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World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

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Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#51

Post by mdorazio »

shafyy wrote: post #30

Note that they are not yet "pumping" out anything. Their plan is to start selling next year, which means that it probably will take another few years. I think that it makes much more sense to make meat and cheese directly from plant proteins, without going through the trouble of growing meat in bioreactors. Assuming that both will have a similar endproduct (and Impossible shows that it's possible), making from plant…

> making from plant proteins directly will always be cheaper, faster, require less resources and be healthier

This is not clear at all. If you look into what goes into making something like an Impossible Burger, it is basically none of those things.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#52

Post by dariusj18 »

yaseer wrote: post #50
tomp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a warped sense of ickiness or masculinity, or we can choose protein security indefinitely into the future I think you're confusing a few things. I'm very pro lab-grown meat, and I don't see why it would be either "icky" (if anything, it could be much more "pure", able to grow in controlled conditions without any pesticides, hormones or antibiotics) nor less "masculine" (a steak is a steak is a steak). I'm very…

> they're usually far from natural (tons of chemicals) I really object to marketing use of the word 'natural' and 'chemicals'. I don't mean to single you out - these concepts are widespread in marketing. Plenty of 'natural' things are bad, like small pox, the Ebola virus and salmonella. Plenty of 'unnatural' things are good, like antibiotics to treat infection. All matter is made from chemicals. Whether a chemical li…

I wouldn't say Penicillin is 'unnatural', there are probably better examples out there.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#54

Post by [deleted] »

yaseer wrote: post #50
tomp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> with a warped sense of ickiness or masculinity, or we can choose protein security indefinitely into the future I think you're confusing a few things. I'm very pro lab-grown meat, and I don't see why it would be either "icky" (if anything, it could be much more "pure", able to grow in controlled conditions without any pesticides, hormones or antibiotics) nor less "masculine" (a steak is a steak is a steak). I'm very…

> they're usually far from natural (tons of chemicals) I really object to marketing use of the word 'natural' and 'chemicals'. I don't mean to single you out - these concepts are widespread in marketing. Plenty of 'natural' things are bad, like small pox, the Ebola virus and salmonella. Plenty of 'unnatural' things are good, like antibiotics to treat infection. All matter is made from chemicals. Whether a chemical li…

[deleted]

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#55

Post by dijit »

Avtomatk wrote: post #49
spywaregorilla wrote: post #5

The price seems to be ~$3.90 to produce chicken breast. Given that I regularly find chicken breast in a store for $1.99, I'll assume that's still ~3x as costly as just farm raising chickens. It will be interesting if subsidies can change this though. The negative externalities of raising animals must be huge. The jobs tied up in these industries are enormous as well though.

> I'll assume that's still ~3x as costly as just farm raising chickens. 3x? it's not even double

I'll assume you missed the fact that this is the store price vs the cost price.

If you can buy a chicken breast for $1.99 in a store then the actual cost for the meat is probably close to 80c-$1.20

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#56

Post by gwbas1c »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

I think "meat from animals" will quickly become considered higher quality, or luxury.

We can kind-of see this now with seafood, where "wild caught" is more expensive than farmed.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#57

Post by jamincan »

tomp wrote: post #37
ethanbond wrote: post #2

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

> with a warped sense of ickiness or masculinity, or we can choose protein security indefinitely into the future I think you're confusing a few things. I'm very pro lab-grown meat, and I don't see why it would be either "icky" (if anything, it could be much more "pure", able to grow in controlled conditions without any pesticides, hormones or antibiotics) nor less "masculine" (a steak is a steak is a steak). I'm very…

I don't think you can dismiss the sustainability of meat-substitutes just because we as a society continue to use coal or import plastic. A bean-based veggie burger has a much lower environmental footprint regardless of those things. The major difference is that choosing to buy a meat-substitute instead of the real thing is a decision that people can individually make, even if just for one meal a week, while most of us don't have the ability to choose to close down a coal plant.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#58

Post by sidlls »

everdrive wrote: post #26
ethanbond wrote: post #2

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

>ickiness or masculinity, How is this related to lab-grown meat?

There's a certain squeamishness some have about eating something labeled as "lab-grown", as if it's somehow tainted with "unnatural" origin.

At the same time, there's a certain machismo, bravado, "manliness" associated with eating meat from an actual animal, mainly a vicarious association with hunting, but also by demonstration of some certain kinds of "alpha male" traits (access to resources to afford it, dominance, etc.). Lab-grown meat wasn't hunted or butchered, so may be viewed as "easier" in some sense--less manly, in other words.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#59

Post by falcolas »

justinmchase wrote: post #47
marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

Another question is, if its banned to kill an animal for meat, for various animals, how long until they go extinct? Many are co-dependent on humanity for their survival at the species level... Or at the very least how will it affect their evolution?

Good question. Another: How will the ranchland dedicated to their raising be used? In Montana, where the cows outnumber the people, the land they occupy is considered unfit for farming, largely because it’s not friendly for combines.

There’s also the whole infrastructure and supply chain dedicated to the breeding and raising of various meat sources. What will happen to them?

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#60

Post by hcknwscommenter »

ceejayoz wrote: post #33
hcknwscommenter wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is of course impossible to verify either way, but I am very sure these statistics of 96% savings in freshwater are total nonsense. Anyone who has ever cultured cells on any scale can attest to the amount of water needed at any scale in terms of washing, rinsing, diluting, sterilizing, feeding, etc. Moreover, we have seen time and time again, the reporting of extremely high numbers for water usage in beef and milk…

> Anyone who has ever cultured cells on any scale can attest to the amount of water needed at any scale in terms of washing, rinsing, diluting, sterilizing, feeding, etc. Given that this is all happening in a lab, is collecting and filtering for reuse an option?

Sure. But then you have to spend way more energy on the "filtering" part. It typically makes a lot more sense in terms of energy usage to just take tap water and run it through a polishing step (deionization and/or reverse osmosis), than to take the comparatively "dirty" water coming out of your process (dirty but not toxic) and try to clean that up.
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