111–120 of 493 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or consuming terrifying amounts of energy and resources, when you can put a cow in a field until it's big enough to eat.
Imagine thinking modern factory farming is anything as simple as “putting a cow in a field”.
It will be animal cells differentiated into muscle tissues on collagen scaffolds initially. The technology comes from attempts to grow functional organs (ie, liver) that are biocompatible in the body serum proper. If there aren't health effects from transplantation within the animal type you can probably eat the animal tissues just fine. It's the same thing. It's meat. It's just without the animal suffering. And hope…
Are you sure about the no suffering part. Currently this meat is grown using a growth medium most often extracted from a pregnant mare using a technique called bloodletting which is often extremely painful for the animal.
EDIT: I think I’m actually wrong about the pregnant mare. Animal suffering through bloodletting from pregnant mares was a recent scandal where I’m from and I must have conflated it in my mind. I was actually thinking about FBS which is extracted from a slaughtered pregnant cow. So my point still stands.
It will be animal cells differentiated into muscle tissues on collagen scaffolds initially. The technology comes from attempts to grow functional organs (ie, liver) that are biocompatible in the body serum proper. If there aren't health effects from transplantation within the animal type you can probably eat the animal tissues just fine. It's the same thing. It's meat. It's just without the animal suffering. And hope…
For context, the life of an average herbivore in the wild consists of living with no shelter in harsh weather while having to fear every sound. And it typically ends by being ripped to pieces by a predator and eaten alive while the brain still has some residual oxygen and awareness. The typical farmed animal experience where you are sheltered, vaccinated against common illnesses, provided food and slaughtered after b…
Am I ignorant or would it be hugely inefficient to grow meat in a lab energy wise? I understand the whole methane issue but using up non renewable energy sources to make something that could be done with renewable resources seems a little silly unless the plan is to do this with renewables. Or is this about the ethics of consuming meat?
The source of power to the lab feels like a separate issue. It would be a very intense stance to take that having your city grid on non-renewable resources means any product made in that city is bad for the environment!
Besides which, beef production uses the same power sources as everywhere else (heat, light, transportation, etc.) so it wouldn't be any different just because they feed the cows plant matter.
Or maybe I've misunderstood?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If I understood your comment correctly (I'm sorry if I didn't) - isn't it grown in essentially sterile conditions, so lack of immune system isn't an issue as I must imagine it shouldn't be able to communicate any transmissible diseases?
That’s correct. The challenge is that ensuring purity of ingredients during production is tricky at scale. A small mistake could ruin a large batch of food, lowering total yields and raising costs. Ideally the production process would include something analogous to the immune system to make it more robust. For certain contaminants simple outcompetition by probiotics might suffice.
It will be animal cells differentiated into muscle tissues on collagen scaffolds initially. The technology comes from attempts to grow functional organs (ie, liver) that are biocompatible in the body serum proper. If there aren't health effects from transplantation within the animal type you can probably eat the animal tissues just fine. It's the same thing. It's meat. It's just without the animal suffering. And hope…
"And hopefully it'll eventually be cheaper than growing animals too." Just as simply planting a tree and letting the sun provide the energy for it's growth will always beat those "synthetic trees" people like to hype from time to time, I can expect to never see a synthetic process that is more cost effective to create "meat" than simply letting nature do it's thing. Down here in Brazil you basically give the animals…
Evidence? Do you have any background in the field? It's easy as a layperson to imagine that not having to support the life of the entire organism and just growing the meat directly could absolutely be less energy intensive.
It will be animal cells differentiated into muscle tissues on collagen scaffolds initially. The technology comes from attempts to grow functional organs (ie, liver) that are biocompatible in the body serum proper. If there aren't health effects from transplantation within the animal type you can probably eat the animal tissues just fine. It's the same thing. It's meat. It's just without the animal suffering. And hope…
For context, the life of an average herbivore in the wild consists of living with no shelter in harsh weather while having to fear every sound. And it typically ends by being ripped to pieces by a predator and eaten alive while the brain still has some residual oxygen and awareness. The typical farmed animal experience where you are sheltered, vaccinated against common illnesses, provided food and slaughtered after b…
Yeah I’m going to let other folks experiment with that for 10 or so years and see where it goes. I’m sure the meat is fine, it’s just a matter of not contaminating it during the process that I’m concerned about. The FDA is really poor at enforcing the health and safety aspects of manufacturing and processing. They simply don’t have enough inspectors and the inspectors don’t fine big offenders enough
Anyway, snark aside, I'm curious how this goes because while I'm not apologetic for my place on the food chain, carbon emissions from animal farming are problematic and the price that real meat should cost if we raise them humanely is pretty exorbitant. It will be hilarious to see cattle rustling become a capital offense again.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
For context, the life of an average herbivore in the wild consists of living with no shelter in harsh weather while having to fear every sound. And it typically ends by being ripped to pieces by a predator and eaten alive while the brain still has some residual oxygen and awareness. The typical farmed animal experience where you are sheltered, vaccinated against common illnesses, provided food and slaughtered after b…
I eat meat, but I think it's fair to say bringing living/feeling/thinking things into existence for the express purpose of being killed and consumed is grim. This feels particularly true if the circumstances they're raised in are horrific, which seems to be pretty common in factory farms. In any case, nature might be crueler to living things than we are, but I still think becoming less cruel is worth the effort.