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Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

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191–200 of 205 posts

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does a food need to contain 90% or 100% protein? I think many people vastly overestimate how much protein they need.

Define "need." Sure, I could live off bread and water, but if I want optimal function, I have found that a high protein diet is the silver bullet.

Once you discovered that a high protein diet worked for you, how many other diets/options did you try?

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#192

To those wondering why lab-grown meat instead of going vegan: People are driven by incentives. People like meat, so instead of asking them to stop eating meat, which most won't do, make it a better option that fits with whatever the asker's goals are. In this case, you'd want people to care about animals or decrease environmental effects, so the way to do that while also considering people's incentives of loving meat…

!meat != vegan

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "need." Sure, I could live off bread and water, but if I want optimal function, I have found that a high protein diet is the silver bullet.

Once you discovered that a high protein diet worked for you, how many other diets/options did you try?

I'm a greybeard so I've had lots of time to try different diet+exercise programs. I was a serious cyclist for a couple decades and during that time, I tied high carb, vegetarian and the 40/30/30 diet that was trendy back in the 90s. Despite being much younger and burning a large # of calories, I still had persistent belly fat, which I attribute to the large # of carbs I inhaled on the bike. 40/30/30 worked better all around though. When I started lifting I went to .8grams of protein per LB of bodyweight and haven't felt the need to try anything else.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#194
post #135

To those wondering why lab-grown meat instead of going vegan: People are driven by incentives. People like meat, so instead of asking them to stop eating meat, which most won't do, make it a better option that fits with whatever the asker's goals are. In this case, you'd want people to care about animals or decrease environmental effects, so the way to do that while also considering people's incentives of loving meat…

I wonder if there will be a category between vegetarian and vegan where it consists of vegan & lab-grown, so no animal is that impacted (it's my understanding lab grown is far better than current practices in the dairy industry, for example).

The blood or tissue needed to seed the process means it will never be considered vegan.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#196
post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if there will be a category between vegetarian and vegan where it consists of vegan & lab-grown, so no animal is that impacted (it's my understanding lab grown is far better than current practices in the dairy industry, for example).

The blood or tissue needed to seed the process means it will never be considered vegan.

Sure! But it's 'less' than a dairy farm, which is why I wonder if there could be a middle ground. Also, I saw a new company makes lab-grown nuggets from proteins found in discard chicken feathers. That must be getting close enough to some Vegans considering it is acceptable. I have a friend who's a vegan who said they'd happily eat a steak if the cow fell onto a BBQ in such a way it cut a nice cut of sirloin that perfectly cooked, so there is definitely a tipping point somewhere of what's acceptable and what isn't. If the source cells are taken from an animal in a way a Vegan finds acceptable then surely all byproducts from that point on are okay.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#197
I applaud the ecological perspective, for other people - but I don't want to test this on myself until I've seen a couple of generations of it's impact on people's health.

Nothing personal, that's my opinion of most foods and health things, the effects take time to interact with complex systems, so I want things that have a visible history of generations to observe.

The more I've learned, the less I want to gamble about things we don't really know about but will become a part of my body.

Obviously food of today is a complex systems issue that's not possible to be absolute on to e.g. do what a culture did for the last few hundred years. Which is exactly why I want my own 'experiment' of my health to be based on simpler and better proven inputs.

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#198
The BEST product launch I have seen in HN. Very impressive resumes with grit and passion!! Am a born vegetarian (Lacto-vegan). When 1 lb of meat is produced by 600 lbs of grass, we definitely need more efficient ways of making meat. I dont want to eat meat but I will be your secret supporter and secretly follow your progress. Cheers!

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#199

Hey, excuse my ignorance. How difficult is to procure food you use to grow cells? You mentioned insulin and such. Can you comment on how "green" are those materials?

Great question! So the basic medium composition itself is fairly simple, but the growth factors can be difficult to make. There are many places along the supply chain that are strained due to recent events. Because of this, procuring the food is somewhat difficult, but should become easier in the future. Many companies within cultivated meat (such as Heuros, Multus, Future Fields) are also working on animal-free grow…

As someone who is eating closer to organic these days, the concept of lab grown meat is more horrifying to me than factory farming. That said, we try to eat the highest welfare meat we can find, which is typically slaughtered by family members.

How can all the chemicals and sterilising agents ever be more safe for consumption and environmentally friendly than animal grown alternatives?

Re: Launch HN: Micro Meat (YC S21) – Technology for scaling cultivated meat

#200

As I understand it your technology is in part about providing a scaffolding that enables normal animal cells to grow. But there's a question that I genuinely think is important, but risk sounding like a troll. The qualities of a successful cancerous cell, to grow without restraint, unimpeded by the density of other cells or whether the cell is attached to a surface, will probably be even more successful in a bio-reac…

Some thoughts. Tumors in muscular tissue are relatively rare. The growth cycle in these bioreactors should be short, giving less probability of runaway mutations. It’s a hyper growth medium with supernatural levels of growth hormones, so tumors may actually be favored. Are tumoral mammal cells integrated by humans when infested raw?

> Are tumoral mammal cells integrated by humans when infested raw?

In humans eating another species? It seems unlikely, but ingestion of live cells is one of the mechanisms have been proposed for the transmission of Devil Facial Tumour Disease, in which live cancer cells are transferred between individual Tasmanian Devils.

(just so you know before clicking it's pretty nasty) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil_facial_tumour_disease

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