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Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away

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Re: Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away

#61

Post by DanI-S »

spodek wrote: post #54
DanI-S wrote: post #9

This is awesome. Presumably, at some point we'll have the process optimised to the point that it could be done in your own home, or at a local (supermarket?) level. Imagine having a kitchen appliance that produces meat from liquid feedstock. Even more speculatively, I wonder if the nutrient medium could be produced from other kitchen scraps? That's basically what animals were kept for in the past. Aside, it sounds li…

Personally, I'm looking forward to lab-grown fur coats more than anything edible. I wore a fox-fur coat once and it was amazingly warm and light. I'd far prefer such a coat to down or synthetic if it could be made without killing the fox. I think people who write about the ethical or taste issues are missing the boat. Peoples tastes and ethics will change as the technology does and the meat improves. The most interes…

It's true. We generally forget that nature == nanotech. It's like we have an standard library out there, but with really shitty documentation.

Re: Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away

#62

Post by mambodog »

artursapek wrote: post #30

There's not much of a wait left until the day a man will be able to come home from work, eat a lab-grown Bratwurst, have sex with his sex robot, and then relax with an electric cigarette.

It would seem that lab-grown meat is the only one of those things that is not already available, though it seems the current state of "sex robots" leaves something to be desired. Perhaps lab-grown flesh could go some ways to improving that as well ;)

Re: Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away

#64

Post by superkarn »

DanI-S wrote: post #61
spodek wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I'm looking forward to lab-grown fur coats more than anything edible. I wore a fox-fur coat once and it was amazingly warm and light. I'd far prefer such a coat to down or synthetic if it could be made without killing the fox. I think people who write about the ethical or taste issues are missing the boat. Peoples tastes and ethics will change as the technology does and the meat improves. The most interes…

It's true. We generally forget that nature == nanotech. It's like we have an standard library out there, but with really shitty documentation.

More like reverse engineering with non-existent documentation.

And not just nanotech, we have already copied/borrowed a lot from nature.

Re: Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away

#66

Post by puredemo »

trebor wrote: post #58
gfodor wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grosser than eating something that was once a living, breathing, feeling animal? Probably not. (I'm a meat eater but still acknowledge how horrible it is.)

Our subjective opinions on how "gross" this is won't get us anywhere. I don't find killing and eating animals to be gross—eating something that literally wasn't alive (I don't find cells reproducing in that way to meet my definition of "living") is repulsive to me. I source all my meat possible from local farms that raise the animals in free-range methods, and slaughter them in ethical ways (IE, no shocking or killin…

>Our subjective opinions on how "gross" this is won't get us anywhere.

Then why did you start off by saying it was gross?

>But the nutritional point I raise isn't a light issue. These are animal cells coaxed into growing in foreign conditions. Just like hydroponic tomatoes have no taste, and possibly poor nutrition too, the "flesh vats" of the future will have nutritional problems too.

This will obviously be studied and tweaked at length. Input --> output.

Re: Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away

#67

Post by spacemanaki »

angryasian wrote: post #45
richcollins wrote: post #16

It's likely that the lab grown "meat" won't be a proper substitute for the meat that we evolved to eat. Food is more complicated than it outwardly appears (i.e. a collection of muscle cells != meat) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/magazine/28nutritionism.t....

this sounds more like industry FUD. People are able to get there daily sustenance from gruel. Yes it may not fit your definition of food, but this is a first world complaint. There are millions of people around the world starving, that this technique could help.

Did you read that linked Michael Pollan piece? If not, please do, it's good. So is his other work. He's not an industry shill spreading FUD. There are serious gaps in our understanding of nutrition. Suggesting that lab grown meat might lack something that "real" meat has isn't FUD. There may be more nutritionally sound food sources than vat meat for people currently starving or subsisting on gruel.

Re: Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away

#69

Post by jessedhillon »

stoph wrote: post #40

My first thought here is that fast food chains will try and pick this up to cut costs, it can be grown cheaper than farming.

My thought was pet foods would be ahead of human foods in adopting this, due to, well, a less-than-discriminating end-user.

Re: Lab-grown meat might be only 6 months away

#70

Post by crazydiamond »

gte910h wrote: post #56
tejaswiy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a vegetarian, I'd eat it, but hold off for a while atleast to look for potential health consequences. I'm not too worried about nutritional imbalance because I don't think this will ever be my primary source of nutrition.

There is also the "Eeew, ick" vegetarians, they're unlikely to change.

As someone who gave up non-veg food about 15 years back, I'd welcome lab-meat since it avoids killing animals. However, whether we would adopt it ourselves seems to be irrelevant. I, for one, would not like to cultivate the taste for meat again. As an animal lover, I'd certainly not like to see menu items like "Synthetic dog meat, tastes just like puppies". Going to the extreme, replace dog and puppies with human and babies. I'll stick to veggies, thanks.
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