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Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

theguardian.com

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Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#191

Post by wnevets »

axblount wrote: post #185
wnevets wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that nytimes link showed that vegan breast milk isn't adequate

The second sentence of the article is "His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty."

right but the article goes on to say:

"Yet even a breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty fish. It is difficult to overstate the importance of DHA, vital as it is for eye and brain development."

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#192

Post by ryusage »

wahsd wrote: post #107

Mostly carnivorous guy here; I have started playing around with the use of tofu and mushrooms in stead of meat and have come to the realization that it is actually a lot easier to substitute them for meat. Another, even bigger realization I have come to is that it seems that my addiction, yes, addiction, to meat and meat having to be a minimum requirement for having any interest in a dish, is that it is really a psyc…

> There is a healthy level of meat intake and we far exceed it

Why do you think that? I definitely eat a lot of meat, but I've never really seen any reason to think it was an inherently bad thing.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#194

Post by arsenerei »

fatjokes wrote: post #136
axblount wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you assuming that meat consumption is necessary?

At the very least some animal product is necessary (e.g., dairy or eggs). See: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/21/opinion/21planck.html Vegetarians can go ahead and argue that vegans are too extreme while vegans fire back that vegetarians are just vegans who lack commitment.

I don't think attacking vegetarian and vegans goes well to your credibility.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#195

Post by MikeCapone »

crpatino wrote: post #184
dreamdu5t wrote: post #149

Even with fully-developed technology, I have a hard time believing it will require less energy to manufacture a pound of synthetic beef than it will to simply grow it naturally. Am I wrong?

Beef is not very energy efficient anyways, around 10% conversion rate from pasture calories to animal tissue. Pork and chicken are much more efficient though. From the very narrow perspective of energy efficient, the problem I see is that we are ditching a true and tested method of doing things with (up to a point) renewable resources and trying to create a substitute most likely based on petrochemicals, just at the…

What makes you think that petrochemicals would be involved in growing synthetic meat? They could use all kinds of natural feedstocks (starches).

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#196

Post by DanielStraight »

freehunter wrote: post #82
kleiba wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, as long as they make it clear on the label that their "hamburger" or "sausage" product is made from lab-meat, not real meat, I'm all for it.

Why? That's the same as labeling food made with GMOs. If there's no provable difference between the two, putting it on the label is just spreading FUD about the product.

No, putting it on the label is giving the consumer the choice, as well as the ability to follow their food back to its source if they so choose. In a consumer friendly food economy (in other words, the EU, or at least Germany), almost everything is labeled sufficiently to follow it back to the factory or farm that produced it. That, to me, is a very good thing.

The idea that the government and corporations should decide what consumers need to know is repugnant to me. The consumer should be the boss, not the food industry, and certainly not the government. Knowing what you are buying is, in my mind, a basic right in modern society.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#197

Post by philwelch »

mistercow wrote: post #190
philwelch wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where "reality" is evidently defined as agreement with you?

Where reality is defined as reality. Aversion to synthetic meat, as a concept, is irrational. There is no reason for it. If you disagree, explain your reason.

You make the claim that aversion to factory farming is rational, but you give no further explanation than to loudly exclaim that reality agrees with you, which is a singularly pointless thing to say.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#198

Post by mistercow »

Dewie wrote: post #177
mistercow wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if its not, you can still use the resources used to produce that feed to produce human food instead. And feeding cows waste has its own environmental problems, as it tends to play hob with their digestive systems and make them release considerably more greenhouse gasses.

> Even if its not, you can still use the resources used to produce that feed to produce human food instead. If the resources required to produce (or harvest) the cow-food is more than producing synthetic meat: sure. > And feeding cows waste has its own environmental problems, as it tends to play hob with their digestive systems and make them release considerably more greenhouse gasses. Waste? How about plain grass? O…

Sure, but those same arguments apply to synthetic meat. If you're processing inputs in a lab, you can likely be far more flexible than how a specific animal's digestive system happened to evolve, and you don't have the overhead of running a cow for 1-3 years¹ before slaughter. From what I can tell, about 75% of a non-lactating cow's energy input goes into body gain. So that's 25% off the top before you even consider what goes into skin, blood, bones, and the less palatable organs. Apparently, beef yield makes up about 40% of a cow's total mass, so assuming uniform energy usage for all body parts (which could be wildly wrong), only around 30% of the calories actually processed by a cow will turn into beef.

¹And having searched for that statistic and read the necessary surrounding material, I need to lie down for a while. Jesus Christ.

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#199

Post by axblount »

wnevets wrote: post #191
axblount wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The second sentence of the article is "His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty."

right but the article goes on to say: "Yet even a breast-fed baby is at risk. Studies show that vegan breast milk lacks enough docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, the omega-3 fat found in fatty fish. It is difficult to overstate the importance of DHA, vital as it is for eye and brain development."

There are vegan sources of Omega-3 fatty acids, flax seeds being the most common. And yes, vegan mothers should pay attention to their diet, just like omnivore mothers.

"It is suggested that vegans and vegetarians should use oils with a low ratio of linoleic to linolenic acid in view of the recently recognized role of docosahexaenoic acid [DHA] in visual functioning. If known pitfalls are avoided, the growth and development of children reared on both vegan and vegetarian diets appears normal." http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/59/5/1176S.short

Re: Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef

#200

Post by penguindev »

philwelch wrote: post #174
penguindev wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should anything scale to feeding 7 billion? You realize we are at 7 billion now because of previous scientific food efforts, like hybridizing wheat / GMO / toxic insecticides? All science is doing is making the problem bigger and bigger. Stop subsidizing population growth.

So you recommend letting people starve to death.

I recommend people respect our planet, animals, and each other, and live responsibly and sustainably with what we have been given and has proven to already work.

I also recommend thinking critically, logically, and avoiding false dichotomies.

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