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Engineering the $325,000 Burger

nytimes.com

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Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger

#41

Post by greggman »

jmilkbal wrote: post #4

I have a lot of mixed feelings about developments like this. On one hand, I'll tell people that food for me is about quality and flavor. I'm not opposed to pink slime for what it is, but because it just makes for a poor result. I'm in favor of this on a sustainability level, but very opposed on a quality level—not consistency and reliable textures and taste, but that sort of unquantifiable property that things exude…

Maybe you could open your mind a little? Sausage comes to mind as does all the Asian fish balls eaten by billions of people. If it's indistinguishable from ground beef that's great but if not I'm perfectly happy to eat it as something else if it tastes good.

Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger

#43

Post by warfangle »

staunch wrote: post #38
pdog wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget taste -- some vegetarians simply don't like the taste of meat.

And some find it gross to eat animal flesh.

Those poor nuts and fruit, with all their flesh being eaten :( eat a cow today to save them!

Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger

#45

Post by jckt »

TillE wrote: post #40
sethbannon wrote: post #27

As someone who doesn't eat meat for ethical reasons, I couldn't be more excited by the potential of this.

I've gone back and forth a couple times between omnivore and strict vegetarian, and personally I've concluded that meat isn't particularly exciting. It's just convenient and fairly cheap. If this winds up being cheap, great. Regardless, I still prefer an interesting spicy black bean burger to anything made with ground beef.

Do you mind explaining why you don't find meat particularly exciting? I personally have nothing much against vegetarians -- in all honesty my current diet (cheaper) is probably closer to that of a vegetarian's -- but whenever they dismiss meat as "uninteresting" they all seem to actually be quite ignorant of meat, and that they all seem to have ever bought theirs out of a styrofoam, shrinkwrapped package from a supermarket rather than a good butcher.

But yes, a nice spicy black bean burger sounds interesting!

Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger

#47

Post by raldi »

sethbannon wrote: post #27

As someone who doesn't eat meat for ethical reasons, I couldn't be more excited by the potential of this.

As someone who eats meat all the time, I also couldn't be more excited.

First this stuff will be an inferior meat substitute.

Then it'll be an equivalent meat substitute.

Then it'll improve upon nature itself, and we'll be eating things that taste ten times better than bacon, and fifty times better than steak, and it will all be without a twinge of guilt.

Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger

#48

Post by csense »

mjs wrote: post #34
smsm42 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he'd being funded - which seems to be the case - what't the problem with it being private? I can understand calls for public funding where the need is there but the private funds to serve it for one reason or another are not - but here the funds are supplied already, I see no problem.

I'm guessing the OP means: given the high stakes (environmental, financial, moral, and so on), why aren't governments more involved in this research? (They're already regulating and subsidising farming in pretty much every country of the world.)

I had an economics professor who noted that one of the main reasons rich countries don't suffer from famines is because they have a lot of livestock. When there's a food shortage, livestock can be slaughtered early to provide extra meat and free up food crops for human consumption that would normally be used to feed the livestock.

Maybe this technology has too much potential to dangerously destabilize the world food situation for it to be fundable by a government.

Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger

#49

Post by Retric »

mjs wrote: post #31

Glad this is getting closer! Aside from the moral issues, running sunlight, water and feed through a cow is such an inefficient and inelegant way of producing meat...

I expect there still going to use sunlight/plants as a feed-stock in this process.

Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger

#50

Post by cwzwarich »

pdog wrote: post #18
cwzwarich wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the reason you're vegetarian. If it's for ethical reasons, then they probably would. If it's for health reasons, then probably not. If it's for environmental reasons, then it would depend on the environmental impact of in vitro meat.

Don't forget taste -- some vegetarians simply don't like the taste of meat.

As a vegetarian who remembers liking the taste of meat, I forgot that one. Thanks.
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