Meat Grown in Lab, No Animals Required

Abner1

Posts: 6,037

Mytmouse wrote:

> Good news for cows...

Depends on how you look at it. If this gets to the point of being economically viable, or even cheaper than meat from animals ... a lot of food animals will go near-extinct. There would still be a few for those people who want to eat the traditionally made meat, of course, but the overall result would be far fewer of those animals.

Less animal suffering because there are less animals. That's an interesting conundrum.

mainecaptain

Posts: 20,511

I would rather have animals go extinct, then have them suffer the way they do to provide meat. They are not here to for us.

We just exploit the fact that non human animals can not fight back against such a destructive animals as the human animal.

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side. Aristotle
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farragut

Posts: 2,879

Well, as the technology advances, we could have them produce the equivalent of human meat, and we could become legitimate cannibals.

solfeggio

Posts: 7,706

Good point, Mainecaptain. If you stop to think about it, of course other sentient beings are not here for human benefit. Everything evolved to fit a suitable ecological niche, and that has nothing to do with human desires.

And, like you, I'd much rather cows (or pigs or sheep or even chickens) went extinct than that they continued to be so cruelly exploited. However, I don't think that would happen, because there would always be people with pet pigs or chickens, or some family farm somewhere with Bossie the beloved family cow, living out her retirement in the pasture.

In any case, domesticated animals are not 'natural' in any sense to begin with.

solfeggio

Posts: 7,706

farragut -

I like that idea of humans eating human flesh made in the petrie dish. Don't they do something like that in the movie Soylent Green? And didn't ancient cultures used to eat their slain enemies?

But, even if the flesh was grown in a petrie dish, wouldn't the scientists have to look out for prion diseases?

Problems, problems.

Erey

Posts: 15,127

Mentaly this whole idea of lab grown meat will take some getting used to. I am not sure if I am ready.

stem cells are fascinating

rabello

Posts: 17,182

Article doesn't say if they're using embryonic stem cells or adult stem cells. Embryonic are, of course, harder to get, at least on the donor cow.

The most interesting parts in the article, for me are these:

They are off-white and resemble strips of calamari in appearance. These strips will be mixed with blood and artificially grown fat to produce a hamburger by the autumn.

Yuck

So what is the synthetic burger likely to taste like?

"In the beginning it will taste bland," says Prof Post. "I think we will need to work on the flavour separately by trying to figure out which components of the meat actually produce the taste and analyse what the composition of the strip is and whether we can change that."

Yuck, again

David Steele, who is president of Earthsave Canada, said that the same benefits could be achieved if people ate less meat.

it is pretty clear to me that plant-based alternatives... have substantial environmental and probably animal welfare advantages over synthetic meat," he said.

Dr Steele, who is also a molecular biologist, said he was also concerned that unhealthily high levels of antibiotics and antifungal chemicals would be needed to stop the synthetic meat from rotting.

Wisdom

CharikIeia

Posts: 8,303

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:46PM, solfeggio wrote:

Ariel makes an excellent point, with which I agree.

It is an uninformed point, I am afraid.

The whole point of synthetic meat is the efficient, simple production of edible protein. If done properly, it will be more cost efficient and will have less environmental impact than growing plants.

Of course, it has side effects on veganism as a valid social movement.

tl;dr

mytmouse57

Posts: 9,316

Feb 20, 2012 -- 6:52PM, Abner1 wrote:

Mytmouse wrote:

> Good news for cows...

Depends on how you look at it. If this gets to the point of being economically viable, or even cheaper than meat from animals ... a lot of food animals will go near-extinct. There would still be a few for those people who want to eat the traditionally made meat, of course, but the overall result would be far fewer of those animals.

Less animal suffering because there are less animals. That's an interesting conundrum.

I don't think the cows care much either way. Having spent considerable time around them, I've not gotten the impression that they're particularly contemplative.

Much of the culture and a good bit of the economy out here where I live is built around ranching -- so it could carry weighty implicatons in that regard.

Either way, I'll stick to hunting deer as my primary source of meat. I was raised on venison, and like it better than beef anyway.

Ebon

Posts: 7,698

Feb 20, 2012 -- 11:17AM, Ed2 wrote:
Although, hopefully they can do this with fish and chicken stem cells.

The principle is the same so I'm sure that fish, chicken and so on are only a few years away.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 11:34AM, Ed2 wrote:
Well, I'm also glad to hear about the benefits to animals because as it has been widely publicized, conditions are deplorable for many, if not most animals that are used to mass produce meat for human beings. ...I mean, really deplorable.

This is why there's a lot of people here (including myself) who choose to pay a little extra to ensure our meat is free-range (unlike the US, our laws do define what free-range means).

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:56PM, rangerken wrote:
That means something that looks like, cooks like, and tastes EXACTLY like, for example, a slice of bone in ribeye steak. If we're talking about something like designer tofu, forget about it.

Nope, it's real meat, just artificially grown. Getting the flavour right will take a little while but it's really just a matter of balancing the chemicals which produce flavour properly.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 9:21PM, farragut wrote:
Well, as the technology advances, we could have them produce the equivalent of human meat, and we could become legitimate cannibals.

Read Transmetropolitan. It's set in a far future America where exactly that has happened.

Feb 21, 2012 -- 10:01AM, CharikIeia wrote:
Of course, it has side effects on veganism as a valid social movement.

Probably true but I shared it because I'm a science geek :)

I think that, as the global population grows and the pressure on resources continues to expand, vat-grown meat will eventually become more popular and even cheaper (adjusted for inflation, naturally) than "real" meat. Eventually, natural meat will only be consumed by the very rich and for the snob factor. The rest of us will be eating cheap, vat-grown meat that has the same flavour but much less environmental impact and, of course, zero animal suffering.

He who oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. ~ Proverbs 14:31

Fiat justitia, ruat caelum

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