the biggest problem with this is that it will end up with high-fructose corn syrup. just like everything else we eat...
Engineering the $325,000 Burger
61–70 of 129 posts
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#62Can a vegetarian eat meat if it's grown in lab a dish?
I've had this discussion with a few vego's. My wife doesn't eat meat because she doesn't like animal suffering or confinement, so she would happily eat lab-grown meat. Yet her sister is disgusted by the texture/taste of meat on top of the suffering/confinement aspect, so the lab-grown meat only removes half of her aversion.
Ultimately comes down to the individual's motive for being a vegetarian, which varies.
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#63As 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.
That sounds like the path of artificial sweeteners. If history is any guide, there will also be a backlash where its artificial nature will be equated with poison for your body.
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#64As someone who doesn't eat meat for ethical reasons, I couldn't be more excited by the potential of this.
As someone who doesn't eat meat for health reasons, I couldn't be more put off by this.
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#65I know this sounds repulsive, but I think a good shortcut to lab grown meat would be similar to KFC's urban myth of "headless organisms fed by tubes" [1].
If you give it a bit of thought, it might be more ethical raising brainless and senseless organisms for human consumption. It also solves many sanitary problems in farms (antibiotics, crowded living conditions) and it allows us to give pasture lands back to nature.
Assuming that such meat was demonstrably safer for humans to consume, why would we choose to keep eating "nature's animals"? It's taboo what keeps us from doing this.
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#66As 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.
Eagerly anticipating the Aspartame of meat. 2 pounds of bacon, 0 calories.
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#67As someone who doesn't eat meat for ethical reasons, I couldn't be more excited by the potential of this.
For ethical reasons? Interesting. Have you considered eating free range chicken? Or perhaps Halal meat?
Halal? I'm pretty sure I'd rather a bolt to the brain than having my throat sliced open and being left to bleed out.
Free range chickens still die, which is often the ethical reason for vegetarians/vegans.
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
That sounds like the path of artificial sweeteners. If history is any guide, there will also be a backlash where its artificial nature will be equated with poison for your body.
As long as they only suppress demand enough to lower the price and not prevent development, I say let them complain.
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#69> Dr. Post, who has conducted some informal taste tests, said that even without any fat, the tissue “tastes reasonably good.” I feel like the lesson of Tesla is that the way to sell new technology is to make it better than the status quo in some way. "It's reasonably good" will sell to a few environmentally-conscious people, but it's better if something is genuinely appealing in some way other than ethics. It's easie…
It's not going to taste all that great until there's fat embedded in the meat. In the long term, presumably you can embed seasoning right in the middle, which could be really amazing.
Re: Engineering the $325,000 Burger
#70As someone who doesn't eat meat for ethical reasons, I couldn't be more excited by the potential of this.
Well, I'm extremely excited about the impact this might have on the rest of the population. And I'd be ecstatic to have a more ethical alternative for my pets. Personally, I have no plans of going back to meat - even lab-grown.