Meat of the future may be grown in a lab 14

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1. 

   ataremove Posted 7:32 am
   11 Apr 2008

   Lab-Meat?Sounds like the beginnings of Chicken Little from the scifi novel "Space Merchants".
   And whose to say that this proposed method is not going to concentrate contaminants faster than self-grown meat on the plains?

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2. 

   wiscidea Posted 8:18 am
   11 Apr 2008

   Worthy of serious discussion?My limited experience with culturing mammalian cells suggests that this is enormously impractical. A major ingredient of the culture medium is probably calf serum! No one has a grasp on all the nutrients necessary for this sort of thing, let alone how to manufacture from scratch everything an in vitro steak would require. It would be energy intensive and, probably, chemical and plastic intensive, making confined animal facilities look benign.
   I really prefer my own idea... genetically engineer easy-to-grow zucchini so it has the taste and texture of meat! Scientists are already identifying the genes coding for enzymes that synthesize meaty flavor molecules. Vegan meat! It could even be grown organically. All you would need is sunshine, water, and good soil. No solar panels or vats or sterile labs. Every home gardener would want it. Meat, but not really meat, for everyone! There could be beef-flavored, pork-flavored, cod-flavored zucchini... perhaps rare animal flavors as well. Home gardeners might even cross different varieties and develop new heirloom meat-flavored zucchini that will be passed from friend to friend and generation to generation. The tasty zucchini would be so cheap, no one would want to bother trying to raise animals for meat. Win win win for everyone!
   Hmmm... wonder what the unintended consequences might be...

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3. 

   caniscandida Posted 9:54 am
   11 Apr 2008

   "Can we change human nature?"Thus, the question asked at the end of the NY Times article.
   Like Peter Singer, I am interested in how people make moral decisions.  So, we need to ask further, regarding human nature: What can change?; What can never change?  And then, regarding what within human nature can change through moral persuasion, we can further ask: What should change?; What should not change?
   Not being a meat-eater for three decades at least, and never having especially enjoyed eating meat, I have no idea what sorts of aspects of meat all those serious meat-eaters out there enjoy and demand.  To be sure, lots and lots of meat is served in ways that are quite artificial, from which one might never guess that they had their origin in real living animals, e.g. sausages and hamburgers, and cut into bite-size pieces in Chinese cuisine.  So there provisionally seems to be no obstacle at all to producing meat from hunks of tissue grown artificially in laboratories.

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4. 

   javaearth Posted 10:43 am
   11 Apr 2008

   WHY NOT?If stops cruelty to animals. - I am all for it.
   As far as the "ick factor" oh pleaassee anyone that eats dead animals, should have got over the ick factor - already! I mean whats was great about eating a diseased skin of a corpses?

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5. 

   Wolverine Posted 2:15 pm
   11 Apr 2008

   It's About Ecology"Problem: Large-scale meat production has environmental problems out the wazoo."
   Growing meat is not for the purpose of creating better meat, but for the purpose of saving the natural environment from the ravages of meat production from domesticated animals.  This is infinitely more important than whether people like the meat, which is not a necessity.

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6. 

   caniscandida Posted 2:00 am
   12 Apr 2008

   "not a necessity"Liking the lab-grown meat may not be a necessity, Wolverine; but BioD might argue that it certainly would help if it became "cool" to eat lab-grown meat.  One can foresee that there would be professional virtuo meat-culturists, competing to produce the finest meat.  And meat-eaters would boast to one another about who has discovered and enjoyed the tastiest newly-invented steak.

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7. 

   litesong Posted 3:50 am
   12 Apr 2008

   Test-tube stuffAs a lover of a good rib-steak, I MIGHT be persuaded to try some test-tube stuff. Wolverines often have to eat what doesn't taste good to survive. But Wolverine's suggestion that I pay $20 for a test-tube restaurant steak or $6 for a Safeway test-tube steak that doesn't taste good...
   I'll let Wolverine pay for my test-tube steak. I'll eat what's in the test-tube & he can eat the test-tube. We'll find out what is necessary.    

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8. 

   Tasermons Partner Posted 3:52 am
   12 Apr 2008

   Try some delicious soylent green instead...

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9. 

   JakobFabian01 Posted 4:27 am
   13 Apr 2008

   Fiction becomes fact?I recommend Margaret Atwood's terrific dystopian fantasy "Oryx and Crake."  This book includes a description of several kinds of "vat foods" that most of the population of her creepy but plausible future world has to eat.  Among these weird, mostly fungus-based and gene-manipulated foods are test-tube chicken breasts - grown without the chickens - to keep the world well supplied with "nuggets."
   The book is recommendable for many reasons.  It's thought-provoking, and it's Atwood's scariest novel yet.

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10. 

    caniscandida Posted 4:51 am
    13 Apr 2008

    "Soylent Green"was in fact the late Charlton Heston's last movie.  And back in one of those summers of my youth, when I was a projectionist at the seashore (viz. Wildwood, NJ), I showed it over and over and over again.
    The opening sequence is one of the most NewYorkophobic bits of film on record.  But that dissuaded me not a jot, from going to college here.
    LiteSong,
    
    "test-tube steak" is presumably cylindrical: so it might be eaten nicely in a hot-dog bun.  With yellow mustard, and onions, etc.
    I doubt Wolverine would want to munch on the test tube.  But he might very well try to insert his tongue and lick the insides.
    WiscIdea,
    
    I love your idea about what to do with zucchinis.  But my suspicion is that meat-loving meat-eaters would not be satisfied, always finding something a bit off and untrue about it.
    Presumably that would not be a problem with lab-grown meat, starting with a true-meat matrix.
    But your observations on the impracticality of working with a "culture medium" dependent on "calf serum" are worthwhile.

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11. 

    redwing Posted 1:09 am
    14 Apr 2008

    Hunting the wild testubeAnother way for us to be removed from the reality of nature. Way to go! And I thought ready to eat bacon was scarry. Testtube dinner sounds nasty. You probably could drink it thru a straw with your soylent green chips. Bleh! This coming from a guy who eats roadkill deer. All the flavor and none of the guilt!

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12. 

    caniscandida Posted 1:29 am
    14 Apr 2008

    And then, ahead of the curve ...as I pointed out in another thread not long ago, the Next Big Thing is entomophagy: Bug-Munching.
    On me dit que les real juicy waterbugs faisent des omelettes formidables.
    Pero pienso que a mi' me gustari'a ma's la ensalada de big black ants.

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13. 

    amazingdrx Posted 3:48 am
    14 Apr 2008

    Genetic disease and cancer."...can it overcome the ick factor?"
    It's much more than icky!  In a natural living organism, evolution designs robust, self protecting (as in immune system) systems.
    We have seen artificial confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) destroy these immune systems, producing anti-biotic resistant disease breeding food chan problems.  And GMO soon to add genetic disease to the equation?  it messes with the very evolutionary design down to the bacterial, viral, cellular, dNA level.  ICK!!!!
    The amount of pathogenic toxicity proportional to the amount of life bending biochem manipulation.  Stick to animal products from happy animals, free range grazing until they are ultimately eaten.
    If you don't agree with the life/death equation of meat eating, go with veggie products.  All the nutrition and taste needed is in those plants!
    The eco problems from agribizz chem meat are better solved with biogas power and organic ag working hand in hand.  And good old free range living for the animals.  Free the chickens!!  (thanks fat fredddy)
    
    

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14. 

    danielbarker123 Posted 9:37 am
    14 Apr 2008

    we already arePeople are already learning to eat in the lab.  The essential ingredient in animal is (cyano)cobalamin, vitamin B-12.  It is now synthesized in the laboratory, allowing vegetarians the freedom of not eating liver.
    I have written repeatedly, and ask your help, to various aquatic groups about synthesizing those two essential omega-3 fatty acids, thus alleviating the need to eat fish on a regular basis.
    I have been eating flexitarian since 1992, my goal is living on six pounds of meat a year.
    We need to tell everyone that eating meat consumes massive petroleum, water and land, we are destroying rainforests to grow crops to fatten cattle.
    I believe people are becoming aware.

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