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Biotech Science Technology

How Artificial Shrimps Could Change the World (economist.com) 102

Posted by BeauHD from the environmental-destruction dept.
Singaporean company Shiok Meats aims to grow artificial shrimp to combat the negative environmental effects associated with farmed shrimp. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from The Economist: For a long time, beef has been a target of environmentalists because of cattle farming's contribution to global warming. But what about humble shrimp and prawns? They may seem, well, shrimpy when compared with cows, but it turns out the tasty decapods are just as big an environmental problem. The issue is not so much their life cycle: shrimp (as UN statisticians refer to all commonly eaten species collectively) do not belch planet-cooking methane the way cows do. But shrimp farms tend to occupy coastal land that used to be covered in mangroves. Draining mangrove swamps to make way for aquaculture is even more harmful to the atmosphere than felling rainforest to provide pasture for cattle. A study conducted in 2017 by CIFOR, a research institute, found that in both these instances, by far the biggest contribution to the carbon footprint of the resulting beef or shrimp came from the clearing of the land. As a result, CIFOR concluded, a kilo of farmed shrimp was responsible for almost four times the greenhouse-gas emissions of a kilo of beef. Eating a surf-and-turf dinner of prawn cocktail and steak, the study warned, can be more polluting than driving across America in a petrol-fuelled car.

All this has given one Singaporean company a brain wave. "Farmed shrimps are often bred in overcrowded conditions and literally swimming in sewage water. We want to disrupt that -- to empower farmers with technology that is cleaner and more efficient," says Sandhya Sriram, one of the founders of Shiok Meats. The firm aims to grow artificial shrimp, much as some Western firms are seeking to create beef without cows. The process involves propagating shrimp cells in a nutrient-rich solution. Ms Sriram likens it to a brewery, disdaining the phrase "lab-grown." Since prawn-meat has a simpler structure than beef, it should be easier to replicate in this way. Moreover, shrimp is eaten in lots of forms and textures: whole, minced, as a paste and so on. The firm is already making shrimp mince which it has tested in Chinese dumplings. It hopes the by-product of the meat-growing can be used as a flavoring for prawn crackers and instant noodles. Eventually it plans to grow curved "whole" shrimp -- without the head and shell, that is. While producing shrimp this way currently costs $5,000 a kilo, Shiok Meats thinks it can bring the price down dramatically by using less rarefied ingredients in its growing solution.
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How Artificial Shrimps Could Change the World More

How Artificial Shrimps Could Change the World

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  • I wonder what experts will call the environmental damage of that one day. /sarcasm

    • I wonder what experts will call the environmental damage of that one day. /sarcasm

      They won't discuss that, but they will go on about cultural appropriation.

  • It's interesting to see all the hoops people are jumping through to try to imitate "meat" and avoid all of the environmental damage of meat production.
    We should realize that you can get all of the nutrients (protein, calories, vitamins, etc.) from plants (yes, even B12) by just eating a balanced plant based diet. This is healthier to humans (no cancer or artery clogging fats), less environmental damage and less animal cruelty (for those who care about this).

    • What's your point of view on things like Daiya, Tofurky and Beyond Meat? They're all plant-based, after all.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        I don't have a particular taste for meat so I'm not interested in these things. Some people do crave these flavors. These are all plant based so not much environmental damage, also healthier for people.

    • Ignoring the land clearing required for agriculture, the huge fuel consumption for growing plants at production levels, the transportation for high volume/low density food product, and the implications of processing all the vitamin and mineral supplements to maintain health on an entirely plant based diet.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by mspohr ( 589790 )

        60% of plants are grown to feed animals. Stop animal agriculture and free up lots of land.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

          There's an interesting implication of lab grown meat. Plants are pretty bad at capturing sunlight. If you really want to produce food efficiently, the way to do it would be to use solar panels to produce the sugars, then feed them to cultured animal cells.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by mspohr ( 589790 )

            There is a company in Finland which is using electricity to make food out of air.
            https://futurism.com/a-team-of... [futurism.com]
            Finnish researchers have created a batch of single-cell protein that is nutritious enough to serve for dinner using a system powered by renewable energy. The entire process requires only electricity, water, carbon dioxide, and microbes. The synthetic food was created as part of the Food From Electricity project, which is a collaboration between Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              It looks like we'll be able to grow steaks out of thin air in the future. And more efficiently than we can grow plants now.

      • While I'm not a vegan or a vegetarian, this is clearly a red herring. It definitely needs more land clearing to produce animal products than plant products. What do you think they feed the animals. Look up "wheat production per hectare" and a hectare of land produced 4.5 metric tons of wheat, while you can look up beef and its 1.0 metric tons per hectare.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by oneiron ( 716313 )
      It's the least interesting thing ever, and it should require almost no mental effort at all to understand how cultural habits ingrained over thousands of years make it unlikely for society at large to rapidly come to your realization, much less act on it. Keep fighting the good fight, but for the sake of your movement's credibility, please pull your head out of your ass.
    • 1) I refuse to kill and eat my defenseless plantkin. Plants have been shown to have feelings and emotions and are able to express fear. Eating plants is murder.
      2) Cows and shrimp however have been bred to the point where they really don't have a real sense of self or fear and so on. So eating them is the closest we can get to not harming a feeling creature.
      3) Cows are tasty. Mmmm, yum! I was visiting Texas on business and walked into a random place for dinner. Omg! Best steak ever! God damn! Ev
    • Obviously these old cows were ruining the planet. Good thing we shot and ate them all.
    • I've gotten to where I really DO enjoy veggies, and they are a fun new way to get creative for me in the kitchen.....but I like my dead animals too.

      I try to eat balanced, but I'm gonna have dead animals in most of my meals too, but just balanced with veggies.

      I'm leaning a bit keto these days, low carbs, etc....so, not doing any wheat products, and keeping beans to a lower level...so, I do meat for protein boost, and veggies for roughage and various vitamins.

      I figure that's balanced AND...I don't get hung

  • is the problem. As the developing worlds develop a taste for things, it is only going to get worse. Solution is to somehow convince the world that 2 kids is enough.

    • is the problem. As the developing worlds develop a taste for things, it is only going to get worse. Solution is to somehow convince the world that 2 kids is enough.

      Absolutely correct. If we could limit reproduction to 2 children per woman, this would completely solve an enormous number of problems facing society.
      It's won't happen though, for a lot of reasons.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by radl33t ( 900691 )
        I'm pretty sure its already happened for lots of reasons. Primarily, on average, educated women want less than 2 kids.
        • As soon as world population is lower one year
          than it was the previous year, then it will be real.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        The world fertility rate is forecast to drop below replacement (and continue dropping) sometime in the next 50-70 years.

        • The world fertility rate is forecast to drop below replacement (and continue dropping) sometime in the next 50-70 years.

          Great.
          That will only be 50-70 years too late.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by gtall ( 79522 )

        The U.S. fertility rate was 1.6 sprogs per woman in 2016, and the graph was headed south from there. It will be fun watching the segment of America that hates foreigners whine when their SS and Medicare get cut because there are not enough people to support them. The current debt is $23 Trillion and the U.S. is adding $1 Trillion a year to that in deficit spending. So although the economy is doing well because of that deficit and that the pols promised on a Bible that the last tax giveaway would pay for its

    • Re:Overpopulation (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Saturday February 22, 2020 @12:37PM (#59754596)

      As the developing worlds develop a taste for things, it is only going to get worse. Solution is to somehow convince the world that 2 kids is enough.

      If everyone had a standard of living as high as the USA & EU, then there would be no need to convince the world that 2 kids are enough. The one thing that's pretty clear from looking at history is that wealthier societies have better things to do than raise a passel of kids.

      So, you want to fix overpopulation, then get the third world up to First World standard of living, and problem solved....

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lorinc ( 2470890 )

        Considering the EU only has a negative natural change since 2015 ans the US still has a positive natural change (of about 1 million), it dubious that this solves the problem.

        But more importantly, the overshoot is already happening (earth overshoot day is in July) and will continue to grow even if you were to magically up the standard of living of the third world to that of the EU & USA overnight because behavior take generations to change. Which of course is not a reason not to try to improve the third

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nasch ( 598556 )

        Yeah but then you have the issue of 7 billion people using as much energy as the first world is using per capita now. Without world scale renewable energy you could just trade one crisis for another.

      • So, you want to fix overpopulation, then get the third world up to First World standard of living, and problem solved

        I'm sure Santa would be happy to help with that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      convince the world that 2 kids is enough

      That sounds like a pretty meager diet.

    • birthrates plummet everywhere civilization hits. It's only a few rural farm communities, where large families are needed to till the land and care for the elderly, that any population growth still happens. The developed world is coping with under population. Basically humans don't just breed uncontrollably. Women can generally only have 2-3 kids safely (child birth is _hard_ on women) and women are, well, people, and they want careers and hobbies and other things in their 20s, meaning they're not having kid

  • Numbers aside, there's a lot more people who eat beef than shrimps, isn't it?

    Most people don't want to eat "cockroaches of the sea".

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 )
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        But how much of their diet is derived from insect protein? If we have to replace all mega fauna with insects, how would we go about doing this? How much Amazon rain forest would have to be bulldozed to farm a sufficient food supply?

        One good thing about beef (and other similar protein sources) is that they can be raised in bio-diverse ecosystems. Just turn them loose to graze in the prairie.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

          It's like you think there are no insects on the prairie. Kilo for kilo, arthropods outweigh mammals, fish, and birds put together in probably every biome.

          GP is right: you are in the weird group. So am I, though; my adventures in insect cuisine have been unpleasant.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by PPH ( 736903 )

            If I send you out onto the prairie with a net, you'll see just how difficult it is to feed yourself with those bugs. When I go out once with a rifle, I eat for months.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by q4Fry ( 1322209 )

              And if I sent you out with a spear to hunt bison, you'd find it just as hard. Use the right tool for the job.

              I don't know how to catch crickets in the prairie, but I did meet some people who hunt cicadas... with a bamboo pole, where the end had been dipped in something sticky.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by PPH ( 736903 )

                And if I sent you out with a spear to hunt bison, you'd find it just as hard.

                A bit harder. But I'd still be feeding myself for months. You will be spending your day catching cicadas. And tomorrow, you will start all over again. Oh, and enjoy your nearly year long fast while waiting for the annual population to emerge. Or 17 years, if that variety is endemic to your area.

                Keep in mind that the various groups that do eat such bugs, like the Chinese, consume them as delicacies (the unintended consequences of such practices being an issue for another thread). They depend upon pretty typ

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • There's a reason we don't call Western Europe and USA 3rd world..We don't eat insects. You enjoy that though.

    • Numbers aside, there's a lot more people who eat beef than shrimps, isn't it?

      Yes. From Google:

      Global shrimp consumption: 6 million tonnes / year

      Global beef consumption: 68 million tonnes / year

      Most people don't want to eat "cockroaches of the sea".

      More likely, people don't eat much shrimp because it is expensive.

  • If you want shrimps eat shrimps (Score:5, Informative)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Saturday February 22, 2020 @12:08PM (#59754504)

    You don't have to import them from thousands of miles away, you can raise them in barns in clean water, there are even shrimp farms in Germany.
    https://www.crustanova.com/ [crustanova.com]

    • Yeah, I was going to say something like this. Using aquaponics you can raise fish or shrimp and grow greens at the same time, in extremely clean conditions for both. All it requires is some vats and pumps, and maybe heaters depending on where you are and what you're trying to raise.

    • You don't have to import them from thousands of miles away, you can raise them in barns in clean water, there are even shrimp farms in Germany. https://www.crustanova.com/ [crustanova.com]

      Damn, that's some seriously expensive fish they are selling on there.

    • Re:If you want shrimps eat shrimps (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Saturday February 22, 2020 @01:08PM (#59754656) Homepage Journal

      Sure at 60 Euro / KG or roughly $30/pound. Non-sustainably sourced shrimp cost roughly $7-$20 per pound depending on size grade.

      This is the challenge of sustainable agriculture (or in this case aquaculture). I can buy locally sourced, grass fed beef but it's roughly 2x as expensive as grain finished beef shipped across the country. That's actually close enough that there's a market niche for providers, people who will pay a premium for artisinally produced meat. The existence of a market for artisinal beef is not a viable solution to the environmental problems of cattle farming.

      This new process is unlikely to be more efficient at the outset to be competitive in the general market than aquaculture, but there may be an "impossible meat" type market niche. To become a market-driven solution to the general environmental problems of shrimp aquaculture, it would have to be scaled to the point where it is at least comparably efficient from a financial point of view.

      • I can buy locally sourced, grass fed beef but it's roughly 2x as expensive as grain finished beef shipped across the country. That's actually close enough that there's a market niche for providers, people who will pay a premium for artisinally produced meat. The existence of a market for artisinal beef is not a viable solution to the environmental problems of cattle farming.

        I guess it depends on your locale... I'm eating free-range, grass fed beef sourced directly from a local producer controlling the entire meat lifecycle (from birth to the counter) and they beat supermarket meat prices (3 euro/kg cheaper for filet, 5 euro/kg cheaper for rumsteak, 4 eur/kg for rib steak).

  • Please report to the food vats immediately. The Computer.

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Saturday February 22, 2020 @12:52PM (#59754626)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • I hope our alien overlords don't have the same disdain for their foodstuffs.

      Oblig: "To Serve Man", Twilight Zone.

  • The current shrimp farms are notorious for bacteria and antibiotics [youtube.com], specially the ones in south and south east Asia. Bacteria are to be expected on any animal. However antibiotic resistant ones are much higher in farmed shrimp than wild ones. Breeding shrimp in high density farms make disease spread much easier, so the farmers use antibiotic, causing bacteria to become resistant to said antibiotic, and therefore a risk to humans.

    If headless shrimp are artificially grown in labs, will it be in a sterile env

  • The name is very typical among South Indian vegetarian communities. Looks like does hail from that part of India. Surprised she is starting a meat company.

  • Swimming in sewerage?

  • And also not buying take-away or restaurant food with them?

    If no one buys them, people will not produce them or fish them out of the ocean.

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