181–190 of 350 posts
Really cool they made it happen. I looked at the topic years ago, and was pushed away from serum (e.g. FBS) costs, and potential PR backlash coming from using genetic modification or cell line immortalizion to decrease unit costs. Alas, they seem to have done it w/o these modifications. I need to crawl into their patents. There are clear advantages to produce animal protein via biotechnology, although I wonder if the…
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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…
>but it turns out they are counting the water that falls as rain on the pasture land, or the rain/ground water used to grow the alfalfa. Can we use that pasture-land (and the rain that falls onto it) to grow more useful crops? If so: I don't understand why that wouldn't count.
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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.
I also think this is a lot less likely to happen with meat. With diamonds part of the value is in signalling status. As such there is little incentive for customers to want to participate in driving down the price.
With lab-grown meat there will eventually be a number of outright benefits.
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> 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?
An autoclave requires distilled water and an enormous amount of energy to operate. You could save the water but you'd potentially need to distill it again after. They use an enormous amount of energy and water overall. The feed for the cells still has to come from somewhere too, and the growth of the cells is aerobic and generates CO2. That said, artificial meat is supposed to hit market parity price by 2026 and prob…
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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?
The big issue is the slaughterhouses, which would obviously die out but which also may be the only big employeer around, kinda like the steel mills used to be. The farms raising feed are not likely to employ a lot of people.
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…
There are countless examples of products where competitors have tried to approach the quality of a market-leader, and almost got there, but not quite.
Meat is also a good example of a product where humans are exceptionally good at detecting minor variances in quality. Objectively speaking, these are variances that shouldn't matter, but somehow xkcd 915 still emerges.
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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.
How much research is being done into exploring "exotic" new invented fake-meats with different textures / tastes / etc. ?
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…
Cancel culture will always exist. I learned that Hitler identified it as an essential method for success in establishing a political party (Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). He employed it extensively and discovered it through analyzing the success of the socialists--which he hated and was seeking to displace. Whatever you call it, it is just highly obnoxious behavior that uses rethoric to defame the target. It work…
Anyway, after Hitler blew his brains out, he was "canceled", and that went just fine. It's a tool that works for positive ends just as well.
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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.