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Lab-Grown Meat Is Safe to Eat, FDA Says

smithsonianmag.com

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

#211

Post by e44858 »

ebiester wrote: post #153
Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but hardly encompasses more suffering. I think that's hard to say. But I also think "the alternative" to farmed life is somewhat ignored by vegans/peta activists. On the one hand, as you say, death is more painful by the claws/teeth of a predator; that is certain. But life itself with little shelter (but usualy some) is the natural state of afairs for most mammals. To say that that is suffering is to say that life i…

The alternative, for the purposes of a farmed animal, is an animal that never lived. If the entirety of the life of an animal is suffering, as is the case in many factory farms, it's fair to suggest that not having that animal ever live reduces the total amount of suffering in the world.

That’s a slippery slope, because by that logic we should destroy all life, because life always causes suffering. Maybe a better alternative is to provide better conditions for farm animals. I’ve raised chickens in my backyard, and they seemed pretty happy to exist.

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

#213

Post by delecti »

aendruk wrote: post #199
delecti wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But that would also apply to the current topic of chicken.

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

#214

Post by worik »

mandmandam wrote: post #125
kikokikokiko wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And hopefully it'll eventually be cheaper than growing animals too." Just as simply planting a tree and letting the sun provide the energy for it's growth will always beat those "synthetic trees" people like to hype from time to time, I can expect to never see a synthetic process that is more cost effective to create "meat" than simply letting nature do it's thing. Down here in Brazil you basically give the animals…

Soon it will only be cheaper if you're completely discounting the price paid to the ecosystem. In fact with a full accounting I'd wager it's already cheaper. How many unique species that evolved over tens of millions of years have been lost forever, in the last 50 years alone, due to clear-cutting in Brazil? How much clean water and topsoil has been polluted and washed away? How much carbon has been released? How muc…

Modern industrial agriculture, is what you are describing.

It is very efficient form the POV of $/calorie. But it is terribly inefficient from a hectare/calorie.

The purpose of modern industrial agriculture was to free up labour for industry. It has been a huge success in that.

Applying technology to the food production system is IMO a good idea. I think we should be sensible. Using robotics and regenerative agriculture has huge potential to increase production, increase the quality of land husbandry, and sequester carbon in retained topsoil.

Applying technology to growing meat in vats? It is hard to see how it could improve the situation. The one thing it does is free the consumer from being part of a killing chain. I can see no reason to believe that it will improve the system in any other respect. I retain an open mind about that, but am yet to be convinced.

If you do not want to be part of a killing chain, perhaps the best way is to become a vegetarian rather than open a factory?

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

#215

Post by algoatecorn »

nberkman wrote: post #191

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…

I have a theory that the hype surrounding cellular ag is driven by the private investment world's obsession with scale. Investors hear a founder say "we can disrupt the food industry but we just need to SCALE", "we need a massive deal size, and then we'll sort out the economies", "look how sexy and different our technology is"

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

#217

Post by BobbyJo »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #143
d23 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just as simply planting a tree and letting the sun provide the energy for it's growth will always beat those "synthetic trees" people like to hype from time to time, I can expect to never see a synthetic process that is more cost effective to create "meat" than simply letting nature do it's thing. Evidence? Do you have any background in the field? It's easy as a layperson to imagine that not having to support the l…

For evidence, my extended family down here raises cattle to this day. It's hard to beat doing hardly anything other than let the beasts eat grass for a couple of years. Try to beat that for a cost of goods.

If we go off thermodynamics there is a lot of energy being wasted in producing the meat, even if that energy isn't expended by those tending the cattle.

To say nothing of the animal suffering involved, we currently expend ~10x the calories we get from the beef producing it (IIRC). If we could get even to 5x that'd be a huge environmental win.

Edit: Looking it up, beef sits at 25x, and chicken 9x. So, a lot of room for efficiency improvements.

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

#218

Post by mahmoudhossam »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #143
d23 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just as simply planting a tree and letting the sun provide the energy for it's growth will always beat those "synthetic trees" people like to hype from time to time, I can expect to never see a synthetic process that is more cost effective to create "meat" than simply letting nature do it's thing. Evidence? Do you have any background in the field? It's easy as a layperson to imagine that not having to support the l…

For evidence, my extended family down here raises cattle to this day. It's hard to beat doing hardly anything other than let the beasts eat grass for a couple of years. Try to beat that for a cost of goods.

I'm sure parent meant the field on lab grown meat, not naturally grown.

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

#219

Post by atoav »

matrix_overload wrote: post #58
superkuh wrote: post #33

It will be animal cells differentiated into muscle tissues on collagen scaffolds initially. The technology comes from attempts to grow functional organs (ie, liver) that are biocompatible in the body serum proper. If there aren't health effects from transplantation within the animal type you can probably eat the animal tissues just fine. It's the same thing. It's meat. It's just without the animal suffering. And hope…

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…

Scenario: Humanity is partly enslaved by a superior alien species that holds us as cattle, breeds us, kills most of our male offspring etc. — you know, the things we do to our cettle.

Would you rather:

A) live this life that can be ended for your meat at any point

B) hide in the hostile and foreign wilderness of their planet

Sure one might argue that cows are to stupid to understand their fate, but that alien species might argue the same. Also: even the simplest animal suffers when you take their offspring away. Or you might argue that option A is totally acceptable if the aliens are just good enough at keeping us happy.

I have yet to find a rational argument why it should be acceptable to industrially breed and herd other living beings that doesn't boil down to "because we are stronger, smarter or because we can do it", which is not a universal rational argument, unless you argue the aliens are right to herd us as well.

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

#220

Post by squidsoup »

kikokikokiko wrote: post #143
d23 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just as simply planting a tree and letting the sun provide the energy for it's growth will always beat those "synthetic trees" people like to hype from time to time, I can expect to never see a synthetic process that is more cost effective to create "meat" than simply letting nature do it's thing. Evidence? Do you have any background in the field? It's easy as a layperson to imagine that not having to support the l…

For evidence, my extended family down here raises cattle to this day. It's hard to beat doing hardly anything other than let the beasts eat grass for a couple of years. Try to beat that for a cost of goods.

The price of goods aren’t the only relevant cost here, there’s also the carbon cost. As a Brazilian rancher, you must be aware of the massive cost the world is paying for Amazonian deforestation to produce arable land.
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