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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

#261

Post by SapporoChris »

synu wrote: post #185
bsdz wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I buy your argument. For example, pigs have an average lifespan of 15-20 years but in a farm setting are slaughtered at 6 months old. Also I suspect a pig is more adapted to its natural environment than living in a confined shelter (often less than a square metre). In fact, in the UK, less than 1 in 20 pigs are allowed to go outside - hardly a good life! This is just pigs.

This visualisation was an eye opener. https://justone.earth/food/ Perhaps an individual animal suffering is less compared to a wild death, but the sheer volume has to count for something.

After a cursory glance it would appear the we could reduce animal suffering by focusing on eating the larger animals that produce more food. The idea being, eat the big ones, feed more people, kill less animals.

I'm not entirely serious about this. But I'm curious where the logical flaw is.

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

#262

Post by yafbum »

markstos wrote: post #221
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…

There down in Brazil, rainforest are being cut down at alarming rate in service to animal agriculture. It will be easier to preserve the Brazilian rainforests if there was some other way to grow meat that didn't involve huge grazing pastures for animals.

I don't think deforestation is for pasture? I thought it was for animal feed crops like soy

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

#263

Post by coldpie »

runarberg wrote: post #253
coldpie wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we priced externalities at their true societal cost, the problem of animal farming becomes clear very quickly. Reducing carbon emissions from animal agriculture is one of the bigger targets for helping reduce climate change. I don't think telling people to just not eat meat will work, so lab-grown meat seems like a promising solution to explore. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Doesn’t lab grown meat need a lot of growth serum, which is currently extracted from pregnant animals? So as it stands it is not a solution to help reduce climate change (nor animal suffering). For that we’d need a more sustainable way of producing these serums. I’m not aware of any methods which are proven to work at scale.

Beats me! I don't expect it to be more efficient today, it's brand new tech. My hope is that it will be much more efficient as research continues & economies of scale start to kick in. It may well turn out to be a dead end, but until that's clear, I think it is exciting to think about.

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

#264

Post by markstos »

Vt71fcAqt7 wrote: post #121
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…

>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 vegan principle is about non-interference with non-human animals, it doesn't necessarily minimize suffering.

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

#265

Post by dudeofea »

BobbyJo wrote: post #217
kikokikokiko wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

does that include bioavailability of those calories to humans?

from this anecdotal source: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/sbfn6b/c...

1lb of grass to humans = 32kcals / lb

1lb of grass to cows = 800kcals / lb

800/32 = 25x

Assuming you grow something other than grass on that pasture to eat (also assuming it isn't marginal land which makes up 2/3 of agricultural land), wouldn't that other plant extract approximately the same amount of calories from the sun? And wouldn't the bioavailability of that plant also be lesser than that of meat?

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

#266

Post by aendruk »

delecti wrote: post #213
aendruk wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There is no shortage of slaughtered chickens for the curious person to taste.

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

#267

Post by AtlasBarfed »

rdtwo wrote: post #8

Yeah I’m going to let other folks experiment with that for 10 or so years and see where it goes. I’m sure the meat is fine, it’s just a matter of not contaminating it during the process that I’m concerned about. The FDA is really poor at enforcing the health and safety aspects of manufacturing and processing. They simply don’t have enough inspectors and the inspectors don’t fine big offenders enough

Do you have ANY idea what goes on in a meatpacking plant?

Let's just say, the large intestine doesn't exactly stay pristine in the process, and I doubt they clean everything like you think they do.

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

#268

Post by dghughes »

Recently there were news articles of how leprosy bacteria can repair diseased organs to perfect health, and then infect it.

I wonder if leprosy could be used in the lab grown meat industry to make it grow better.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2346967-leprosy-bacteri...

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

#269

Post by markstos »

dalbasal wrote: post #137

Polling my own bubble, I'm dubious about lab meat. Across the board, it seems that people want lab grown meat for others. Vegans want omnivores to eat it. Omnivores think it'd be good for vegans. Meanwhile, any mass market product is likely to be some sort of processed meat product. Sausage, mince chicken nugget or somesuch. These aren't generally premium products, so you need to go really low for price competitivene…

It seems a lot of people don't know or don't care where their food comes from, and to the extent they do know or care, they'd like the source to minimize harm.

If this alternative way of meat production can taste about the same and cost about the same, then I think people who like the taste of meat will be buy it.

Some vegans and vegetarians don't want it because they don't like the taste of animal meat, whether it came from a live animal or lab.

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

#270

Post by EricE »

BobbyJo wrote: post #217
kikokikokiko wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fo…

Ok, switch from cattle to bison then. Lab growing isn't going to be economically feasible for a long time yet.
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