Slashdot Asks: Would You Eat Lab-Grown Meat? (dmarge.com) 351
An anonymous reader writes from a report via WIRED: Lab-grown meat appears to be coming to a supermarket near you whether you like it or not. Granted, you have some time before that becomes a reality. Scientists in Belgium and the United States are working on cultured meat substitutes that taste like real meat and cost less than real meat, but don't use as many environmental resources as meat from animals, nor does it involve the slaughtering of animals. They predict such meat substitutes will cost a lot less by the year 2020 when the efficiency of bulk production kicks in. According to a 2014 Pew poll, only 20 percent of Americans would be willing to try cultured meat, while a 2013 survey in Belgium revealed that just 13 percent of 180 subjects knew what cultured meat was. Also, vegetarians surveyed perceived man-made meat to be unhealthy and unfavorable. However, once respondents were told how the meat is grown, most said they might try it. When educated about the environmental benefits, the number of people who were willing to try it nearly doubled. A poll from The Vegan Scholar found that lab-grown meat was much more appealing to vegetarians than to vegans. Similar Reddit and SurveyMonkey polls have come to similar conclusions, but it's important to note that none of these polls were peer-reviewed. Researchers have suggested that the media greatly overestimates the importance of vegetarian and vegan opinions on lab-grown meat. Given the lack of large surveys determining the public's opinion on lab-grown meat, we thought we would pose the question to Slashdotters: Would you eat lab-grown meat?
yes (Score:5, Funny)
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and tofu.
I'd like to try (Score:3)
Raise pigs in a lab? What's the problem? I'd eat them.
I'd need a _big_ lab to raise some blue whale for steaks.
Re:I'd like to try (Score:4, Funny)
Travel to Japan
I think they even let you pick your whale out of the tank.
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I've eaten whale meat and I've also seen it being sold in Japan. Very few Japanese have ever tasted whale meat let alone liked it. It's not particularly good, and frankly you need to finish the whole experience with a vodka shot.
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I have also tasted whale meat at a restaurant in Japan. It was not very good. Kobe beef is way better. I don't understand why Japan makes such a big deal out of whale harvesting, since even their own people have little interest in eating them.
Disclaimer: I did not order the whale meat. Someone else at the table did, and they offered me a bite. I am a vegetarian now, although I was not at the time.
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They're farm-raising blue-fin tuna, not particularly efficient in terms of calories per dollar, but promises to be profitable nonetheless.
Heck yes, (Score:5, Insightful)
Cheaper, more energy efficient, and before long superior in taste and tone. Slam dunk.
I can just imagine cutting a slice off a 1'x2' meat beam; cover THE ENTIRE GRILL with a fillet. Yums, yums.
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Same here. Been waiting for that for decades.
Re: Heck yes, (Score:3)
Then why is the dollar menu dead? And why haven't I been able to afford a steak on my birthday for five years?
Re: Heck yes, (Score:5, Informative)
Some idiots decided it was a great idea to require corn alcohol to be used as a gasoline additive.
(well not really idiots. The people that were connected and built distileries made out like bandits)
So instead having cheap animal feed, you had expensive gasoline that had less energy content than before and your food prices went up.
Brilliant.
The grain alcohol didn't really raise food prices (Score:2, Interesting)
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So instead having cheap animal feed, you had expensive gasoline that had less energy content than before and your food prices went up.
An obvious solution would be to vote for someone who wants to fix the problem. Not Hillary [washingtonexaminer.com]. Not Donald [thehill.com]. So you have a choice of Gary Johnson [wikipedia.org] or Jill Stein [wikipedia.org].
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10% Ethanol in the gasoline also kicked up land values in some parts of the country from $250 per acre to >$2500 for the same acre just a couple of years later.
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Do you know what they do with the left overs after squeezing the ethanol out? They sell the corn mash as animal feed. The real problem has been drought [wikipedia.org] causing ranchers [reuters.com] to cull their herds hard [accuweather.com]. Fewer cattle to supply beef means higher prices for you.
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So you're betting that he's one of those people that's more informed than you?
Seems like a good bet, even if you're just strictly playing the odds of a random person being more informed than yourself, given your post history of highly right-leaning rhetoric. I don't trust the opinions of anyone that believes so fervently in any single ideology, be it conservative or liberal. You've lost all perspective.
It was a good idea at first (Score:5, Informative)
Anyhow, this oversupply meant the price of food cratered (supply > demand does that), and farmers were losing their shirts. So the government instituted a program where it would buy up all the crop at a guaranteed price, then the buyers could buy it from the government. This worked at stabilizing prices so the farmers could stay in business, but it still left a huge oversupply - mostly corn. So the government had to figure out what to do with all that excess corn.
Some of it got shipped overseas as foreign aid. Some of it got turned into cheap meal for cattle, since Americans love beef. An enterprising scientists figured out how to convert it into high fructose syrup, which could substitute for sucrose since sugar cane only grows in Florida and Hawaii and we'd otherwise be importing most of it.
And during the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, someone said, "hey, what if we converted it to alcohol and used it as a substitute for gasoline?"
It made sense then. This was a sunk cost - the money and energy to grow the corn had already been spent. We weren't getting it back. So anything we could do with the corn to recoup some of those sunk costs made more sense than letting it rot in grain silos allowing the rodent population to increase.
So converting excess corn into ethanol makes sense. But then the corn lobby got its hands on the program and now we grow corn for the explicit purpose of converting it to ethanol. Which makes no sense since corn is a lousy crop for converting into ethanol.
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Silly question - why not grow sugar beet? Goes well in a temperate climate.
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So instead having cheap animal feed, you had expensive gasoline that had less energy content than before and your food prices went up.
Other than opportunistic benefits, the point behind gasohol was to reduce dependence on sketchy oil-producing countries.
So what you are saying is a process that consumed more energy than it produced was going to reduce our energy needs ?
Would have been far better to just promote coal liquification to reduce our imports.
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Your argument is based on a false premise. Fuel is not the only product of corn grown for fuel. High protein feed is what's left of grain after you extract the carbs for alcohol.
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Shifting goalposts I see.
Corn ethanol is _not_ net negative energy.
Any demand increase will raise prices. You clearly don't understand the argument though, your yes/no test is just stupid.
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You couldn't get actual meat on the dollar menu anyhow.
Cheap is relative.
Wait till you see the price on cultured cells.
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Different markets, different strategies. I'm guessing that $1 cheeseburger didn't even start with 4oz of meat... and a $1 parfait is mostly paying for the refrigeration, the stuff they squeeze out of that machine is mostly made from seaweed.
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That's fine, all the more for us. Kobe ground prime rib burgers 24x7.
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Oddly enough, although I'm leery of GMO foods, I'd be happy to eat lab-grown meat. I know that's totally self-contradictory, but such are the vagaries of human preferences. My feelings may stem in part from factory farming practices; they are horribly cruel and cause incalculable suffering. I'd like to enjoy my meat without the accompanying feelings of guilt, and lab-grown meat promises that.
Cheaper ??? (Score:3)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci... [dailymail.co.uk]
215,000 british pounds for a hamburger.
Re:Cheaper ??? (Score:5, Insightful)
What would your laptop with 4GB memory have cost 20 years ago?
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What did my car cost 40 years ago in constant dollars ?
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Come on dude, you're obviously comparing an essentially mature technology against one that was still rapidly developing. Once Moore's law has reached its end, computing hardware prices will stabilize for the performance offered similar to what's happened with your car.
Lab grown meat is obviously still in the prototype phase right now, and pricing reflects that. Once economies of scale are introduced, and production efficiencies are realized, price per volume will quite predictably plummet. This is basic eco
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Duuuuuuude just how many technologies can you name that have doubled in performance every 18 months for 50 years ?
I can only think of 1.
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Only one?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Plenty of other techs have outpaced even Moore's law.
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Which is just as well - run it into anything solid and YOU are the crumple zone.
Also a bit of a bad example since that was just before Detroit found it out could not keep on selling 1940s technology without the Japanese, Germans - even Italians and British eating their lunch. When Leyland and Fiat are making more advanced stuff than is made locally that's a bit of a slap in the face with a rotting fish.
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I've written here about the epicyclic gearbox of the Model T which I got to play with way back as an undergraduate but I have not written anything here about the Model A, you must be mixing me up with someone else.
As for the other thing, nowhere near the only factor, GM was selling stuff based around a 1937 Chevy block in the second half of the 1970s - so simple even a kid could understand it (so easy to replace a head gasket) but well and truly trump
Re:Cheaper ??? (Score:4, Informative)
In 76 I had a Lincoln Continental Mark, in 78 I had a Corvette Anniversary edition.
I doubt I could buy any car made today that had the crashworthyness of the Lincoln.
Just go on to Youtube and look for any of the many old vs. new crash test videos. Sure, the older car tends to take less damage (though not always, some of those older chassis designs crumpled in horrific ways), but it clearly passes that damage on to the fleshy meatbags inside when that happens.
Here's a slightly later model Continental Sedan to demonstrate (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8uddZRY_WVw), those behaved pretty much like any other larger cars of the era in a crash.
If you only care about the car being cheap to fix, yeah the old cars win, but if you care about reducing injuries to the people in the car the new cars have it by miles.
To get the performance of the Vette would cost me 6 times what that car went for.
A '78 Corvette had a base price of $9351, and the optional L-82 motor added $525. If you actually mean the package with the silver special anniversary paint that's another $779 in mandatory options. To put it simply we're definitely talking about a $10-12k car in 1978 dollars. In 2016 dollars that'd be close to $37,000.
That car with its 220 HP pushing 3500ish pounds through a four speed stick, depending on source, took around 6.5 seconds to get to 60 MPH, ran the quarter mile in around 15.3 seconds at around 95 MPH, and topped out around 130 MPH, give or take margin of error.
My current car, a Mk7.5 Ford Fiesta ST (aka ST180 in some markets) with 200HP pulling 2700 lbs through a six speed stick, does 6.7 seconds to 60 MPH, quarter mile in 15.2 at 93 MPH, and tops out around 140 MPH. You can go to any Ford dealer and have one out the door for $21-23k, or a bit over half the inflation-adjusted value of your Corvette, and the performance is close enough at the drag strip that driver error with the stick shift is likely to be more of a factor than anything else for either vehicle. I'd be willing to bet anything that the Fiesta would run circles around the Corvette around a track with turns as well simply because '70s American cars were never exactly known for their handling.
If we instead take the comparison up to the equivalent price range, the upper $30k range will easily put you in to a Mustang GT Performance Pack or a Camaro SS, both of which offer mid-400 horsepower ratings pushing about 3600 lbs and both will get you in to the 4 second 0-60 range and low 13 (or even high 12) second quarter miles at over 110 MPH. If we bring used cars in to the equation that kind of money will easily get a C6 Corvette Z06 with a 500 horsepower LS7 engine, which is an absolute beast of a car that will hold its own with a lot of proper supercars.
So no, you wouldn't have to spend six times as much. You would barely even have to spend more than half as much. If you wanted to spend even the same amount you'd be in to an entirely different world of performance.
By modern standards pretty much nothing older than the late '80s is really fast.
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Look up tensile testing to get some ideas about energy being absorbed - it's the area under the curve. A lot of deformation means a lot of energy being absorbed (instead of transmitted to the driver and passengers) and the high strength low alloy stuff used today is actually stronger than that stuff in the older cars anyway. It's heavy gauge because it's not strong enough to make it thinner.
Nice car, but if you run into a tree at speed you are fucked.
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In Europe where fuel efficiency was a thing even post-WW2 (what with the war and imported oil) the cars have been increasing in weight for the last two decades.
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P.S. Who uses a 4 gig of ram laptop. 8 is a minimum 16 preferred. 4 is what id use on a tablet.
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"before long superior in taste and tone" That part's a pipe dream and an oxymoron if you're imitating meat.
Re:Heck yes, (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is that? Are there no grades of meat in your world?
If you set out to surpass the best quality meat available, then maybe you might have a point, but, assuming you can observe and economically reproduce what makes that meat so great, why wouldn't you be able to approach it's quality with cultured meat? At some point, given production efficiencies that would be introduced, cultured meat that closely approximates very high quality meat would be cheaper than low quality meat that's used today. At that point, you'd be comparing crappy real meat against exceptional cultured meat, so, yeah, you'd have something that, at a given price, is superior in taste and tone.
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I don't see why we should avoid it.
We get the food we want the nutritional requirements better on the environment and we don't need to kill a feeling animal.
I am an omnivore but I feel better if my food was better overall
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YES! (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, I am looking forward to it. I do not like how animals are treated, in general, and in order to provide meat for us, in particular. However, I love meat, and I can't wait for meat synthetically grown in a lab to become available. It will of course be outrageously expensive to begin with, but hopefully it will not take too long for prices to come down to something reasonable. At any rate, I'd be willing to pay a premium for it.
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You can buy real meat today that comes from animals treated humanely, if not downright well. Yes, they're still slaughtered at some point. If you're willing to pay a premium, you can do it now.
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Fantastic! But they are *humanely* slaughtered, right?
Due to religious rules (halal/kosher) quite possibly not. Though a few countries like here in Norway have a total ban on all non-stunned slaughter, but many others have exceptions including the US. Fortunately we didn't let religious dogma get in the way of animal welfare, I understand the whole "freedom of religion" but those practices don't stand above the law.
Yes (Score:2)
Sure, why not? (Score:2)
Cruelty-free, so long as you don't grow the brain; and quite probably a lot cleaner than the authentically-butchered-in-its-own-entrails-and-hopefully-not-too-feces-smeared natural stuff. Less chance to pick up cool parasites and stuff i
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But what about the poor BSE? Won't somebody please think of the BSE? Quasi-living self-replicating chemicals have rights too!
Fuck yes. (Score:2)
Specially if it ends up costing a fraction of the "real deal".
If ... (Score:3)
If was traveling in a space ship to Mars: Yes.
If was living on Mars: Yes.
Otherwise: no way.
I'm not "addicted" to meat. I eat what I find tasty an what I consider ethical ok.
And no: I don't eat tofu meat Ersatz either.
How does it taste? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm assuming it tastes like chicken, in which case put me down for "yes".
If it tastes like beef, well, that's another yes.
Pork? mmmm... No, I think not.
Rubber? Definite no for that.
Any other options to be considered? Doubt they'd start with alligator (which would be a "yes") or salmon (another "yes") or elephant ("maybe?")....
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I want ethical long pork!
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I want ethical long pork!
Umm, I suppose you could. I hear meat grown from cute puppies is also high on the list. hehe
Yes (Score:2)
I am not as radical as most vegetarians about this stuff with being cruel to animals and stuff, but I do care about the environment, and having lab grown meat on the table would mean that we could use the resources on the earth more effectively. Already now we know that the developing countries rather shouldn't adopt the meat eating habits of the western world.
So yes, its a good idea. Would I eat it? If it will taste as good as real meat, then yes.
So definitely a thing to look forward to.
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I am not as radical as most vegetarians about this stuff with being cruel to animals and stuff, but I do care about the environment, and having lab grown meat on the table would mean that we could use the resources on the earth more effectively. Already now we know that the developing countries rather shouldn't adopt the meat eating habits of the western world.
So yes, its a good idea. Would I eat it? If it will taste as good as real meat, then yes.
So definitely a thing to look forward to.
There is something to be said for the environmental angle. As we race to prove Malthus wrong again, we'll need to do something akin to this - eventually you can't have people and their meat occupy the exact same space, so fields must be turned into human habitat. I see the future as lab grown meat and vat grown algae as the vegetable.
Well, that sounds a little gloomy, but its a ways off. Since I am a dedicated Omnivore, but I do care about the treatment of animals, so hell yeah, I'll eat lab grown meat.
Better Off Ted (Score:5, Funny)
Eventually. (Score:2)
At fIrst I'd only eat a bit here and there and let other people pig out on it for a few years so they come down with any issues first.
(I've already pulled by weight as guinea pig by over-consuming artificial sweeteners)
That's a silly number to trust. (Score:2)
Current faux-meat substitues (Score:2)
People will eat it if it is cheaper and reasonable tasting.
My issue is that I'm old-school and think that generally meat tastes better on the fatty side and cooked on the bone, but I'm probably in the minority. For those that prefer sterile low-fat off-the-bone preparations, it'll probably get good enough, soon enough.
I suspect that early on it won't be that much different than the relationship of Crab and Surimi/Krab. Maybe it will get better over time.
In China, the spread of Buddhism basically lead to
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Is there any reason they can't make it fatty and on the bone?
I assume if it's lab-grown, it sill needs nutrients. Still needs a circulatory system of a sorts, nervous system to twitch and build muscle, etc. Might as well grow a tube of muscle on a bone with marrow in it, and hook all that shit up. You can control the texture, the fat content, marbling, etc. That's where I see this being amazing.
If every cut was essentially the "perfect cut", how awesome would that be? I've had good meat, a
You mean McD's isn't already lab grown?! (Score:2)
taste!! (Score:2)
i would definitely try it if it was "safe" and see if it tastes just as good, if so why not?!
How does it compare to GMO food? (Score:2)
Then again, according to the insurance companies there's a 50% chance I'll be dead in 15 years.
Absolutely (Score:3)
Eventually, lab-grown meat-like mystery goo will be better tasting, cheaper, healthier, disease/parasite-free, nicely textured, and more conveniently shaped compared to meat grown from real live animals tortured in cramped, feces-covered pens. Also when compared to grass-fed, free-range, hippie-approved animals. Everyone will be eating it except for a few crazy people.
Of course, in the beginning it will be over-priced, foul-tasting paste.
Much better nowadays! (Score:4, Informative)
I tried my first veggie burger about 20 years ago, and I remember wondering when the FDA started considering sawdust a vegetable...
Now, I eat Gardein teriyaki chick'n and a few others quite regularly. I'm still waiting for the whole "cheaper than meat" part to kick in though.
If you haven't had them yet, give them a try, you'll be surprised, and once they get costs down, it'll change the world.
If and when (Score:2)
I Want To Download & Print My Meat. (Score:2)
I don't see what the big deal is. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yup (Score:2)
I am a happy carnivore, and that is what people are designed to eat along with our veggies, but I'm also an animal lover. To have lab grown meat would be to eliminate the least pleasant part of the process.
As well, people who like to eat exotic critters will be able to eat Wombat meat, People that believe eating the penises of animals puts lead in their pencils will be able to eat lab grown rhinoceros dingus. Why cannibals..... nah, let's not go there.
But serio
How long after this is feasible... (Score:3)
How long after this is feasible... will there be places you can buy "people steaks"?
Would it be unethical, if the person who provided the cell line was still alive?
Sustainability (Score:3)
Environment impact of eating meat with growing population is not sustainable. Distant future looks bleak, with no meat at all (at least at an affordable price).
Cultured meat seems the only option to retain meat in our diet in the future, hence I am all in favor of it.
Depends (Score:3)
"Would You Eat Lab-Grown Meat?"
Only if it gets billions of government subsidies, violates animals rights, ruins surface water, damages the environment and the air and is filled with hormones and antibiotics and fat giving you heart-attacks, just like the real thing.
Sure, why not? (Score:3)
I'm willing to eat the crappy mass-produced meat on the market right now. I don't see any real difference between that and lab-grown meat.
preferred meat, if resource efficient (Score:3)
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If it's cheap and healthy and tastes good.. Why not?
Trust. You can verify the cheap. You can verify the tastes good. The healthy? You gotta trust the same guys that pushed through the GMO whitewash labeling bills.
Re: Why not? (Score:5, Informative)
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Facilitating the use of toxic pesticide
As opposed to non-toxic pesticide? And because there was so little pesticide used before "Monsanto"?
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The argument goes that you can use less toxic pesticide, or something like that... I think what they really mean is that the toxic pesticides you use with GMOs cost less than what you'd have to use with non-GMOs.
Monsanto et. al. are entrenched, nothing short of bloody revolution is going to get rid of them, and they'll probably be the first to rise from the ashes after a major event. Consistent grass-roots political pressure? We've barely managed to get rid of the draft, slavery, and disenfranchisement o
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Well, you're at the same ground with real meat now. Do you really know where it comes from? What the animal ate? Whether it was bombarded with antibiotics and hormones?
How much do you know today about the steak you're eating?
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Well, you're at the same ground with real meat now. Do you really know where it comes from? What the animal ate? Whether it was bombarded with antibiotics and hormones?
How much do you know today about the steak you're eating?
Actually, quite a lot. You can buy meat directly and have it butchered if you want. Or buy from a butcher that sources from a known location. It takes a bit of work, a little more money, and a large freezer, but it can be done. There is a live chicken farm close to me, and the chicken really does taste better. So do the eggs.
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I think they're decades away from "tastes good." Sure, you can get used to it, like SPAM, but when it's presented side by side with the real thing, it will be obvious which is which, and it will take decades of forcing this down childrens' throats before grown people actually prefer it.
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Ah, there is a problem here. You imply McDonald's makes food. They don't, they make profits and stuff that makes me sick.
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Not at scale though.
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whereas farm grown meat can be grown in a pasture with relatively little assistance.
Not at scale though.
It scales just fine if you don't put a bunch of stupid roadblocks in the way of small-scale producers. Then you get more of them, which is what you want anyway.
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What are these stupid roadblocks in the way of small-scale producers?
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What are these stupid roadblocks in the way of small-scale producers?
Limitations on how many slaughterhouses can exist, for one. I'm all in favor of environmental regulations, but it needs to be feasible for producers to get their cattle to where it can be slaughtered.
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Indeed. If they can get a growth environment that properly imitates natural development, they should be able to produce amazing cuts. Young tissue, electrically stimulated and stressed at whatever levels are determined to be ideal during growth, fed whatever nutrients gives it the best development, etc.
Having been vegetarian as long as I am, I probably wouldn't eat it just because the concept of eating any sort of meat just seems disgusting to me now; even vegetarian products designed to mimic meat come a
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Sorry friend, can't do that.
As for the big question, absolutely not. No food from a laboratory should be eaten, ever. When they bring this tech to factories and 'farms' then yes, I will eat it without a qualm. The moment food is put into a lab, it ceases to be food and becomes an experiment.
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Mmmmm.... turkey....
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I have four carrots (vegetarians) and one carrot with halo (vegan) painted on my smoker.
You know you want a rib...even better a smoked hog jowl. Nice spicy rub, smoke ring, homemade blackberry, chocolate BBQ sauce...you know you want two or three...some nice jalapeno corn bread, made with lard and covered in browned melted cheese...corn on the cob covered in butter...Czech style pilsner...(repeat till tired).
You know you want one, you can eat just one...
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They already have 'immortal' liver cells. They use them in artificial livers.
'immortal' liver cell = a certain type of liver cancer.
If a cell divides in a bucket, it's likely to have it's growth regulation unhooked. Maybe not technical a cancer cell...but I bet the guy that cooks it up knows _all_ about cancer cell division.
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Yuck! I would never eat human meat!
I mean ... uh ... look, squirrel!