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World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

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Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#191

Post by shadofx »

ethanbond wrote: post #2

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

Maybe eventually eating plant matter won't be considered efficient either, what with the massive expenditure of fertilizer and ecological damage of pesticide and herbicide runoff.

We will need to figure out to bio-engineer edible plant matter as well. Then once we've mastered that, we can start bio-engineering ourselves to photosynthesize from the sun directly, to cut out all middlemen from the food chain. Then we can bio-engineer a vacuum-resistant carapace and launch ourselves toward the sun to exist as truly self-sufficient organisms. Then we blot out the sun with our flesh, and find some way to go to a different star.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#192

Post by yaseer »

tomp wrote: post #141
yaseer wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're usually far from natural (tons of chemicals) I really object to marketing use of the word 'natural' and 'chemicals'. I don't mean to single you out - these concepts are widespread in marketing. Plenty of 'natural' things are bad, like small pox, the Ebola virus and salmonella. Plenty of 'unnatural' things are good, like antibiotics to treat infection. All matter is made from chemicals. Whether a chemical li…

When it comes to food, I use the following criteria: could I make it myself in my kitchen? (Some "minimal processsing" like fermentation and curing therefore fall under "natural".) I'm pretty sure the answer is "no" for most of the plant-based fake meat. It's also "no" for McDonald's burger so I'm not just hating on plants.

It's definitely true highly processed foods correlate with poor health outcomes. This correlation is mainly because ultra-processed foods often contain added sugars, excess sodium, and unhealthy fats (source: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/processed-foods...).

There's an (open) question here of what the cause is; is this inherent to all food processing?, or is it the nutritional content of the food?

I would argue eating home-made potato chips, cookies and ice cream may lead to worse health outcomes than plant-based burgers with better nutritional benefits

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#193

Post by Bancakes »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

The western world hasn't had a famine in decades, mainly eats for satiety - not survival. No hunting necessary. If we are in a position where we are starving and have animals at our disposal, morals will fade.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#195

Post by Bancakes »

wcoenen wrote: post #75
marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

I suspect reality will be a lot more boring. Animals are a low efficiency method of converting plant material into meat, both in terms of calories and protein mass input/output. So with scale, eventually lab-grown meat should become much cheaper than traditional meat. At the same time, it will be higher quality. Sterile production will eliminate E. Coli, salmonella, antibiotics... Input nutrients will be tightly cont…

Naturally, this will instill a dependency on labs and their patented technologies.

I'm surprised I don't need a Monsanto license to bake bread at home.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#196

Post by koheripbal »

shadofx wrote: post #191
ethanbond wrote: post #2

> Future Meat Technologies says this facility requires 96-percent less freshwater than livestock production, as well as using 99-percent less land and producing 80-percent fewer greenhouse emissions. Even accounting for PR hyperbole, it is so apparent at this point that any country who chooses not to board this train will be at the mercy of those who do. This is a national security issue. We can choose to curse our y…

Maybe eventually eating plant matter won't be considered efficient either, what with the massive expenditure of fertilizer and ecological damage of pesticide and herbicide runoff. We will need to figure out to bio-engineer edible plant matter as well. Then once we've mastered that, we can start bio-engineering ourselves to photosynthesize from the sun directly, to cut out all middlemen from the food chain. Then we ca…

I think what the comment above is missing is that these are the metrics that the PR team chose to publish.

The lab meat might also use 100x the CO2 in other production materials. It might be more labor and energy intensive. The cost might be 10x higher - even at scale.

You cannot trust the PR numbers from a company looking to normalize their product.

This is why 3rd party analysis is required.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#197

Post by mmazing »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

Why does everything have to be a slippery slope?

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#199

Post by dividedbyzero »

iammisc wrote: post #136
wcoenen wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect reality will be a lot more boring. Animals are a low efficiency method of converting plant material into meat, both in terms of calories and protein mass input/output. So with scale, eventually lab-grown meat should become much cheaper than traditional meat. At the same time, it will be higher quality. Sterile production will eliminate E. Coli, salmonella, antibiotics... Input nutrients will be tightly cont…

Animals are extremely efficient at converting inedible food to edible nutrition. For example, goats eat almost any plant, including many natives. Unless you think humans are going to be able to eat chaparral. The fact is that modern edible agriculture is heavily dependent on fossil fuel and mined fertilizers. Until we solve that problem, it's better to stop growing too many plants, let native vegetation regrow and se…

> Animals are extremely efficient at converting inedible food to edible nutrition.

And survive in a very complex and hostile environment, adapt to changing conditions, procreate, and build all the structure and tissues and organs that requires. That's a lot of energy that bioreactor-grown steak doesn't have to expend. At scale, and with some genetic optimization thrown in, can we do better? I don't know for sure, but I don't think it's an impossibility, given that most of the current meat supply is already grown in factories.

Re: World’s first lab-grown meat facility pumps out 5k burgers per day

#200

Post by marcus_holmes »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #100
marcus_holmes wrote: post #42

I always wonder about the morality questions. This is like a lab experiment for subjective morality. For the sake of the experiment, let's assume the sci-fi writers are right, and eating animals will eventually be considered immoral. This is an extreme stance at the moment (hello PETA) but let's assume it will eventually be accepted as the only moral stance. How long will it be between the introduction of lab-grown m…

I don't think eating "from animal" meat will become too controversial within the next few decades yet. However, there will be a few shifts. Any meat that is unrecognizable as cuts of meat - hamburgers, sausages, etc - will be 'cut' with factory meat as a means to cut costs (assuming factory meat will become cheaper than livestock, which I'm confident it will with scale), similar to how it's now filled with water, MRM…

OK, but hypothetically, assume it does become immoral, and then illegal.

If you eat a burger now, with lab-grown meat not really available, are you behaving immorally?

If you eat an animal in (say) 10 years' time, when lab-grown meat is readily available, are you behaving immorally then?

If you eat an animal in (say) 20 years' time, when that involves quite a lot of effort (finding a butcher who sells it, paying the price premium, etc). Are you behaving immorally then?

If you eat an animal after they ban killing animals for food, is that immoral? (i.e. is it the law that makes the action immoral?)

At what point does our (presumably moral) action of eating meat become immoral? Is that up to us as individuals, or is it up to our churches, or government, or what? Who makes this decision, and how is that communicated, and is it retroactive?

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