Ready For Meat Grown From Animal Cells? A Startup Plans A Pilot Facility (npr.org) 111
Memphis Meats, a Berkeley, Calif.-based startup, says it's one step closer to bringing cell-based meat to consumers' mouths. From a report: The company plans to build a pilot production facility with funds raised from high-profile investors including Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Kimbal Musk, as well as two giant players in the animal protein and feed space, Cargill and Tyson Foods. The company says its latest funding round has brought in $161 million in new investment. "People thought this was all science fiction" when the company was founded back in 2015, Uma Valeti, the co-founder and CEO of Memphis Meats, told NPR in an interview at the company's headquarters. "Everything that we've done at Memphis Meats [has] started to show that this can be done," Valeti said. "This is real."
Interest in cell-based meat production and other meat alternatives has increased amid growing awareness of the environmental impact of traditional livestock agriculture. Valeti and his team walked us through the process of producing cell-based meat. It starts with the selection of specific types of animal cells that can grow to become meat. Next, the cells are fed and put in a "cultivator" -- similar to a fermenting tank â" where they can grow and form muscle and connective tissue. The process is analogous to the way breweries grow yeast cells to produce beer. Only here, they're growing animal cells.
Interest in cell-based meat production and other meat alternatives has increased amid growing awareness of the environmental impact of traditional livestock agriculture. Valeti and his team walked us through the process of producing cell-based meat. It starts with the selection of specific types of animal cells that can grow to become meat. Next, the cells are fed and put in a "cultivator" -- similar to a fermenting tank â" where they can grow and form muscle and connective tissue. The process is analogous to the way breweries grow yeast cells to produce beer. Only here, they're growing animal cells.
Can't wait (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
This is such an obviously perfect delivery method for DNA targeted bioweapons deployed en masse to save the world for consumerism. The sooner the better
Yeah, or you could just put shit like HFCS into the food supply, and do the same damn thing.
Let's stop pretending 40,000 obesity-related deaths per month in the US somehow isn't by design. Government subsidies speak volumes.
Re:Can't wait (Score:5, Insightful)
Just make sure and label it CLEARLY....I personally don't want to be a guinea pig in this experiment, and, not only that...I'm perfectly happy eating dead animals like my ancestors have for years.
Re: (Score:3)
Hey, if people wanna eat this stuff, more power too them.
Just make sure and label it CLEARLY....I personally don't want to be a guinea pig in this experiment, and, not only that...I'm perfectly happy eating dead animals like my ancestors have for years.
And when you demand ingredients be labeled CLEARLY do you also mean including the words "probable carcinogen" if that's proven? Just curious how much actual transparency you're demanding here.
Knowing the ingredients is a minor part of this problem. Knowing how those ingredients are going to impact human health is a hell of a lot more important. Suppress the facts around those ingredients, and it won't matter how smart or dumb you are when reading labels.
Re: (Score:2)
In this case, I'm asking at least for DEAD SIMPLE.
Re: (Score:2)
In this case, I'm asking at least for DEAD SIMPLE.
ON the package it should clearly say LAB GROWN if this 'meat' is sold so it won't be confused with product cut from a dead animal.
Yes, I know there will be all sorts of legalese and 101 different ways for them to try to brand and describe the contents....but something simple like they do for seafood where they have to label the country of origin.
Real traditional dead animal meat or Lab Grown "meat".
Maybe just not allow them to call the Lab Grown stuff 'meat'...give it a different official name.
Soylent comes to mind, but that does have connotations.
It's ironic that you really feel the answer is truly that simple; lab grown or not. As if that whole "not" part is a 100% organic, grass-fed, free-range product, and not some chemically-riddled steriod-grown experiment grown in a CAFO, with all those horrors legally protected from being revealed to a meat-consuming population that constantly wonders why they're sick all the damn time.
Go ahead. Try and tour a CAFO. IF you were actually allowed to, you would probably be seeking out Soylent-based products,
This seems like a good idea (Score:1)
I've tried the plant based "meats" and while they are fine, and can be tasty, they are not meat and don't really substitute for it.
I think growing meat from cells has a lot of promise, for delivering real meat products that could actually be really tasty.
I imagine though it might take them a while to where they could really product good replicas of higher-end meats...
Re: (Score:2)
I agree it's a promising technology, but with the proviso that nutrition is really complicated and for that reason engineered artificial foods don't exactly have a great track record.
Re: (Score:2)
The meat is not the problem, it is the bit they are pretending does not exist, the additions of all sorts of hormones to stimulate growth. With those hormones left in for consumers to consume.
Re: (Score:2)
Cultured meat will not need hormones or antibiotics. It can be advertised as cleaner meat than farm-raised.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Imagine, Now we can legitimately eat all kinds of exotic meats without ethical,issues. Whale can be on the menu again. Cat. Shark. Dog. Snake. Monkey. Giraffe. Rhinoceros. Mammoth.
Or, for the truly daring, Human. Anything is possible.
Wow. This is going to be a Gourmet Paradise.
Re: (Score:2)
Saw a debate between some vegans about whether factory grown meat would qualify for the vegan diet since no animals were harmed. One decided that it would be OK, but the other maintained that it would only be all right if you were eating your own cloned cells and not some other animals.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
> a chicken, cow, or pig will get a more complete and dynamic diet if they are allowed some freedom rather than being locked up in a small pen or cage all the time.
So... not really relevant to 99% of the meat currently being sold.
Not to mention over the last few thousand years we've genetically engineered almost all our food, animal and vegetable, to produce large yields at the expense of a dramatic loss of nutritional value.
I'm all for natural grown food - but these days it's hard to find and harder to
Re: (Score:2)
The notion that our ancestors lived on vegetables is completely wrong. See the Expensive Tissue Hypotheses and also analysis of bones which indicate we were hyper carnivores. Over 2 million years our guts grew smaller and our brains grew bigger so the nutrient density of our food had to increase a lot.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They have copralites (fossilized poop) and dental tarter from tens and hundreds of thousands of years ago, people at whatever the hell turned up in their path. In a few areas people were your "hyper-carnivores", in more places they ate mostly seafood, in some locations they were almost vegetarian, almost everywhere they were omnivores. The "Paleo Diet" is nothing more than another fad, and like most fads is not based in anything like reality.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Fat should be fairly easy. Some adipose tissue and you are good. The real challenge will be adding bone with some tasty marrow to the mix.
Hamburgers are the first in line to get a credible meat replacement. Their texture is easy to replicate and a lot of the flavor comes from the frying process.
Steak is so far impossible to replicate with artificial alternatives because it has so much natural texture. Also, the internals of muscle tissue are not accessible for mechanical processing (in contrast with hamburg
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
this is dumb! (Score:2, Interesting)
Science cannot replace the well establish optimum method!
We need to increase "responsible meat production" not move it into a fucking lab where Intellectual Property laws are going to totally fuck this up.
Remember Monsanto! It will be the same mutherfucking thing!
As usually, the morons are going to completely support a solution that is going to ensure the problem they are trying to avoid will get worse!
Meat production needs to have a responsible full life-cycle management process. Every time we fuck with
Re: this is dumb! (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on your definition of âoefucking with natureâ. Are antibiotics considered fucking with nature? Is living in a house and instead of in a cave considered fucking with nature? Is having a light bulb at night considered fucking with nature? Is beer and cooked food considered fucking with nature. Recall no animal cooks its food.
And that's assuming you can even classify anything that a human does, due to human nature, as not nature driven.
Re: (Score:2)
Fucking with nature is removing all the proper elements.
Using antibiotics on it's own is not fucking with nature, but using them to fatten up livestock is fucking with nature. Remember over use of antibiotics like that increases risk of super bugs... and that is without a doubt fucking with nature.
Living in a cave is fine, so are light bulbs at night. Like everything in this world... if it is used responsibly then it is going to be just fine. It is the constant ignorant and irresponsible use of our resou
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
No, its fucking with nature when it begins to displace the natural order of things in catastrophic ways. If it displaces the natural order of things in beneficial ways, then we like to call it helping nature. Additionally, keeping it naturally workable is a key component. If you have to start using a lab then you are beginning to remove the natural processes. So sure antibiotics is fucking with nature, but depending on that usage... it can either be catastrophic if we create super-bugs or beneficial if
Re: (Score:2)
The natural order of things is itself catastrophic.
Re: this is dumb! (Score:2)
No, its fucking with nature when it begins to displace the natural order of things in catastrophic ways.
So ... fire, spears, farming, and animal husbandry all qualify. Cool. I know of a nice cave you can move into as soon as you've abandoned all of those evil technologies.
Re: (Score:2)
And the coup de grace... you know what kind of natural we are talking about here moron. If you actually can't figure it out... you should keep your pie hole stuffed full of something so you don't pollute peoples ears and eyes with your stupidity!
I love it when the mask skips and these people react with primitive violence - none of your effete civilized give-and-take debate, nosirree - when one of their cherished assumptions is questioned. Watch for such people masked and carrying baseball bats at a political rally near you.
Re: (Score:2)
If you're not willing to do that then you need to shut up.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It is unlikely that GMO humans would be modified metabolically to be able to use photosynthesis. It is like putting a solar panel on an electric car - energy needs greatly surpass energy production tot he point that one might not bother with it.
Re: (Score:2)
Short and succinct... optimization is a key factor here.
Sun for plants in a good hydrated soil is optimum for the plants but not for humans or livestock. Our optimum is eating and optimized plant. If we eat un-optimized plants we become less optimal and feel more hungry and have to eat more increasing our digestive operations which take away from quality living.
Every particle that you consume has to be processed by the body. Which is why smaller but nutrient rich portions of food are highly optimal versu
Re: (Score:2)
Re: this is dumb! (Score:2)
That's a good start ... I'm really enjoying the mental picture of all the "nature is best" idiots losing their minds because we no longer need fruit in our diet. But why stop there? Might want to look into adding new genes to synthesise other vitamins, like B12.
Re: (Score:2)
We should optimize for 2 very important things.
Quality of meat and environment impact. We should make sure that lands are properly managed with scientifically reviewed processes that test the land quality before during and after each grazing process so that patterns can be adjusted to promote floral growth, water retention, and soil quality. This will in turn promote natural carbon sequestration which will help Global Warming, water retention which will reverse Desertification and improve land and weather
Re: (Score:1)
Animals are optimised for the survival of the species, so are unlikely to be the best option for the environment.
Re: (Score:1)
stupid comments for 500 alex!
The balance created by nature with these optimizations is usually the best option for the environment. It is part of the heterogeneous process. A diversity of creatures operating on the land is an overall total improvement while a reduction to homogeneous is an over all disaster for land quality!
This was settled a long time ago... and has been factually proven by land analysis time and again.
Re: (Score:1)
The balance created by nature with these optimizations is usually the best option for the environment.
The topic at hand is animal husbandry, so these are not changes that have been driven by nature, but rather by what we humans want out of the animals.
I am no fan of AmiMoJo, but not everything they post is idiotic drivel. Sometimes you need to click that "Parent" link to discover the context of their post.
Re: (Score:2)
The balance created by nature with these optimizations is usually the best option for the environment.
Not even close to correct. If it were species and ecosystems would stay stable over time, and they don't.
Re: (Score:3)
"Responsible meat production" means eating very little meat. Barring that, we either culture it, or watch ecological collapse as the amount of meat farming increases manyfold to feed all the developing nations that are beginning to be able to afford more than the traditional occasional treat's worth.
Re: (Score:1)
This is wrong. You culturing it is what is going to help create the ecological collapse. What do you think is going to happen to all the lands you just took all the livestock off of and instead plant people and homes.
Those plants have a relationship with grazing animals which is highly beneficial to both them and us humans.
And in regards to the developing nations. Affording has zero fucking to do with it. Everything is knowledge... they are just like you... ignorant to a fault where you fuck things up "
Re:this is dumb! (Score:4, Informative)
You think the limiting factor on human growth is leaving enough room for farming? We're not going to plant people on old farmland - there's nothing there for people to do. People live in cities and towns because they like the proximity and network effects - not because there's not enough empty land for more houses in the middle of nowhere.
Farming is *devastating* ecologically - we destroy ecologically rich forests and scrubland to produce monoculture wastelands maintained with a steady flow of poisons.
Grazing lands are a bit better - but we still eliminate most life, including all the predators necessary for maintaining a healthy ecology.
Re: (Score:2)
Cities grow. That means displaced farmlands "directly" or are you saying that the first square mile of New York is all they ever built and when they wantted to add capacity they just knock down one skyscraper and build a taller skyscraper to have more? They also grow in less than efficient ways because... well money and regulations.
"Farming is *devastating* ecologically"
Okay, this needs correction. How we largely do farming today is... thanks to Science, it helping cause this. But science is not specifi
Re: (Score:3)
It's not a new thing - farming has *always* been ecologically devastating, long before Science was a thing. Pesticides and herbicides made it worse, but it has always been a process of destroying rich ecosystems to make farmland, and then doing our best to kill everything else that tries to eat the food we're growing.
It didn't used to be a problem simply because there were so few of us that the ecosystem could recover faster than we could do damage. But our population increased 10-fold in the last 200 yea
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Probably a good idea in the long-term - we are *way* over the ecological carrying capacity of the planet even at current consumption levels, and the majority is rapidly climbing towards Western consumption levels. though I prefer negative population growth myself. Much more humane than massive wars or plagues, and we're most of the way there already. Just a few more impoverished regions to spread education and cheap birth control to. Plus a handful of religiously brainwashed areas, which are potentiall
Re: (Score:1)
One nice thing about FB -- See? There is one! -- is the "Haha" icon.
A lot more efficient than something more verbose like the following.
I don't know where to begin, in responding to this post.
Who is this "we"?
Is the world actually less forested now than it was, say, 10 or 50 or 100 years ago?
Do farmers really poison their croplands?
On the plus side (no Haha), your first paragraph is exactly right about people living in cities for reasons, and it's not because it's possible to build houses there. Whe
Re: (Score:2)
>Who is this "we"?
All of humanity, collectively, if we want to bequeath our descendants a world even half as healthy as we received from our ancestors.
>Do farmers really poison their croplands?
Absolutely they do! Perhaps you've heard of something called RoundUp? Highly toxic herbicide that kills most weeds (and other plants) not cultivated to resist it? Or perhaps you've heard of the neonicotinoids that are helping to wipe out the bees? Farmers spray their crops with such insecticides with the ex
Re: (Score:2)
no, "responsible meat production" is for idiots like you to be pushing up daisies so they can feed some livestock for me to eat at the dinner table. And a nice fertile grave they can shit and piss on periodically to help you push up more of those daisies for them to eat among other things!
THAT is responsible meat production.
Nice troll though! next time try not to be so shallow!
FYI, Kale is a great nutrient dense food when cultivated properly... like many other foods! You should consider eating less of it
Re: (Score:3)
There are a lot of reasons current meat production is suboptimal, which is why research is progressing on alternative methods. Does this really need to be said? I should think it's fairly obvious.
You have a fair point about things like IP laws possibly getting in the way, but it's not as though the old methods of producing meat will somehow cease to exist overnight. Some meat production will likely transition over to the new method as it becomes c
Re: (Score:2)
You missed the key part "Science cannot REPLACE"
Helping something and replacing are very different things and concepts.
When you falsify what I said with something I did not say you are not helping the conversation only distracting from it.
"but it's not as though the old methods of producing meat will somehow cease to exist overnight."
The fact that it will be displaced is a problem itself. Monsanto is literally the cautionary tale for that. People like you are the ones that wake up in court wondering why i
Re:this is dumb! (Score:4, Insightful)
Every time we fuck with nature like this we find out several years or decades later that it was a mistake!
Can you provide an example?
GMO crops provide many benefits, and so far, there are no known disadvantages. We also have plenty of engineered meat substitutes made from plants, and none of them are "mistakes".
There have certainly been environmental mistakes (DDT, fluorocarbons, etc) but those were not "like this" in any way.
Re: (Score:1)
"Can you provide an example?"
As someone else mentioned... the numerous court cases Monsanto has been involved with for starters.
Additionally, the GMO crops are also genetically engineered to be resistant against pesticide like Roundup Ready. Pesticide usage on crops does not just stop at the crops. Those pesticides soon become part of the water table of the lands they are used in and eventually make it far outside their environments. Additionally, there are concerns for GMO's that naturally produce pesti
Re: (Score:2)
As someone else mentioned... the numerous court cases Monsanto has been involved with for starters.
As mentioned above, this is bullcrap. When it comes to GMOs, spouting off about Monsanto's "court cases" is like putting a sign on your chest that says "I have no idea what I am talking about."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
we won't know for years to come yet whether or not our meddling with plant genes has fucked us or not
We have been meddling with plant genes for at least 10,000 years.
Re: (Score:2)
Every time we fuck with nature like this we find out several years or decades later that it was a mistake!
Can you provide an example?
GMO crops provide many benefits, and so far, there are no known disadvantages. We also have plenty of engineered meat substitutes made from plants, and none of them are "mistakes".
There have certainly been environmental mistakes (DDT, fluorocarbons, etc) but those were not "like this" in any way.
GMO crops provide benefits? Yeah, tell that to the farmers who were sued out of existence for "stealing" Monsanto IP through "cross contamination" (also known as wind). Like I'm going to hold my breath for another Glyphosate nightmare to prove you wrong. The "mistake" with meat substitutes is believing the bullshit claim that it's a healthy alternative.
Golden rice? [wikipedia.org]
Re:this is dumb! (Score:4, Informative)
tell that to the farmers who were sued out of existence for "stealing" Monsanto IP through "cross contamination" (also known as wind).
Bullcrap. This is a totally debunked myth. It didn't happen. Monsanto never sued anyone for unintentional infringement.
Feel free to prove me wrong by citing a single actual court case.
Monsanto (a company that no longer exists) sued a few farmers, including Perry Schmeiser [wikipedia.org], for blatant intentional infringment and only after giving them multiple warnings.
Re: (Score:1)
...Remember Monsanto! It will be the same mutherfucking thing!...
Can we imagine how much worse viral and bacterial cultures will explode from this? These are not animals with brains, which may avoid unhealthy or dangerous events, it's just a pool of flesh. These are not animals with antibodies or white cells; as far as I read, this just a pool of flesh.
Re: (Score:2)
It's not the optimum method. Raising beef is highly wasteful and inefficient by any measure (water used, land used, raw inputs used, etc). Of course, the vegans and such would LOVE if we all abandoned raising cattle and such for meat production. But that's not realistic at all.
That's why we have plant-based meat substitutes, and we're trying to do lab-grown meat. The former is more efficient in resources used and simulates meat very well, but requires
Re: (Score:2)
Pure ignorance being said here.
First, sience ALWAYS replaces the "well establish optimum method". All the current well established optimum methods were created by science in the past. This alone indicates you know little if anything about how the world works.
Second, IP laws does not always fuck things up. Usually all they do is raise the price. The only other major problem caused by IP is a barrier to entry for small innovators. Those are real issues, but they are not signicant causes of risk, nor do t
Re: (Score:2)
We need to increase "responsible meat production" not move it into a fucking lab where Intellectual Property laws are going to totally fuck this up.
Thank you. I'm not eating that stuff and the reason for producing it has nothing to do with whatever their selling points are. I would upvote, but you're already modded +5.
Re: (Score:2)
You've never eaten wild avocados, wild bananas, wild walnuts, wild lettuce, wild apples, etc. etc. etc. Do you know why? The avocado flesh is a thin layer over the seed. The banana is bitter and has seeds. The walnuts are extremely hard to extract from the shell without pulverizing them together. The lettuce is just plain nasty. The apples are tiny and sour.
Humans have been "fucking with nature" for ten thousand years, it's why we have the delicious food products we have today. It took scientists dec
Re: (Score:2)
Why yes. Bring back famine, which is what we had before we applied science to agriculture.
Re: (Score:2)
Scalability is no solution on it's own. If the resulting product has very little total nutritive value then a lot of your effort has gone to waste.
Lets just look at a couple of obvious examples that has been beyond well tested by now. If you feed a plant nitrogen, it will grown big and visually beautiful... but guess what? It will have far less nutrients due to the forced growth that nitrogen promotes than one that grows normally in season in quality soil. This means that your scability is at serious ri
Re: (Score:2)
Hah! Not If I can get away with charging the same amount per pound (or even just a little less) as other produce, but I can sell twice as much.
I make out like a bandit!
Re: this is dumb! (Score:2)
This means that your scability is at serious risk of becoming total bunk because if your crop doubles in size but also halves in nutritive value then you only wasted space,
Except that never fucking happens. All the retards bitching about "frankenfoods" and banging on about how "organic is best" always miss the fact that the actual picture is much more complicated. When we compare "organic" to "non-organic" what we actually find is that some nutrient levels are lower, some are higher, and most are close en
Re: (Score:2)
awe snap! You got me! This is the big one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Actually huaytampo (an Andean caterpillar chrysalis) is delicious. Fry them up with cancha dried corn, a little salt, a piece of cheese, and a 'caporal' of chicha and you've got my favorite afternoon break.
Tastes like ... (Score:2)
Hopefully, it'll taste better than the initial batch of meat grown by Veridian Dynamics [veridian-dynamics.org], which tasted like despair [youtube.com]. Poor Blobby...
Damn, Better Off Ted [wikipedia.org] was funny.
How will I be able to make broth? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Bill Gates in a wine sauce (Score:1)
Finally, I can enjoy Bill Gates's rump without turning on computer.
Re: (Score:1)
A modest proposal (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Do the cells have to come from animals? I can think of one extremely numerically abundant mammal (7.8 billion) whose cells could be used for food...
Well, Soylent Green did take place in the year 2022, so we're not far off...
Re: (Score:2)
Do the cells have to come from animals? I can think of one extremely numerically abundant mammal (7.8 billion) whose cells could be used for food...
An upside to eating your own species is that the nutritional content is close to ideal.
A downside is that the cultured product would be susceptable to contaminating infection by ANYTHING that infects your species.
I'm not sure (Score:2)
But I think I'm already eating meat grown from animal cells.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
But is your meat "raised from high-profile investors including Bill Gates" ?
Dunno. What exactly does 100% Grade-A Greed taste like?
I ate meat grown from animal cells for lunch (Score:2)
but can it be called meat? (Score:1)
Long Pig? (Score:2)
Finally (Score:2)
Finally I'll be able to feast on the most delectable meat of all: MAN
Re: (Score:2)
Cargill and Gates (Score:2)
Jack Cargill won't eat his own products and Bill Gates is a career criminal. What could possibly go wrong?
I think I can improve on this... (Score:1)
How about endangered or extinct animas? (Score:2)
Ready? Sure! (Score:2)
I'm eating such meat, that was grown from a single egg-cell for years now.
Lack of foresight (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Really? People are going to turn all of Kansas and Nebraska into condos? That seems extremely unlikely. May I ask, exactly how many billion people do you think live in the US?
Not eating this crap (Score:2)
More than ready (Score:3)
Kuru-Patties! (Score:2)
Ironically creepy (Score:2)
I am surprised to find myself creeped out by the idea of eating lab-grown meat. It's odd, because if I put on my "alien from outer-space" hat, eating the flesh of what was once another creature is super-creepy. But there you have it--I can't get over how gross/disgusting/creepy lab-grown meat sounds.
Re: (Score:2)
They need to figure out a way to grow human organs. Instant trillion dollar company.
Saw a movie [wikipedia.org] about that ...
Re: (Score:1)