I worked in this lab! Would be glad to answer questions.
Is it just meat or also fat? How does the nutritional content compare to say beef liver or a regular steak?
World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
171–180 of 350 posts
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
It will take a while for lab-grown meat to match the variety available for regular meat, especially on the high-end market. Consider a steak, and how many cuts of steak there are from the same animal: T-bone, filet mignon, ribeye, flank, brisket.. the list goes on and on. Then within that, there are different breeds and styles of beef, like veal or Wagyu. Then on top of that you even have alternative species altogeth…
Lab-grown meat can exceed that thought. You can make cuts that are bigger than they currently can be. You can adjust composition, fat content, potentially embed flavourings directly into the meat, or combine types of meat, or create types of meat that doesn't even exist today. So I'm sure it will take time, but there's also a fairly good chance what will win people over will be that it'll be possible to provide produ…
Man made diamonds greatly exceed the quality of the ones dug up from the ground, yet there is still a strong natural diamond market.
People just form an emotional attachment to ‘natural’ things.
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#173I 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've considered stuff like this a lot lately, as there seems to be a lot of hypocrisy amongst commonly held positions (including mine). I find it odd that people who truly believe in evolution, and that humans are just smarter animals, and that animals are also capable of sensing pain and emotion, can be deeply concerned (rightfully) about things such as trans rights, gender discrimination, etc. for humans (that are…
> Are they dishonest with themselves? Haven't thought it through? Or do people just want the world to be a better place... as long as it's not an inconvenience for them personally?
All of the above plus performative outrage / signaling. I'm definitely a healthier person after getting off social media and honestly just caring a lot less about my stances on things and whether they're perfect and holy.
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#174I 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 it's going to be interesting simply because in order to ban killing of animals for food, we're going to have to almost genocide livestock in order to make their continued existence feasible.
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#175Earlier 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. There is an enormous difference in scale and efficiency between a lab scale process and an industrial one. Researchers (myself included) do what gets the job done quickly, not necessarily balancing the budget at the same time.
Yes there is an enormous difference in scale. Efficiency? In cell culture? In terms of GHG or emissions or energy use? I find that hard to believe. In my personal experience (not data, but relevant), none of the manufacturing scale processes were particularly optimized in terms of GHG/energy. Rather, yield was the primary target and consistency was the very close secondary target. Sometimes, vice versa. I 10x improvement of yield can very easily lead to higher GHG emission intensity, or no effect at all, e.g.
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect reality will be a lot more boring. Animals are a low efficiency method of converting plant material into meat, both in terms of calories and protein mass input/output. So with scale, eventually lab-grown meat should become much cheaper than traditional meat. At the same time, it will be higher quality. Sterile production will eliminate E. Coli, salmonella, antibiotics... Input nutrients will be tightly cont…
Animals are extremely efficient at converting inedible food to edible nutrition. For example, goats eat almost any plant, including many natives. Unless you think humans are going to be able to eat chaparral. The fact is that modern edible agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuel and mined fertilizers. Until we solve that problem, it's better to stop growing too many plants, let native vegetation regrow and se…
Most steaks come from cows than never tasted grass.
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#177I 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…
And then the Synthianians will appear - that’s the ones only eating lab grown food, since plants are living beings as well
That's interesting, I've not heard that term before, thanks :)
So if you assume that at some point in the future everyone becomes Synthianian (Synthian?) for moral reasons, is it immoral to eat plants now?
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
When it comes to food, I use the following criteria: could I make it myself in my kitchen? (Some "minimal processsing" like fermentation and curing therefore fall under "natural".) I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" for most of the plant-based fake meat. It's also "no" for McDonald's burger so I'm not just hating on plants.
I understand this conversation is about Beyond Meat kinda stuff, but it's isn't no for the two oldest and most popular fake meats--tofu and seitan. And yet tofu especially gets beat up in terms of fake vs natural.
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#179Earlier 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…
I imagine a lot of the freshwater savings involves not needing to feed an animal. What they drink and eat takes large scale agriculture and processing operations which will be cut drastically.
But you have to feed the cells. And you can't just grow some plants and feed it to the cells, you have to manufacture a very precise blend of chemicals (amino acids, sugars, surfactants, antioxidants, etc.) at >99% purity for each one. Often extremely nasty solvents are involved in the production process. Usually, some sort of petroleum product is a feedstock. Those chemically synthesized materials are hardly green.
Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've considered stuff like this a lot lately, as there seems to be a lot of hypocrisy amongst commonly held positions (including mine). I find it odd that people who truly believe in evolution, and that humans are just smarter animals, and that animals are also capable of sensing pain and emotion, can be deeply concerned (rightfully) about things such as trans rights, gender discrimination, etc. for humans (that are…
> Are they dishonest with themselves? Haven't thought it through? Or do people just want the world to be a better place... as long as it's not an inconvenience for them personally? All of the above plus performative outrage / signaling. I'm definitely a healthier person after getting off social media and honestly just caring a lot less about my stances on things and whether they're perfect and holy.
> I'm definitely a healthier person after getting off social media
This. So much. Facebook was destroying my mental health.