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Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

wsj.com

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Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#3
After not eating meat for over 20 years due to the environmental and ethical concerns over how it's conventionally been made, I was lucky enough to be at the tasting described in the WSJ article. I wrote about it here: https://medium.com/@sethbannon/i-just-ate-meat-for-the-first...

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#4
At $9,000 per pound of meat, this is not going to be replacing real meat from animals anytime soon. Chickens are already highly efficient when it comes to converting feed into edible meat. I'm skeptical that cell culture will ever be able to come close to the same level of efficiency.

Cell cultures need to be sterile, the sugars, growth factors, and other nutrients used need to be highly refined. These are not requirements that are likely to change in the foreseeable future.

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#5
post #4

At $9,000 per pound of meat, this is not going to be replacing real meat from animals anytime soon. Chickens are already highly efficient when it comes to converting feed into edible meat. I'm skeptical that cell culture will ever be able to come close to the same level of efficiency. Cell cultures need to be sterile, the sugars, growth factors, and other nutrients used need to be highly refined. These are not requir…

Cell culturing has a history of the requisite procedures being brought to scale when necessary (insulin production for one classic example). I'm not arguing that the scale is the same. Obviously, comparing a highly evolved animal literally designed for producing meat vs. the natural insulin production of a pig is completely different. But, the evidence says the procedures scale well, given enough time.

Would this somehow be different?

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#6

After not eating meat for over 20 years due to the environmental and ethical concerns over how it's conventionally been made, I was lucky enough to be at the tasting described in the WSJ article. I wrote about it here: https://medium.com/@sethbannon/i-just-ate-meat-for-the-first...

Can you speak to the cost? The WSJ article says it currently costs $9,000 per pound to produce the "clean meat". Does that mean you ate something like a $900 chicken? (Assuming you had a small sample)

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#7
post #5
post #4

At $9,000 per pound of meat, this is not going to be replacing real meat from animals anytime soon. Chickens are already highly efficient when it comes to converting feed into edible meat. I'm skeptical that cell culture will ever be able to come close to the same level of efficiency. Cell cultures need to be sterile, the sugars, growth factors, and other nutrients used need to be highly refined. These are not requir…

Cell culturing has a history of the requisite procedures being brought to scale when necessary (insulin production for one classic example). I'm not arguing that the scale is the same. Obviously, comparing a highly evolved animal literally designed for producing meat vs. the natural insulin production of a pig is completely different. But, the evidence says the procedures scale well, given enough time. Would this som…

Is chicken really designed for producing meat? Speaking in exclusively in terms of resource consumption, it seems like a lot of resources would be wasted by the bird on a lot of necessary, but wasteful (from the point of producing meat) activities (e.g. moving?).

I am not a biologist, so I am genuinely curious...

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#8
post #4

At $9,000 per pound of meat, this is not going to be replacing real meat from animals anytime soon. Chickens are already highly efficient when it comes to converting feed into edible meat. I'm skeptical that cell culture will ever be able to come close to the same level of efficiency. Cell cultures need to be sterile, the sugars, growth factors, and other nutrients used need to be highly refined. These are not requir…

Sure, no one is suggesting it's ready for market. I don't think the effort is entirely futile, though. While it's true that chickens are more efficient than pretty much any other kind of livestock (except possibly insects), they still have to produce feathers and bones (and guano - we do use most of that one way or another, but not having to dispose of it wouldn't be a bad thing). Still, it seems like vat-grown beef or lamb makes more sense, since they are much more resource-intensive than chicken to start with.

That said, as a long-time vegetarian I would still guess that animal protein is likely to stay more resource-intensive than plant protein. But it could still be an improvement over our current situation, especially in terms of our treatment of animals, and use of water and feed.

Re: Startup Serves Up Chicken Produced From Cells in Lab

#10
post #7
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cell culturing has a history of the requisite procedures being brought to scale when necessary (insulin production for one classic example). I'm not arguing that the scale is the same. Obviously, comparing a highly evolved animal literally designed for producing meat vs. the natural insulin production of a pig is completely different. But, the evidence says the procedures scale well, given enough time. Would this som…

Is chicken really designed for producing meat? Speaking in exclusively in terms of resource consumption, it seems like a lot of resources would be wasted by the bird on a lot of necessary, but wasteful (from the point of producing meat) activities (e.g. moving?). I am not a biologist, so I am genuinely curious...

I read it to mean efficient as compared to other ways of producing protein rich food, not efficient in the strict sense with regard to conservation of energy.
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