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Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

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131–140 of 152 posts

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#131
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? As long as its vegan margarine. Its clean of at least a subset of ethical concerns that many foods are not. Clean is a very overloaded word though so I certainly see where you're coming from, but it works just fine for me.

Well, butter is a well-defined substance; there's a reason why "I can't believe it's not butter" isn't called "better butter". Furthermore margarine is associated with health risks that butter is not; clean is just disingenuous.

Yes, but margarine isn't butter, this lab grown meat is actually the same product. You're comparing a substitute, to a replacement.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#132
post #119
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the stats in the article are true, 96% less greenhouse emissions, 45% less energy, 99% less land use and 96% less water used in the production of the lab meat, I think it makes perfect sense to call it clean meat. Plus it doesn't involve the death of an animal, which is pretty "clean" I guess.

I think this is an issue of context. "Clean" food means something very different than "clean" energy. If I'm looking for clean food, my standards are very different than someone looking for clean energy. I know folks who wouldn't think lab grown meat was very clean simply because it was created in a lab. All that to say: you're not wrong, but clean means something very different to the food-conscious person shopping…

>> I know folks who wouldn't think lab grown meat was very clean simply because it was created in a lab.

I'm confused, it's not clean because it was grown in a lab, or is there some other factor?

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#133
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is an issue of context. "Clean" food means something very different than "clean" energy. If I'm looking for clean food, my standards are very different than someone looking for clean energy. I know folks who wouldn't think lab grown meat was very clean simply because it was created in a lab. All that to say: you're not wrong, but clean means something very different to the food-conscious person shopping…

>> I know folks who wouldn't think lab grown meat was very clean simply because it was created in a lab. I'm confused, it's not clean because it was grown in a lab, or is there some other factor?

"Clean food" generally means minimally processed--you are eating food that is as close to its natural form as possible, such this[0]. So, meat created in a laboratory is about as far aware from this sort of "clean eating" as possible.

[0] https://the30clean.com/what-is-30-clean/

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#134
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling meat grown in a lab clean meat is just a marketing gimmick that could potentially make people believe they eat natural grown meat.

by clean they mean its not made from cows farting into the atmosphere

What about cold rice? By cold I mean it was grown in my lab, no fart was released in the process. Would you buy cold rice from me ?

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like a particular definition of "flesh" that's not particularly germane to meatness. Lab meat is made of the exact same animal cells that regular meat is, the tissue just happens to never have inhabited an animal. When we eat meat, we don't value the fact that the cells we're eating were once part of an animal, we mostly value the taste. It seems to me that this isn't a necessarily property of meat but a c…

> When we eat meat, we don't value the fact that the cells we're eating were once part of an animal, we mostly value the taste You'd be surprised. We even have different names and preferences for different age stages of the animal, different varieties of the animal (regional etc), etc.

Those distinctions exist because of the perceived impact on the tastes and textures of meat. Not because of anything such as ethical preferences to old/young animals.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#136
post #92
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I assumed "clean" referred to the fact that lab-grown tissue would have a much lower risk of disease. Animals have digestive tracts full of bacteria, and farms aren't exactly pristine. Every year in the US, meat-borne pathogens kill thousands and sicken millions. OK, let's check the numbers. According to the CDC https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution/attribution-... from 1998 - 2008 from the total of foodb…

A couple of points: 1. The percentages you cite aren’t useful on their own, as one also needs to know how often each kind of food is consumed. Only then would we know the relative risk of eating each kind of food. 2. Most food plants are grown outdoors (often near livestock) and many aren’t cooked before eating. Cultured meat is grown in sterile environments and is typically cooked. These differences mean that it wil…

So, I should accept your millions of sick people generality supported with a CDC link as a useful information. Why wouldn't you accept the cold hard numbers given by the same organization ?

> Cultured meat is grown in sterile environments and is typically cooked. These differences mean that it will almost certainly have a lower disease risk than any natural food.

Maybe, or maybe we'll discover in 10 years that eating lab grown meat gives you some form of cancer. Until it is used on a large scale for a number of years (as in decades) we have no idea what the effect of consuming lab grown meat has on ones health.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#137
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I know folks who wouldn't think lab grown meat was very clean simply because it was created in a lab. I'm confused, it's not clean because it was grown in a lab, or is there some other factor?

"Clean food" generally means minimally processed--you are eating food that is as close to its natural form as possible, such this[0]. So, meat created in a laboratory is about as far aware from this sort of "clean eating" as possible. [0] https://the30clean.com/what-is-30-clean/

That quoted website just sounds like pseudo-BS-science, especially since the very first thing they mention is removing gluten from diet. That particular horse has been beaten to death and then a bit more.

Our bodies don't give two shits whether the food we eat was grown outside in a natural environment or in a lab - as long as it's chemically the same then there can't be any difference to how we absorb it.

Edit: Ok, after going deeper onto this website it mentions doing juice cleanses and ridding yourself of "toxins". Stay as far away from this website as possible.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#138
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we leave them enough habitat. But why would we if we don't need them?

I believe that may have been a subtle natural selection joke.

it was sincere - they will be fine without us. Sure, long term some of them may go extinct - who knows? but that's evolution. As for habitat, yes that's a problem for them and for non-domesticated creatures, and for us (we need wild spaces too).

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would probably be illegal to market a product that wasn't butter as "Clean Butter", because there are rules about labeling things as butter. So I won't be surprised if the animal products industry lobbies for rules about what can be called meat (or if such rules already exist). Of course such labeling concerns don't apply to an internet discussion, but they do indicate that people care about what's in a name.

Absolutely -- some dairy producing states like Wisconsin have forced makers of soy and almond milk to stop calling them "milk" so I'm almost positive that meat producing states would do the same.

I'm always annoyed (admittedly only slightly) when they are referred to as milk. Nothing wrong with soy milk, but milk it is not.

Re: Billionaires and big ag are joining venture investors to fund lab-grown meat

#140

For those that are curious, as an early investor and advocate for clean meat, I wrote about my experience eating Memphis Meats' products and why their solution is so much better than convention meat production: https://medium.com/@sethbannon/i-just-ate-meat-for-the-first...

It is impressive that despite not eating meat for 20 years you feel you are in a good position to talk about the realism of the meat product you have invested in.
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