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New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

interestingengineering.com

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Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#121

Post by hombre_fatal »

kolinko wrote: post #73
myshpa wrote: post #18

Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides,…

I noticed that many people who propose this are not aware of a plethora of health issues that people have that make eating plant-based foods extremely difficult. For many people eating plants only is extremely difficult - e.g. for me personally, with a plethora of food allergies (soy, almonds, various kinds of nuts, apples, peaches and other fruits) and intestine issues causing irritation when consuming multiple othe…

I don't see how it matters just like if the only meat you could digest was human meat. You would have to find some other permutation of an elimination diet that works for you just like Jeffrey Dahmer would have to find some human meat alternative.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#122

Post by smugglerFlynn »

user3939382 wrote: post #91

I want to eat meat from chickens and cows that had good, happy lives, eating the healthiest most natural form of their diet possible. I don't want lab grown meat, the concept is disgusting. As it is our food is too processed and industrial. Maybe we can focus on mixed farming instead https://www.earth.com/news/mixed-farming-could-increase-food...

The way to keep cows and chickens happy, in a global way, is either to regulate production to hell, or to stop farming animals for _mass produced_ food altogether.

Former is not feasible without production costs skyrocketing, and good luck trying to enforce regulation like that globally. The way to achieve the latter is to make artificial meat more attractive to food production businesses that mass exploit animals today.

You cannot defeat the tragedy of the commons[0] by just growing happy cows. Business will always exploit the available means, and we will continue to see 1 "happy farm" and 99 ugly grinders where animals suffer.

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#123

Post by baremetal »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #111
asciimov wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even plant farming isn't without issues. Plant farming eventually strips the nutrients from the soil, and then they end up having to use lots of man made chemicals to "fix" the problem. We have to find a way to be more sustainable in our agriculture.

That's fine and all, but you're not accounting for the fact that we'd need much fewer crops if we fed those crops directly to humans. All of the problems you perceive about crops apply even more to animal agriculture due to trophic level efficiency loss. You're inadvertently making the case against animal ag.

Chickens turn kitchen waste and other garbage into nutrient dense eggs.

I raise chickens and feed them my kitchen and yard waste. They also eat bugs.

Two chicken eggs can power me all day.

Reason about that "trophic energy loss [gain]".

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#124

Post by mtalantikite »

myshpa wrote: post #18

Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides,…

Anytime you mention to people that maybe we shouldn't eat as many animals as we do you're going to get down-voted or politely scolded or yelled at. It's like any addiction, people won't admit there's a problem until they have some sort of break through of clarity.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#125

Post by guraf »

znpy wrote: post #60

I think this is just the tip of the iceberg. As synthetic meat gets more attention, more strict evaluations of its carbon footprint will start to pop up, and me might see what’s actually true —- past the hype, i mean.

You're probably right, but a closer analysis that includes externalities will likely be dismissed as being too inconvenient to the narrative.

Just look at ethanol. Several studies now show that it's actually much worse for the environment than fossil fuel. But very few people care (plants are natural!!!1) or know about it. Even the government ignores its own studies and keep pushing for more subsidies and higher ethanol content.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#126

Post by kipchak »

Lutger wrote: post #23
pkphilip wrote: post #9

Livestock is grown in parts of the world on stuff which cannot be sold or which grows on its own - example: grass etc. How in the world is lab grown meat going to compete with that in terms of efficiency, CO2 emissions etc?

Because making calories from livestock that grazes on grass is terribly inefficient, which is why we: 1. put them into small boxes usually, which creates a big nitrogen problem (mixing urine and shit is bad news) 2. feed them other stuff, usually made of soy which is grown in burned down rainforests 3. grow the grass with artificial fertilizers (made out of natural gas) and use pesticides, which also requires gasolin…

Another potential advantage of cultured cells is higher amino acid digestibility/DIAAS[1] scores, which is generally much higher in whole animal based foods , for example chicken breast is rated a 1.08, eggs a 1.13, Soy a .91, chickpeas a .83 and Tofu a .52, with each being limited in some amino acids.

Vegetable Protein isolates/processing combinations can bring this up a bit, but processing can have varied effects on availability defending on how it's performed, making something with a high DIAAS score without processing or additives to taste and act like meat ideal. "Literature suggests that the extensive processing needed to obtain protein isolate might induce molecular alterations, making the protein more resistant to digestive enzymes and decreasing its protein nutritive value."[2]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestible_Indispensable_Amino...

[2]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9552267/

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#127

Post by coryfklein »

x86x87 wrote: post #104
plaidfuji wrote: post #69

This is an expected result if you extrapolate from an early R&D stage process to a global scale, but it doesn’t mean that it’s not worth pursuing more sustainable routes to the mass production of animal muscle. And that’s really what the underlying goal is here - don’t fall for the false dichotomy of “farmed” vs “lab-grown” - factory farms are essentially process development labs. How efficiently can you convert land…

Not disagreeing with you, but ultimately you have to ask the question: does this make sense? And look at the "why". What are you trying to optimize?

Of course it makes sense. People like to eat meat. Meat is expensive to produce, particularly including externalities like CO2, animal suffering, etc. Making meat less expensive to produce across some or all of those dimensions seems like a no brainer.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#130

Post by estebank »

beebeepka wrote: post #65
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solutions of "everyone just needs to do " are a dime a dozen. We could solve war if everyone just stopped fighting. It's better to fix incentives such as making meat more expensive through taxes or fewer subsidies on meat or feed grains (corn). Or making vegetables cheaper. I could see a serious PR campaign to support farmers/small business (conservative hook) and eat local planet variety combined with fulfilling…

[flagged]

Being performatively abrasive is no way of convincing anyone. I happen to agree with some of the underlying points you're making, and I still find myself shaking my head. Being off-putting is not a personality.
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