "cultured") meat should be sushi-grade Ahi tuna. Tuna is expensive, over-fished, potentially mercury-laden, and it already looks like it came out of a vat. And people already eat imitation-crab in their California rolls anyway.
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wow, that's a great point. my vote here.
Falacies throughout (Score:2)
"protecting the welfare of farm animals" -- there won't be any farm animals. Some will call it "ironic" that cows went extinct after we stopped killing them. Do you think there will be wild cows roaming free? Chickens too?
"will be delicious, environmentally friendly, and be indistinguishable" -- someone seems to have forgotten the only important adjective: what about nutritious?
Every time we "take control" over a process, especially a consumer process, we've made things MUCH worse for the environment. H
Re:Animals have a functioning immune system (Score:5, Informative)
What kind of immune system does pasteurised milk have?
Though it does indeed present some problems (immuno-laxity is not a small issue, don't get me wrong), it's not the end of the world. Foods are already preserved to combat them being attacked, and a cucumber or potato has little more defence against bacterial infection than anything synthetic.
Basically, if you could grow this stuff in a sterile atmosphere, preserve it and package it, it's not going to be able to harbour anything nasty.
The fact that then you're basically eating "sterile" food is much more of an issue (i.e. you won't grow defences, and may be more likely to be "intolerant" or real food if you live entirely on this stuff), but basic food preservation combats what you're talking about.
The bigger issue really is - what's the cost of keeping it sterile and preserving it that way, after synthetically producing it? I'm guessing it adds yet-more-expense to an already expensive synthesised item.
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Basically, if you could grow this stuff in a sterile atmosphere, preserve it and package it, it's not going to be able to harbour anything nasty.
So if everything goes perfectly, it's much safer? How reassuring. Anyway, your next line is "because it's vat grown they will be able to do much better inspections" and then the counter-argument to that is that many inspections which are now possible are not carried out, or not carried out correctly.
The bigger issue really is - what's the cost of keeping it sterile and preserving it that way, after synthetically producing it? I'm guessing it adds yet-more-expense to an already expensive synthesised item.
If you're growing the meat then it isn't sterile to begin with. It might be sanitary. Keeping it sanitary adds no more expense to vat-grown proteins than to real meat.
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I really couldn't care. I'd eat synthetic meat, and I'd also eat a ton of real meat, it doesn't bother me either way.
So if you're growing a replacement heart valve, it's not sterile? I think you need look up what we mean when we say synthetic meat, in my case I'm talking about lab-grown from pure proteins. Not "oh, we made a bit of pig from the local farm get bigger in a little dish".
As such, lab-grown meat in that way is BY DEFINITION sterile ("free from bacteria or other living microorganisms") when it
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Not as such, genetic sequencing has thrown up a few scary surprises such as viruses embedded in the pig genome. Thanks to CRISPR that's been worked on for future human organ transplants but there may be more things to come.
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It was kind of unexpected until the sequencing was done. Pig organs were supposed to be the future once the anti-rejection treatment was sorted out.
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Are the proteins, fats, and carbohydrates synthesized one-by-one and blended into soup? Or are cells artificially stimulated to reproduce like regular cells to grow, reproduce, and create muscle meat (or organ meat, if that's your thing. Personally, I'll eat lamb liver or kidney once every 5 years, and enjoy it - but no more frequently than that).
Sterile, from merriam-webster:
"free from living organisms and especially pathogenic microorganisms".
I think your lab meat isn't sterile under the first part of tha
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and create muscle meat (or organ meat, if that's your thing
Keep in mind that regular animal muscle depend on substances that are made in the organs. Maybe you can grow muscle cells without that, but then it could be deficient in nutrients.
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Well, I guess that technically since it's never "alive" then it does not need one (an immune system); the synmeat is grown in an artificial ecosystem, not a "body".
However, yes, more than most food factories the place would have to be impeccably clean / sterile for the meat not to get infected.
You do raise an interesting question in that I guess the "meat" has the potential to be infected with a lot of things that might not naturally occur in "normal" meat, since either (a) it would have killed the host or
Re: Animals have a functioning immune system (Score:2)
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and necessary for a well-balanced diet.
No it is not. You only need to get the amino acids your body can not not produce from "somewhere"
It does not matter if that somewhere is a plant or meat. And yes: there are enough plants that produce/contain those proteins.
Re:But is it food. (Score:4, Insightful)
You only need to get the amino acids your body can not not produce from "somewhere"
You think that amino acids are the only thing in a well balanced diet ? How about taurine, creatine, heme iron, docosahexaenoic acid, cholecalciferol, carnosine and cobalamin, just to name a few things ? Which plants provide those ?
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I like to quote those nutrients at vocal anti-carnivores and watch them squirm. "Supplements" they say. Expensive supplements.
I even mentioned premarin to a vegan once and got a blank stare.
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Good grief..
Taurine is a "conditional amino acid", and can be formed simply by consuming other amino acids, just like every other plant-eater.
Creatine isn't essential in any shape, and most is formed within the body, but can be found in foods like cranberries if you really want to eat it. (Or in tubs at the grocery store. The amount in meat isn't very useful either.)
Non-heme iron is absorbed as well, and heme iron isn't considered 'essential' by any means. (And only ~60% of the iron in flesh is heme iron.)
D
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I.e. eating meat is necessary to not become a vegan?
I congratulate you on your straw man, straw man.
(e.g. vegetarians aren't particularly sick).
Vegetarian != vegan.
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You're vegetarians. Who cares what you do? [youtube.com]
Re:But is it food. (Score:5, Informative)
It is fairly trivial to prove meat is not necessary for a healthy or nutritional diet (e.g. vegetarians aren't particularly sick).
No, that is not fairly easy to "prove".
Vitamin B12, for example, is only sourced from animals. Vegetarians who care about their health tend to buy supplements or fortified foods, closing their eyes to the source.
Similar for vitamin D, and to a lesser degree, vitamin A.
Then there's the risk of iron or amino acid deficiency; pick one. The problem here is that the plants high in amino acids like nuts and legumes also inhibit iron absorption. So to get enough of both, you need to flip back and forth between vegetarian foods that provide iron and provide proteins, but not at the same time.
Then there's the added risk of diabetes 2. When adjusted for overall lifestyle, vegetarians do eat a more carb rich diet. (The important here is "when adjusted for overall lifestyle" - overall, vegetarians have a lessened risk, but that's not due to the diet, but other lifestyle choices. But if you look at random people with the same calorie intake, alcohol intake and exercise level, the vegetarian is at higher risk.)
A quick google showed me:
- 50% of vegetarians and 80% of vegans have vitamin B12 deficiency
- Vegetarians face a 40% higher risk of colorectal cancer
- Vegetarians on average have a 5% lower bone-mineral density
So, good luck with your fairly trivial proof.
Unless vegans take the consequence of their choice by filing down their canines and premolars, I'm not sure they really believe in it.
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Or from Marmite which is a yeast extract.
From Wikipedia: "Vitamin B12 is not naturally found in yeast extract, but is added to Marmite during manufacture."
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Perhaps it is you who buys into cultish propaganda.
Re:But is it food. (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course meat consumption is natural, or have you managed to change the dietary habits of some of the planet's apex predators? Try telling that to a shark. Make no mistake, your animal brothers would have no hesitation eating you given the right circumstances, and they *won't* treat you to a humane kill - they'll rip you to pieces.
Why do we have some teeth adapted to tearing meat?
Why do we have a gut that's ideal for an omnivorous diet?
I could go on. We're omnivores.
And, meat tastes great (that's "good"), and it has concentrated nutrients - many calories/protein/micronutrients in a small volume. Many vegetables taste great, too, and some have high-ish concentrations of nutrients - I like meat *and* veg, and enjoy both.
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I like meat *and* veg, and enjoy both.
Apparently, this is not permitted. In the current dietary climate, your choices are to be vegan or to be a 120% pure carnivore who washes down raw steak (torn by hand, no utensils allowed) with a warm glass of fresh blood.
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meat is definitely NOT natural
The mind boggles.
Re: But is it food. (Score:2)
I personally kill and process the vast majority of the meat that I eat. I eat a lot of meat, actually. This year, I'll even harvest a moose and a deer. They will be delicious.
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Meat is on its way out.
I agree with the rest of your statement, but meat is not on its way out. What's on its way out is getting meat by having animals grow it on their bodies, killing and butchering them and then trying to find things to do with the parts people don't want to eat.
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Come on! You know that this new meat won't be called "meat". Surely enough, some great SJW, politically correct mind will come with a new name that everybody will be able to brag about when they are having some.
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Surely enough, some great SJW, politically correct mind will come with a new name that everybody will be able to brag about when they are having some.
"Spoo".
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. . . but only if it's blue. After all . .
Spoo. . . . the OTHER Blue Meat. . . .
Re: We need to get with the times. (Score:2)
Soylent Orange.
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Come on! You know that this new meat won't be called "meat"
And not just at the behest of the SJWs, but as a branding. Farmers will insist on being able to use the word for their "natural, ranch-raised" product as distinguished from the lab-grown product. This will be the great ag way of butter vs. margarine all over again.
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Pink slime
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Slig seems appropriate
Re:We need to get with the times. (Score:5, Insightful)
Meat animals are pretty well-rendered. Non-edible parts are sold for leather, fertiliser, fur/wool, animal feed (although potentially dangerous), decoration (horn buttons, bone handles), fat and bone for rendering, etc. They're too valuable to waste.
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As long as I am alive, the slaughter of animals will be performed.
Re: We need to get with the times. (Score:2)
For every animal they don't eat, I will eat two.
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Why would you assume I stated it for honor. I stated it for truth. I will continue to slaughter animals and eat their flesh without guilt so long as I am alive.
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The defenseless do usually taste better
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trying to find things to do with the parts people don't want to eat.
We actually have a long list of useful purposes for virtually every animal part, so that may become an issue if all meat is lab grown.
Re:We need to get with the times. (Score:4, Insightful)
What's on its way out is getting meat by having animals grow it on their bodies, killing and butchering them and then trying to find things to do with the parts people don't want to eat.
What? Even vegans participate in this activity, they just think they don't. When growing just about any kind of crop, you invariably have to kill many pests, among them being wild boars, deer, raccoons, rats, mice, possums, insects by the millions, and many more. All are sentient by the way, including plants.
Besides, there's also practically no such thing as food that doesn't use some kind of animal byproduct, especially if you eat organic food where there aren't any practical alternatives. Whether its use cow poo, worm poo, guano, bone meal, blood meal, or any number of other animal products used in agriculture, an animal is involved somewhere.
Animal husbandry doesn't need to be either cruel or bad for the environment though. For the most part, it's just cows that are environmentally unsound, but even then, this can partially be avoided by having them graze for food instead of being given animal feed. This guy goes into great detail:
https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
If vegans had enough creatine in their diet, maybe they would be smart enough to realize all of this, but alas, they're in a vicious cycle. (Yes, creatine does make you smarter and improve your memory, in addition to the already well known benefit of allowing you to gain lean (healthy) body mass.)
As for me personally, hunting and fishing are very fun things to do. I really doubt you'd be able to convince me and everybody who participates in these things that they need to stop just to satisfy some moral code that amounts to a religion that they do not and will not ever believe in (I certainly don't.)
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The planet is a lot more resistant than you think.
It needs something like freeza to actually kill it, and he will take several hours to do so, despise the 5 minute claim.
Get with the *current* times - not ready yet (Score:3, Interesting)
Meat is on its way out. The planet will NOT survive if humans keep wastefully cultivating animals for food
Yes, I agree that we must find alternative to feeding animals to produce food for us to eat.
BUT
Launching a start-up to sell vat-grown-burgers at the current state of research and development is like launching a start-up promising to put man on the moon by the end of the decade... back when mongols used their first gun-powder based rockets (and we know how well that one went [wikipedia.org]~ ).
Currently vat-grown meat is still a lab experiment and has a long way of R&D to go until it can successfully be used as a viable
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Absolute horse shit. Everyone loves meat, even vegetarians!
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Nobody loves horse shit...or cow shit...and lots of people are appalled by the thought of eating dead animals.
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That applies to any food.
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Do you really believe that sh!t? What I see is a soft coup being attempted.
There wasn't any foreign influence in the US election. Not anymore than when the USSR funded anti-nuke protesters in the 1970s and 1980s (Yes the info came out with the fall of the USSR).
If you're concerned about the elections you should be promoting the use of driver's licenses (give free licenses to people who can't afford them) and keep the ballot machines off line. THEN the chance of "
Re:We need to get with the times. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, the planet will continue to spin, and have life on its surface even. And a lot of people will continue to live high off the hog. But more people will be priced out of the market for meat; others will be priced out of the market for food.
Nature has a time-proven solution to a organism population that outgrows available resources: starve it until it fits.
Human society has proved more adaptable than Malthusian predictions thus far. Malthusians didn't predict the ability to of people to develop fertilizer technology and high-yield crops. But there are thermodynamic and other physical limits to how much food you can grow on an acre; only so much sunshine to extract energy from and so many minerals you can extract from the soil.
So if we are going to continue to grow our population, and grow our standard of living for the bulk of that population, we'll have to adapt. And that adaptation will take many forms: new technology (our favorite! it's like changing without having to change), developing greater efficiency, changing our diet (some of us by choice, others by force), and letting the most vulnerable fraction of the human population die.
And we'll do all of them, but my guess is we'll rely most on new tech and letting people die prematurely, simply because both of these share the advantage that they don't require making hard decisions.
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Meat is on its way out. The planet will NOT survive if humans keep wastefully cultivating animals for food and letting their leaders steal the rightful elections belonging to others because of foreign interference.
Once this new 'meat' is perfected & mass produced, can we convert not just humans, but ALL animals to it - carnivorous & herbivorous - so that lions don't kill & eat gnus, zebras, gazelles, tigers don't hunt & kill deer, foxes don't eat hens & so on? Also, since plants too are living beings, make sure that deer, goats, cows, et al get w/ the program as well! So that onions & tomatoes don't risk getting plucked & slaughtered.
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People will be growing their own meat in their kitchens within ten years, maybe five, with a machine about the size of a microwave oven, producing disease free meat, only the amount that the user wants, so no waste, and ANY meat you want - so you can eat the meat of any animal you like, (within reason). You will be able to grow meat with a specified amount of fat. Just as technology has allowed us to do things today that were impossible fifty years ago, this will be the same.
I admire your optimism, I'm extremely skeptical of your description and timeline.
Shortly after this is being eaten by 50% of the population, there will be a campaign to ban all animal farming, which will succeed, because nobody will be able to justify torturing and killing animals to obtain something that can be obtained without violence of any kind.
I've run out, any chance I can have some of what you're smoking?
And last of all, the maching you use to grow the meat in your kitchen will eventually be CHEAPER than any form of normal meat you can buy.
Just like vegetarian sausages are cheaper than 'proper' sausages in the supermarket today. Oh, wait...
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Just like vegetarian sausages are cheaper than 'proper' sausages in the supermarket today. Oh, wait...
Not sure if you are confused or what, but vegetarian sausages (Field Roast, Tofurky, etc) are cheaper than 'proper' sausages, unless you find something on sale. Go and check.
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Most people compare vegan faux-meats with bottom-of-the-barrel processed meats instead of the "quality" stuff.
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That's because vegans don't get enough protein for their brains to work properly, innit.
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There's different types of vegans. I, for one, don't care what meat tastes like because I'm vegan for ethical reasons.