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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

#301

Post by shaunregenbaum »

kadonoishi wrote: post #201
shaunregenbaum wrote: post #125

I worked in this lab! Would be glad to answer questions.

From a comment above, > 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. How would you assess these statem…

I would say that's quite ridiculous. While the serum is very important when experimenting, later on the goal is to grow the cells serum-free (from what I understand). These types of cells would die from any high exposure to petroleum...

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

#302

Post by sound1 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #177
jalk wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I would say it is less immoral to be a vegetarian because you only kill the plant instead of killing an animal that killed and ate the plant ;-)

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

#303

Post by noduerme »

ragazzina wrote: post #274
marcus_holmes wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK, but hypothetically, assume it does become immoral, and then illegal. If you eat a burger now, with lab-grown meat not really available, are you behaving immorally? If you eat an animal in (say) 10 years' time, when lab-grown meat is readily available, are you behaving immorally then? If you eat an animal in (say) 20 years' time, when that involves quite a lot of effort (finding a butcher who sells it, paying the…

(Disclaimer: I am not a vegetarian) I see it as immoral now, and immoral in twenty years. It is just socially accepted. Most of the meat-eating people I know don't even try and justify from a moral standpoint. They usually say "I know it's wrong, I just like meat". So in twenty years they will say "I knew it was wrong, it was just how life was back then".

Switch meat-eating for slave-owning and you're starting to justify tearing down those statues of Washington and Jefferson.

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

#304

Post by justsid »

XorNot wrote: post #32
EspadaV9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3x the price isn't too bad. Plant based "meat" is usually a bit more expensive than regular meat, and for some people paying 3x to get "real" meat without the need to kill an animal will be a worthwhile trade. Add in the environmental benefits too and it could give some people some peace of mind.

3x not to torture chickens for their short lifespan in horrific conditions is worth it even if you're not a moral vegan. The poultry industry is horrendous, and dominated by demands of corporate boards rather then farmers to boot. I already try to buy free range, but the grim reality is that label can't possibly account for the amount of production it supposedly represents. Taking chickens with nervous systems out of…

This is where I fall on the topic as well, and I think so do many others. This seems like an easy way to bootstrap and scale this, start with a premium on the product pricing and have people who can afford it fund the scaling. At the end, economies of scale will bring the price down for the rest.

I can also totally see people buying this occasionally to supplement their regular meat consumptions.

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

#305

Post by t0mbstone »

gentleman11 wrote: post #263
t0mbstone wrote: post #253

This is kind of a weird question, but how exactly does anyone prove that this is actually lab grown meat and isn't just normal meat that has been turned into meat paste and then sold for twice as much as normal meat? I mean, obviously, they wouldn't do this at first. They would wait until everyone was complacent and used to eating lab grown meat before they started supplementing their production. As long as creating…

What is lab grown meat? Is it alive? Are there any nerves? Does it just absorb nutrients in a pasty vat? Is there skin? Does it get cancer if you left it too long on there? Can you get it to soak up extra nutrients or make new meat types?

I want to know the answers to these questions, too!

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

#306

Post by iammisc »

dividedbyzero wrote: post #199
iammisc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Animals are extremely efficient at converting inedible food to edible nutrition. And survive in a very complex and hostile environment, adapt to changing conditions, procreate, and build all the structure and tissues and organs that requires. That's a lot of energy that bioreactor-grown steak doesn't have to expend. At scale, and with some genetic optimization thrown in, can we do better? I don't know for sure, but…

Organs are edible. You should try it sometimes. They are not waste products. No wonder Americans find these things wasteful. In my experience, even something as simple as chicken. People do not actually eat the whole thing. Half of it is thrown away, just like everything else.

It's very strange to me, because growing up, we'd eat everything. But I married into an American family, and I'm often picking stuff off the bones they throw out. We were raised to eat everything, even the marrow.

> That's a lot of energy that bioreactor-grown steak doesn't have to expend

Sure, but the bioreactor is (1) heavily affected by supply chain issues, (2) dependent on an external source of energy, (3) requires complex chemical inputs that have to be synthesized themselves oftentimes. No one takes into account the whole thing.

Also, monoculture is always going to be less resilient than an actual population of cattle, or pigs, or chickens. But, I guess this is a problem that affects the whole industry.

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

#307

Post by erichocean »

InitialLastName wrote: post #285
gowld wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Andrew Jackson is being cancelle^Wremoved from the $20. It might not be a coincidence that he was targetted as being perhaps the most racist genocidal President. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_twenty-dollar_bi...

His (undoubted) role in the Trail of Tears aside, it's not at all clear why Andrew Jackson belongs on money anyway. As far as I've read, it's not even clear how the decision to put him on the $20 was made, except that one fan of his at the mint thought he should be. All that not to mention, it's ridiculous to be putting someone who didn't think the US should have a central bank on the US's money. Statues, money, and…

> it's not at all clear why Andrew Jackson belongs on money anyway

He's the reason the Democratic Party exists, sure that's worth something…

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

#308

Post by iammisc »

theptip wrote: post #206
iammisc wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't think your main points here are true. > Animals are extremely efficient at converting inedible food to edible nutrition. Animals are pretty inefficient at converting plants to calories, e.g. see https://learn.uvm.edu/foodsystemsblog/2014/07/10/meat-vs-veg... Most of the energy spent getting grains to the table is in transport/processing. If you just compare the production, grains are way more efficient than a…

> Animals are pretty inefficient at converting plants to calories, e.g. see ...

That is not what that graph shows. That graph purports to count all energy 'inputs' into the system, including human labor. This is not about 'how many calories did the cow / pig eat, versus what it produced'.

Here's an example.

Consider wheat grass. Both a cow and a human can eat this grass. However, the human can eat the seed, the cow / pig / goat can eat the entire plant. If you burn the entire wheat plant, and count the calories released you will get some number. Let's call it Y. If you count the calories in the seed that we eat, it'll necessarily be less, let's say X.

Ideally, if we're going to produce Y calories in the grain, humans ought to be able to consume as close to Y calories as possible in order to get the total benefit. Since humans can only eat X, and X X + N < Y, but it is much closer to the actual amount of energy in the grain plant than just X. And then we'd need to count the energy expenditure getting the B12 and Vitamin D produced and distributed as well. And then the supply chain risk costs. All these things have costs that never get considered.

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

#309

Post by iammisc »

djrogers wrote: post #208
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most steaks come from cows than never tasted grass.

That’s not how cattle are raised. Yes, most cattle are finished on grain packed in a small area, but they’re born and raised mostly to maturity grazing on grass or (eating hay where climate dictates).

I swear half the people responding have never driven past a cattle ranch.

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

#310

Post by JoeAltmaier »

djrogers wrote: post #208
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most steaks come from cows than never tasted grass.

That’s not how cattle are raised. Yes, most cattle are finished on grain packed in a small area, but they’re born and raised mostly to maturity grazing on grass or (eating hay where climate dictates).

That doesn't seem to be the norm any more. Feedlots outnumber grain-fed operation.
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