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Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

theguardian.com

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Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#41

Post by evilduck »

spodek wrote: post #8

We have a lot of entrepreneurs here. Why don't we start with an easier lab-grown animal product than something we ingest? How about lab-grown fur coats (EDIT from evilduck's comment: or lab-grown leather for clothing, furniture, shoes, etc)? Who wouldn't want to wear a "mink" coat created with no animal pain? Develop the technology on something we don't have to eat, along with the associated health risks and sensitiv…

I've seen this article's on that topic before: http://www.gizmag.com/modern-meadow-in-vitro-leather/24441/

The idea is generally that growing leather involves solving many of the same problems as growing meat, but lets you bootstrap the business on something that doesn't involve the FDA clearing you as a food (nor does it have the same cognitive effects on people wearing something lab-grown vs eating something lab-grown).

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#42

Post by sdoering »

rorrr2 wrote: post #27
Goronmon wrote: post #3

Does it taste like despair? Seriously though, that's always my first thought when I read a story about something like this. It's like my brain can't help but cringe of the thought of eating something made this way, even if it's irrational.

I'm the opposite, I love meat, but hate the animal suffering. Even if it tastes half as good and costs around the same, I will switch.

Maybe, just maybe buying animal-products, where the animals didn't suffer, where they were raised species-appropriate, would help, as it would be a ecological signal as well.

If more people would do that, a lot more incentives would be there, to not let animals suffer just for human consumption.

Since I switched to only eating animal products, where I know, how the animals lived, I do eat a lot less meat. i do pay a lot more (and I do that consciously). And I have the benefit, that it also does taste so much better, that I really enjoy this in more then one way, when I eat it (sometimes pork-steak, sometimes ham, sometimes goat-salami). We buy at a local farm, that raise, slaughter and process the meat all by themselves, and produce at least 50% of the food that is needed for raising the animals on the farm itself. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioland#Certification)

So for me this was a viable alternative - but I could understand, if this is not possible in other circumstances of life.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#43

Post by colinm »

hawkharris wrote: post #25

Do British newspapers not capitalize the word Internet? I know all American papers capitalize it because it's a proper noun. I'm wondering if that's just a recurring typo in this article or if British journalists follow a different convention.

Maybe back in the 90's.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#44

Post by VLM »

[deleted] wrote: post #22
Goronmon wrote: post #3

Does it taste like despair? Seriously though, that's always my first thought when I read a story about something like this. It's like my brain can't help but cringe of the thought of eating something made this way, even if it's irrational.

[deleted]

At both food stores I shop at, there are already freezer sections of fake meat. Mostly (entirely?) based on extremely heavily processed soy. I would imagine this different form of fake meat would sneak into that same section.

I would bet you could sell more "real" fake meat to vegetarians sick of flavored tofu easier than selling "real" fake meat to omnivores used to the real stuff.

Back when I used to eat soy, I occasionally would eat "steaklets" which seem to have disappeared from the market. They were basically soy bean hashbrown "pucks" with meat flavoring. They were strangely good, but by no means could you confuse them with "meat". I would expect it to be much easier to adulterate "real" steaklets with fake "real" meat than to adulterate a genuine steak with fake meat.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#45

Post by wikiburner »

rorrr2 wrote: post #27
Goronmon wrote: post #3

Does it taste like despair? Seriously though, that's always my first thought when I read a story about something like this. It's like my brain can't help but cringe of the thought of eating something made this way, even if it's irrational.

I'm the opposite, I love meat, but hate the animal suffering. Even if it tastes half as good and costs around the same, I will switch.

Exactly.

The benefits to ending animal suffering, the environment, and maybe even human health could be amazing if they could produce molecularly identical artificial meat, but the one interesting aspect of it is that as a consequence of our wanting to avoid animal cruelty, billions of animals will never exist.

I know it might be silly to question whether a chicken or cow would prefer existence with a cruel end to nothing, but it's still kind of an interesting thought.

As usual, Louis CK put it best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3c0THQbdDE

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#46

Post by mistercow »

wikiburner wrote: post #45
rorrr2 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm the opposite, I love meat, but hate the animal suffering. Even if it tastes half as good and costs around the same, I will switch.

Exactly. The benefits to ending animal suffering, the environment, and maybe even human health could be amazing if they could produce molecularly identical artificial meat, but the one interesting aspect of it is that as a consequence of our wanting to avoid animal cruelty, billions of animals will never exist . I know it might be silly to question whether a chicken or cow would prefer existence with a cruel end to n…

I am pretty OK with not creating experiential entities merely to put them through a lifetime of suffering and a painful end. My ethics don't put that much utility on total amount of experience in the world, so having fewer entities in pain is OK with me.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#47

Post by VLM »

TylerE wrote: post #24
chris_wot wrote: post #15

While it's more ethical for the animal, I must question the carbon footprint and efficient and effective use of resources to make synthetic beef. Firstly, to make it scale you'll need a lot of machinery. Then you'll need the right nutrients. It will need a lot of technology, because to make beef grow it will need to have everything maintained and provided for it. In nature, beef cattle can be run on reasonably unprod…

Did you read the article? 55% energy usage, 4% greenhouse gas emissions, relative to the real thing.

From the article

"early indications suggest"

Early indications suggest based on graphs, empirical laws, and irrational extrapolation that I can run a datacenter off a AA battery for a year.

I always find it hilarious when wild guesses are presented with multiple sig figs like 55% as opposed to 56% or 54%. I suspect an error analysis would show a standard deviation of a couple orders of magnitude.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#48

Post by wikiburner »

rorrr2 wrote: post #23
nsns wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't we start with an easier lab-grown animal product than something we ingest? Because it's a prestige product, Where "authenticity" counts? (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_diamond ) Or perhaps because millions of animals are slaughtered each day to be consumed as food?

Synthetic diamonds are actually not cheap at all, maybe third of the price of the real ones. I expected them to be dirt cheap when shopping for the wedding ring.

She's a lucky woman. :)

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#49

Post by kokey »

rorrr2 wrote: post #27
Goronmon wrote: post #3

Does it taste like despair? Seriously though, that's always my first thought when I read a story about something like this. It's like my brain can't help but cringe of the thought of eating something made this way, even if it's irrational.

I'm the opposite, I love meat, but hate the animal suffering. Even if it tastes half as good and costs around the same, I will switch.

It doesn't even have to taste like normal beef. As long as it can be made tasty in other ways, I would happily pay more than for beef just to have another interesting source of protein.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#50

Post by 3825 »

rorrr2 wrote: post #23
nsns wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't we start with an easier lab-grown animal product than something we ingest? Because it's a prestige product, Where "authenticity" counts? (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_diamond ) Or perhaps because millions of animals are slaughtered each day to be consumed as food?

Synthetic diamonds are actually not cheap at all, maybe third of the price of the real ones. I expected them to be dirt cheap when shopping for the wedding ring.

I am not surprised. I'd expect the "jewellery-grade" synthetic diamonds to have the same artificial inflation of price that we see in natural diamonds. I would imagine industrial diamond dust has a different cost.
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