US Approves Chicken Made From Cultivated Cells, the Nation's First 'Lab-Grown' Meat (apnews.com) 110
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Associated Press: For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer "lab-grown" meat to the nation's restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves. The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn't come from slaughtered animals -- what's now being referred to as "cell-cultivated" or "cultured" meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates. The companies received approvals for federal inspections required to sell meat and poultry in the U.S. The action came months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed that products from both companies are safe to eat. A manufacturing company called Joinn Biologics, which works with Good Meat, was also cleared to make the products.
Cultivated meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a special bank of stored cells. In Upside's case, it comes out in large sheets that are then formed into shapes like chicken cutlets and sausages. Good Meat, which already sells cultivated meat in Singapore, the first country to allow it, turns masses of chicken cells into cutlets, nuggets, shredded meat and satays. But don't look for this novel meat in U.S. grocery stores anytime soon. Cultivated chicken is much more expensive than meat from whole, farmed birds and cannot yet be produced on the scale of traditional meat, said Ricardo San Martin, director of the Alt:Meat Lab at University of California Berkeley. The companies plan to serve the new food first in exclusive restaurants: Upside has partnered with a San Francisco restaurant called Bar Crenn, while Good Meat dishes will be served at a Washington, D.C., restaurant run by chef and owner Jose Andres.
Cultivated meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a special bank of stored cells. In Upside's case, it comes out in large sheets that are then formed into shapes like chicken cutlets and sausages. Good Meat, which already sells cultivated meat in Singapore, the first country to allow it, turns masses of chicken cells into cutlets, nuggets, shredded meat and satays. But don't look for this novel meat in U.S. grocery stores anytime soon. Cultivated chicken is much more expensive than meat from whole, farmed birds and cannot yet be produced on the scale of traditional meat, said Ricardo San Martin, director of the Alt:Meat Lab at University of California Berkeley. The companies plan to serve the new food first in exclusive restaurants: Upside has partnered with a San Francisco restaurant called Bar Crenn, while Good Meat dishes will be served at a Washington, D.C., restaurant run by chef and owner Jose Andres.
Just LABEL IT (Score:5, Insightful)
And I'm not one much for too much govt. rules and regulations, but one I do agree with is food labeling laws.
Please require any dish or raw ingredient sold made with this, be labeled as such...boldy pronounce it as "Lab grown".
Let the customer decide if they want it or not based on information.
They won't. (Score:2)
It'll be cruelty-free meat or some gobbledygook like that.
The euphemisms will abound, it's their marketing pitch.
If it were up to me, i'd label it lab-grown dinosaur meat, but i'm told that isn't very appetizing sounding.
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Whatever terminology they settle on will be fundamentally deceptive and try to "build trust" in the product.
"Cruelty free" is perfect, as it tries to take the virtue of more natural animal husbandry while at the same still castigating the eating of meat as a cruel endeavor.
As far as I'm concerned, "meat" is the muscle fiber from a once-living animal. It has a very narrow scope of definition and does not involve "science". The same for "milk" (produced from the mammary glands of mammals). Everything else is
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I hadn't thought of it that way, but you are right. These are literally cancer - if such a thing were growing inside an animal, that's what we'd call it.
50 years ago, we'd probably say there was zero chance of *getting* cancer from eating meat sourced from a tumor, but some of the stuff we hear today about viruses causing cancer...not so sure anymore.
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Re:They won't. (Score:5, Interesting)
50 years ago, we'd probably say there was zero chance of *getting* cancer from eating meat sourced from a tumor, but some of the stuff we hear today about viruses causing cancer...not so sure anymore.
Do you imagine the meat you get from the butcher or supermarket is magically cancer-free? Given the kinds of chemicals used in the farming industry (especially in America), you can be sure animals do get cancers. Small or microscopic cancers won't be detected optically, nobody does biomarker analysis of slaughterhouse animals, and I expect even suspiciously large growths still end up in the sausage mix.
So if you've been eating meat for 50 years, you probably ate any amount of cancer cells. Your putative viruses had lots of chances to have a go at you.
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You make a good point as well. As for viruses causing cancer, i'm thinking like HPV with cervical cancer and things like that.
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These mythical cancer-causing viruses of which you speak can't survive the grill.
Maybe, but what about beef tartare, or sashimi, or the "blue rare steak" some misguided people insist it's the only way to grill meat?
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Meat is anything biochemically the same as the freshly killed stuff. And you clear have no idea about what constitutes cancer. It isn't just wildly growing cells. It is a specific dna pathway.
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I'll be avoiding their controlled-chicken-cancer protein products, personally.
Why? The muscle cells don't remember where they came from. Also, is using deceptive terminology good or bad? You can't have it both ways.
"Cruelty free" is perfect, as it tries to take the virtue of more natural animal husbandry while at the same still castigating the eating of meat as a cruel endeavor.
Well, imagine you can have a hamburger at McDonald's, or you can have the same hamburger and they'll kill a small animal for yo
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Just like many other things, you can't simply assert something is something and have it be so.
Meat is the edible part of an animal, or if you're playing loose, the edible part of -something else-. It is not its own thing.
It must first be a part of an animal (or plant).
This stuff is grown in a lab. It is not "cloned", it is grown - like a mold/mould.
You speak about 'genetic pathways', but a cancer is an abnormal cellular growth - cells growing outside the context of where they're supposed to grow, due to a d
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The Flintstones bronto burger? But they will have to solve the car tipping over problem.
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I see, so you would rather some critter get whacked so that your pretty little head is not forced to accept something new.
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What makes you think the individual cells of chicken are any less feeling and dreading being killed and eaten than an actual chicken?
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The lack of neurons, mostly
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No, I prefer to eat pretty much like my ancestors to date have eaten....something of this earth, not grown in a lab with God knows what all chemicals and manipulations are being done.
That all being said, now
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Not to mention the impact on the climate of farming animals. Thing is though, we will still want hens to produce eggs. Is there a good alternative to eggs?
As Picard and later Riker put it, in the future we no longer enslave animals for food.
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Is there a good alternative to eggs?
Well, egg whites are mostly a form of albumin and the yolks have phospholipids in addition. If we can grow meat in a vat, we can certainly produce albumin and phospholipids. Whether it's worth encapsulating that into some nested artificial membranes and a shell to simulate real eggs, I don't know, but a product similar to a container of egg whites or scrambled eggs should be quite possible.
No good reason we can't grow a decent milk in vats either.
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Can't call it "lab grown". It almost certainly won't be grown in a lab. Have to come up with a name that's still descriptive, but more accurate. "Vat grown" probably comes closer.
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How about just "meat". That's what it is.
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So what the fuck do you think meat is, small angry child?
Something running around, eating and shitting? Sorry, that's an animal. Meat is the flesh that powers its skeleton.
And that's what this is, sans animal skeleton and organs.
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and he degenerated into the lowest form of troll life: Political shilling.
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Why? If it is chemically identical to fresh killed meat, why the fuck do you care how its labelled? Maybe a few courses in biochemistry could help you over your phobias.
Re:Just LABEL IT (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, my degree was in biochemistry...and I don't wanna eat this shit.
I want my dead animal meat to come from....dead animals.
Hey, more power to you if YOU want it....I prefer to eat in the manner that has worked for humans from the beginning of time to date.
I just want to know what I'm buying at the store...as long as you have your vat grown "meat" why the fuck do you care if I continue to eat normally?
What do you have against informed choice?
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How about flipping that and making the producers who kill animals put a picture of the animal(s) that had to die to get its meat?
Now THAT would be interesting
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Fine with me...hell, give it a name too.
I'll still eat it.
Personally, I enjoy being at the top of the food chain.
Geez, people have become WAY too abstracted from their food.
This is nature. This is how life and the cycle of life works.
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I agree, we definitely need to attach lots of trivia
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Since it's still more expensive than slaughtered animals, they'll be sure to mention the lab grown part. That's the draw.
Re: Just LABEL IT (Score:3)
It's more expensive for now, but costs have come down rapidly. Another factor of ten or so and it will be competitive with slaughtered meat. That last ten is a steeper hill than the first ten, but the very first cultured meat burger, cooked and tried on live TV ten years ago this August, cost $300,000 for a small patty. From what I've seen elsewhere, that same patty might cost around $30 now. If they can get it to $3, it can go into update fast food burgers. Chicken has come down even faster.
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Eraserhead (Score:3)
The first thing that I thought of when seeing the headline for this article was the man made chicken in Eraserhead (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eraserhead)
A movie that has to be the strangest most surreal movie I have ever seen.
Sure. Why not? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not their consumer of course. I don't have an aversion to eating meat, the ecological impact concerns are pretty far down my list of "concernables", and I don't share any ethical or moral objections to it. So there's no compelling reason for me to pay a premium for it. But technically, and in principle, I have no objection. Given how far removed from the source form factor the average chicken cutlet is, I'll be you'd mostly be hard pressed to tell the difference.
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Given how far removed from the source form factor the average chicken cutlet is, I'll be you'd mostly be hard pressed to tell the difference.
I'm guessing the $149.99/lb tag will be the dead giveaway
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pretty much this, as long as it's not used as a cudgel to ban (overtly or through 'soft' price/tax measures) real beef/poultry; But i think it's a fair bet to say that's exactly what the outcome eventually will be. And at that point it'll be time to raise my own chickens and a couple of cows (assuming we're not all living in FEMA pods or something.)
That and, who knows what unintended oopsies will be discovered 10-15 years down the line regarding the health impacts of this product vs the real thing..
Re:Sure. Why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
It will also be a damned sight safer given how animals are treated and slaughtered, not to mention any toxins they consumed in their feed or the chemicals and antibiotics with which they are injected.
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Let's see... of the things most likely to kill me or dramatically shorten my lifetime..
1. Heart disease / COPD (family history, although I've never smoked)
2. Auto accident
...
144. Accidently saw "Hardware" again, gave up on life
145. Stabbed by mime for mean-spirited imitation behind his back
146. Components in the feed and care of the livestock I eat ---------- Here you go.
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Deaths in Canada due to BSE since the early 1990s... 1.
"Is there anything on that remote control lower than 'mute'?"
Re:Sure. Why not? (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't have an aversion to eating meat
Me neither. Ethically raised chicken is more expensive than the cheapest stuff, which is produced with the goal of profitability over animal welfare. The worst offense IMO is the chickens have to lie (because their breast meat is too heavy for their tiny legs) in ammonia/shit constantly, and suffer a lifetime of red swollen burning diaper rash on their breast and feet. There's more information here for the curious, or google your own results:
https://www.farmforward.com/is... [farmforward.com]
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I'll pass, thanks. I cannot possibly pay attention to every issue that somebody else thinks is important. There are far too many things wrong in the world to devote time to all of it.
So I put this one down and left behind. Somebody with the conviction and the time can pick it up.
We need real solutions, people. (Score:1, Offtopic)
We need real solutions. This sounds like a novelty for the uber-elite pricks that run around the world several times a week on private jets while bitching about how the commoners take too long of hot showers, flush their toilets every time they go to the bathroom (THE HORROR), and drive their cars to and from work too often. Do the uber-rich need yet more reason to look down their noses at us?
In the not too distant future:
"Why, I heard they eat real meat, not vat grown? Can you believe it?"
"What utter peasants. They're ruining the planet with that nonsense. Hand me the overnighted Champaign would you? My overnighted beluga caviar is stuck in my teeth again."
Re: We need real solutions, people. (Score:3, Insightful)
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you're welcome to eat lab grown franken food and hope nothing bad happens to you because of it.
the rest of us will have a fucking chicken killed. there is nothing precious about a chicken. totally sustainable too, a chicken for every pot.
Re: We need real solutions, people. (Score:2)
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What "garbage" specifically? US Chickens do not receive growth hormones or steroids, that was done away with in 1950s.
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What "garbage" specifically? US Chickens do not receive growth hormones or steroids, that was done away with in 1950s.
Up until 2017, they used antibiotics for growth promotion instead. I suspect they've come up with some other alternative now that the law finally caught up with them. :-/
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no one was harmed by antibiotics in chicken. A lot of hot air out there about fear of breeding superbugs in chicken but combine the antibiotics that kills most the bad things with proper cooking that kills all bacteria... and there is no problem.
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zero cases of that from eating cooked chicken.
If you're a circus geek who bites heads off of chickens I strongly recommend using healthy bug fed free range chickens, and to be sure to keep you immune system in top shape with proper diet, exercise and sunshine.
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Well, for one, they are typically prophylactically given a lot of antibiotics.
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that's so we don't eat diseased chicken like a third world toilet dweller. Also cook your chicken thoroughly.
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Yeah, and there's no need for that with labgrown meat as it can be created in fully sterile conditions. Ofcourse there will be batches with which is something wrong, but they can be discarded immediately.
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Except the lab-grown meat can be created in fully sterile conditions
You'd better hope so. One instance of contamination and the whole thing is going to wind up with a lot of injured reputation, especially early on. Despite not being grown in a dirty feed lot, the lab grown meat also does not have an immune system. Thus, any infection or contamination will face no opposition and spread rapidly. The meat will still need nutrients which will introduce risk of contamination.
what else? (Score:3)
You get cultured meat-product and what else?
https://www.sigmaaldrich.com/U... [sigmaaldrich.com]
the chickens should've formed a union (Score:5, Funny)
I for one welcome our (Score:2)
'chicken made from cultivated cells' overlords!
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This seems good (Score:2)
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Fixed that for you. Explains why the typical comment on here now belongs to one of "wake me when I can buy it at Wal-Mart", "you'll pry the {traditional_product} from my cold, dead hands," "{US_politician} {conspiracy theory}" or "socialism!"
Send in the scoops (Score:3)
Soylent Green is replicant chicken
meanwhile stem cell surgery is not ok (Score:2)
If you are afraid of chemicals (Score:3)
safe & effective meat lol (Score:1)
Factory farming is horrible, yes, but since we don't need meat this is a truly staggering waste of time and resources.
LeeLynx remembers (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why chicken? (Score:2)
Re: Why chicken? (Score:2)
Chicken is widely studied, biologically well-understood, and extremely widely used. The others will follow as the techniques are perfected, and endangered animals will be under less stress.
I'll wait (Score:2)
As predicted by Tony Seba (Score:2)
Tony Seba is a futurist who has correctly predicted a lot of stuff. He and his think tank ("RethinkX") are predicting huge disruptions coming in the next ten years or so.
Wind and solar power (paired with batteries) will disrupt everything else. Electric vehicles will disrupt combustion vehicles. Self-driving vehicles will disrupt individually-owned vehicles. And: factory production of food products will disrupt traditional agriculture.
Using "precision fermentation" (PF) it is already possible to mass-pr
Sure, don't eat animals, but also... (Score:3)
We're not machines, not simple input/output functions where you can just replace part of the process. We're part of an interrelated biological network, and you can't know what will start to fail if you start just removing stuff from it.
Processed (Score:3)
We are told that healthy eating requires avoiding processed foods. Lab-grown chicken has to be the ultimate in processed food, just like Impossible Meat and its like.
My brother once asked: "If we are not supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"
How Realistic Is It? (Score:1)
Re:Help (Score:5, Insightful)
errrr....I presume you wish the government didn't try to protect you from asbestos, black mold, global warming. Anyhow, you can thank Reagan for making sure many government functions were farmed out the private sector. The alternative is to have government step in and directly clear up the godawful mess you and your fellow travelers have created.
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The main place to risk asbestos exposure is in a public school building.
False. The main place to risk asbestos exposure is in industry and military, places where asbestos is actually disturbed. Government and commercial buildings made of asbestos rank among the lowest risks due to undisturbed asbestos actually not exposing anyone to risk, and the lack of some cowboy DIY home owner thinking it's okay to just break out the asbestos sheet with a hammer.
Re:Help (Score:4, Informative)
Ex-Industrial Hygienist here.
The main risk is in the type of asbestos one is exposed to.
Friable or non-friable.
Examples of friable are blown-in insulation, ceiling tiles, pipe insulation.
Those are high risk.
Low risk would be things like floor tiles, or the mastic holding them to the foundation.
Schools were taken care of first because..well children.
Everything else was on a case by case basis. If it was in good condition and encapsulated properly, it was left alone.
For the record, shipyards were the worst places to get exposure from.
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Exactly. I should have mentioned that I assumed a base level of western health programs when making my comment. I know many western countries outright condemned any building with friable asbestos until remediation was complete and that most of those countries have completed that. It's insanely unlikely to come across friable asbestos in buildings these days.
That said the world has heard the stories of Flint Michigan and that may invalidate any idea that the USA actually has public health policy :-)
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Do you think it'd go un-inspected for 40 years
Yes because they pay the inspectors to turn away.
This isn't Somalia. (Score:1)
Yes because they pay the inspectors to turn away.
That might happen in Romania or Brazil, but it doesn't happen much at all in the USA. That type of small-time bribery isn't in-vogue here [transparencycdn.org] (yet). Click that link to see actual research on the topic and a ranking of the worst countries for bribery and similar corruption.
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I know I normally post about eating humans and crushing lesser trolls but completely serious; I’m sure all the most delicious animals in human history were hunted to extinction long before we were born.
I’m really excited to know I might get a chance to have wooly mammoth, dinosaur, fucking dodos! We wiped out dodos fast so I’ll be they’re good as fuck.
Naturally as a greater troll I’m also very eager to eat the meat of various historical human politicians, dictators, kings, and
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We wiped out dodos fast so I’ll be{sic) they’re good as fuck.
The Dutch called them walghvogel, or "disgusting bird". Their greatest culinary virtue was their abundance and how easy it was to catch them - much like the passenger pigeon, only less tasty. Then, like ground-dwelling birds in other previously isolated environments, rats and cats and dogs and pigs all took their toll.
Naturally as a greater troll I’m also very eager to eat the meat of various historical human politicians, dictators, kings, and celebrated foolish adventurers of times past!
You need to track down a copy of Dad's Nuke by Marc Laidlaw - there's a cult in it that eats a cultured meat product called "Host", which is supposedly cloned from the prepuce of Jesus Christ.