Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says • Hacker News Board

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#191

Post by nberkman » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

Excellent article explaining why lab-grown meat will never scale: https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-sca...

> David Humbird, the UC Berkeley-trained chemical engineer who spent over two years researching the report, found that the cell-culture process will be plagued by extreme, intractable technical challenges at food scale. In an extensive series of interviews with The Counter, he said it was “hard to find an angle that wasn’t a ludicrous dead end.”

> Humbird likened the process of researching the report to encountering an impenetrable “Wall of No”—his term for the barriers in thermodynamics, cell metabolism, bioreactor design, ingredient costs, facility construction, and other factors that will need to be overcome before cultivated protein can be produced cheaply enough to displace traditional meat.

> “And it’s a fractal no,” he told me. “You see the big no, but every big no is made up of a hundred little nos.”

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#192

Post by xyclos » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

i_am_proteus wrote: post #183

Maybe some folks will enjoy this as a food product. It's not clear to me that there's a real upside to this though, for folks who don't mind killing and eating birds. Research I have seen (you can see it too: [1]) indicates that chicken, dairy, and legumes are all about as low-impact as it gets when it comes to protein sources for humans. As other folks have mentioned, scaling up the meat lab causes a lot of headache…

eventually shifting public opinion, and growing the subsection of people who "mind killing" seems like a major upside.

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#193

Post by waboremo » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

Gordonjcp wrote: post #97

chairhairair wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine thinking modern factory farming is anything as simple as “putting a cow in a field”.

And yet that's where all the meat I eat comes from, and indeed most of the meat eaten in this country.

You are wildly mistaken if you believe traditional "cow does whatever it wants until slaughter" farming is where the majority[0] of meat comes from in this country (assuming USA).

[0] https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/us-factory-farming-estima...

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#194

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

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Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#195

Post by ballenf » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

yes_man wrote: post #132

matrix_overload wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For context, the life of an average herbivore in the wild consists of living with no shelter in harsh weather while having to fear every sound. And it typically ends by being ripped to pieces by a predator and eaten alive while the brain still has some residual oxygen and awareness. The typical farmed animal experience where you are sheltered, vaccinated against common illnesses, provided food and slaughtered after b…

Regardless of how one would like to spin it, industrial scale animal production means farming animals with the intent to match market prices or you go out of business. That means the production goes by the minimal animal welfare required by law. Whether one believes conditions are torturous or not that bad, is beside the point, which is that they wouldn’t even exist if we didn’t spawn them. So what we do is we rip ne…

One irony is that every hunter and non-industrial farmer I know goes to significant lengths to limit suffering in the kill.

It's factory farms and non-human predators that ignore the subject as much as possible.

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#196

Post by algoatecorn » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

mmiyer wrote: post #144

z33k wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

86%[0] of livestock feed is inedible by humans. They consume forage, food-waste and crop residues that could otherwise become an environmental burden. 13% of animal feed consists of potentially edible low-quality grains, which make up a third of global cereal (not total crop) production. All US beef cattle spend the majority of their life on pasture and upcycle protein even when grain-finished (0.6 to 1). [0] http://…

A lot of inedible feed is going to be stuff like alfalfa, which is specifically grown as feed and whose farming has massive negative effects like starving the Colorado river of water [0]. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/sep/12/colorado...

Then we need to reassess water-use and water rights and let the market sort itself out. Make alfalfa farmers pay for water and send the cost down the value chain. Consumers will signal how much they are willing to pay, and producers will respond by reducing their supply.

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#197

Post by prometheus76 » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

Tagbert wrote: post #150

prometheus76 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bugs carry parasites. Lots and lots of parasites. And parasite eggs. Cultures that eat insects also have high rates of parasitic infections.

Do you have a source for statements about getting parasites from eating cooked insects? Cows and pigs are more closely related to humans than insects are and their parasites are more likely to be able to cross the species barrier than an insect parasite. That is why we generally cook meat to kill parasites.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6613697/

To summarize, we don't know the exact impact cooking would have on reducing the risk (the studies haven't been performed), but the risk is to the tune of ~30% of the insects tested from insect farms were contaminated with parasites that are dangerous to humans.

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#198

Post by coldpie » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

sfusato wrote: post #139

My questions are will vegans or vegetarians eat this? Why or why not? Also what about people that hold cows sacred? Will they be able to eat this? Why or why not?

I'm vegetarian because of the carbon cost of most meats, especially beef. If lab-grown beef's carbon cost is drastically lower than animal-grown beef, I'd be thrilled to start eating burgers again.

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#199

Post by aendruk » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #166

RustLove wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure muscles that haven't been "used" will taste the same as flesh that is grown and hasn't been out walking around. The texture is sure to be different.

Isn't that a point against the whole concept, and not in particular against specific options like mammoth or giant sloth, which you replied to?

I think their point is that if a slaughtered animal is necessary for correct taste, the dream of tasting a mammoth won’t be fully realized by this technology.

Re: Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

#200

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Nov 28, 2022, 6:30 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #84

drdaeman wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I understood your comment correctly (I'm sorry if I didn't) - isn't it grown in essentially sterile conditions, so lack of immune system isn't an issue as I must imagine it shouldn't be able to communicate any transmissible diseases?

"Sterile conditions" isn't really a thing without temperatures high enough to cook the meat.

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