I think it's a great idea and it will eventually be cheaper than actual living animals. The same goes for cultured milk. Bacteria pumping out dairy will be cheaper as well. The faster it ends the meat and dairy industry, the better.
this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2024
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I never heard of the milk one, can they make it lactose free?
Here's the thing, as I see it. Meat eaters don't genuinely care about the ethics of meat. They give no shits about factory farming. So lab grown meat won't be popular until it becomes significantly cheaper than standard factory farming. And even then conservatives will insist on eating real meat for ideological reasons, just like they do today.
(I mean, look at the impossible burgers. They were damn near identical to ground beef, and at a similar price point. But similar wasn't good enough - they didn't get it cheaper than actual ground beef so it ended up just a brief fad.)
And lab grown meat doesn't have the short supply chain of a live animal in a field. Even factory farming at its most factoriest is pretty straightforward - grow corn, feed it to pigs in tiny cages, pump them full of antibiotics, repeat. Lab grown meat doesn't have the cruelty factor but the complexity of its supply chain and the amount of artificial inputs it requires, not only make it antithetical to solarpunk philosophy in a different way, but make it highly unlikely it'll ever be competitive price-wise.
What we need is a pre-industrial-revolution attitude towards food. Our calories should be primarily vegetarian and vegan, grown naturally from the soil. Food shouldn't be an industrial product. And there's nothing more industrial than lab-grown meat.
Where is impossible just a fad? I feel it's pretty much impossible (lol) to find a black bean or other veggie burger in a restaurant now, while everywhere (even burger king) has impossible or beyond. But this is in Berkeley so it's highly likely I'm just in a bubble.
In the developing world, impossible burgers & beyond meat are nowhere to be found. I only know of a single restaraunt in my entire country that sells a beyond meat burger (at 4x the price of a normal beef burger).
Ahh fair enough. I actually saw a good amount in Bengaluru last time I was there, but India is likely an outlier with a specific reason they have pursued beef alternatives. But thinking elsewhere I've been somewhat recently (e.g. central america) I think you are right
Meat eaters don't genuinely care about the ethics of meat. They give no shits about factory farming.
I do and will switch to lab grown meat as soon as it's available for ethical reasons. Clearly I'm not invested enough in the issue to go vegan, but I don't think I'm alone here. I like meat. I can have meat without animals having to suffer? Sounds good to me, even if it's more expensive.
I think you stereotyping a bit. Everyday people don't feel strongly about food in either direction, but if they see meat in a shop advertised as "no animal had to die for this", many will think "that's nice" and buy it.
You are chosing pleasure over an animal not being stabbed in the neck. Don't give in to the illusion of giving a shit. At least admit that you don't. Have a fucking spine.
My point was many people would choose the more ethical option to get the same product, if one is available. As proven by various "green" options in other product categories being popular.
I'm not sure what point are you trying to make now. It's seems like some no true Scotsman.
You have a lot of anger in you isn't it? :(
I also think that there is some much potential in the dishes we eat. Western Cousine is mostly structured around a protein and side dishes but there is so much more out there. We could have a much healthier, more diverse and interesting diet that is basically better in every regard and doesn’t require highly processed plant proteins to work. But this requires a certain amount of dedication and resources on the cooking side of things. We should start taking proper food for the population more serious as a national health concern and provide a easy way to get cheap and healthy food for everyone. This is also vital because of how the society changed, more single households and less of the traditional family. In my naive mind I never understood why food is not something like health care, water services, sewage or what ever. Everyone needs it to survive. This would be better for health (care systems), the planet and local food independence. Instead we let huge food companies sell us more sawdust per candy bar every year and exploit workers in the south.
There is an issue with the idea of pre industrial production. In ecoremediation we need to rewild large tracts of land to restore biodiversity. Most of this land is now used for farming and while a good portion of that land for half the crops in rotation goes to animal feed, it wouldn't be enough to simultaneously feed the population and rewild enough land if we stick to pre industrial methods. What we need is a clean, sustainable industry of agriculture. We are already on the fragile precipe of this new form. In the Netherlands we can find automated greenhouse operations that are increasingly becoming ecologically sane in their use of pesticides, fertilizers etc. They achieve an output almost double of traditional farming on a quarter of the space on method alone. In both the netherlands and singapore vertical farm projects are started to integrate city planning and farming, further reducing the need for space. In northern europe kelp farms are started to farm kelp and seaweed. There are probably many more examples but they are all post industrial practices which rely heavily on the scalability of industry. It really is the only way forward if we truly want to restore the plenty provided by a balance in nature. Restore the biodiversity, rewild the world, use less space.
The moment I can swap to lab based meat, I will. I care about the suffering caused by my diet, but I don't have the mental capacity to change it right now. I have no idea what proportion of the meat eating population is like me, but it might be more than you expect.
You can go ahead and call me a terrible person, I don't care, I've given up self hatred for lent. Just trying to do the best I can.
If you're in the right space for some advice on going veggie, I found it surprisingly easy. Just think about what meals you eat that don't have meat in them or where they are optional. Spaghetti? Extra peppers and mushrooms instead of ground beef. Tacos? Beans instead of pork. Burgers? Black bean and corn burgers are legit better than the impossible burgers, no lie (they're in the frozen section). Literally just think of like three things you like that have no meat in them (yes, donuts and pizza count) and just try making those for a week. Add on more stuff as you think of it. I went from pork chops for dinner every day to fully vegetarian in a couple weeks. I couldn't believe it.
I might give it a go sometime and see if I can slowly try to ramp it up. I don't cook a ton and when I do it basically has to be one of the things that's familiar to me to make because if I try to plan to make something new it'll never end up happening
I think if it ends up being commercially viable, it'll hopefully cause factory farms to shrink. They've been pretty tight-lipped about how much energy it'll require, though.
But personally, I'm not all that interested at this point. The plant based alternative meats are just... Really damn good now, like crazy good. Impossible burgers and 'chicken' patties are literally indistinguishable for me. If anything, I think impossible burgers taste better than any real burger I've ever had, and I'm someone who was a pretty big meat lover.
For less expensive options, there's soy curls, which I've found to be a versatile, healthy, and protein rich generic meat that can take on any flavor I put on it. So I can still have pulled pork BBQ, Beef in my chili, or some great low-carb tacos.
I tried some plant-based breaded fish thing from trader joes recently, and god dang if it wasn't excellent.
The alternatives are already here, and they're delicious. I feel like lab grown meat will be there for people who psychologically just have to have 'real' meat for some reason, but ideologically don't want to support factory farming.
Idk honestly. I was kinda excited, but after being vegan for some time, i stopped missing meat as a whole and don't see the point anymore.
I mean, I've never been much of a meat fan to begin with, but to me, it feels like rather much effort for relatively little payoff. Like, we've got easily produceable alternatives out of seitan, soy etc. for basically all meat forms, except steak.
And even for steak, I still feel like you can achieve the essence of it (chewiness, taste, use in dishes) with soy medallions. It won't be exactly the same, but still close enough to satiate most cravings for steak, I feel.
The advantage of creating an exact replica is for people who don't want to try anything new or are not willing to make any concessions at all.
Like, I'm not sure my dad would actively try lab-grown meat, because of that whole not-trying-anything-new thing, but maybe some folks will have a slightly more open mind, and therefore be cool with lab-grown meat, but not the plant-based alternatives.
So, yeah, maybe lab-grown meat or 3D-printed meat needs to exist for the next few generations. But I feel like we'll phase it out eventually.
My bets are on meat alternatives like soy protein based foods etc. That's what I eat often as well. But if people started eating lab grown meat I would totally love that and I bet the animals would love that too
There's less animal harm involved (but with the current methods still some). And it will always inefficient to do the extra conversion step in order to get consumeable proteins.
Well, the last time I checked in they were still relying on fetal bovine serum and cancer cell growth to make lab meat production work (look it up yourself tho). I mean on paper it seems like good option if animal suffering is your concern, but (long term) health impacts of cancer meat are still a mild concern ig. And also it's exorbitantly expensive (citation needed) if you can even buy it and still requires loads of resources to produce. I'd much prefer a cheap alternative, not imitation, for cheap meat. It may be hard to replace a grilled stake (in flavor, texture and most of all people's preference) but looking at cheap pink slices of processed goo I half way expect them to already be vegan, but like in a really bad way. I feel like meat alternatives should start where it's easy and tackle 'authentic' meat a later time. In the meantime I'm way more concerned with ending special meat subsidies in favor of supporting resource efficient vegan alternatives. Make vegan food cheap and people will follow, no need for perfection. For the record I'm not (quite) a vegan and price and convince are like the only things holding me back so far.
health impacts of cancer meat are still a mild concern ig.
It seems pretty unlikely to me that eating what is effectively a tasty tumor would have any significant health effects over regular meat.
True, but then health impacts of normal meat (over-) consumption are a concern too. No idea if perhaps the unnaturally uniform lab meat has less diverse macro and micro nutrients, but then again, nobody knows (I suspect, prove me wrong otherwise). But yea, over all this wasn't my biggest concern anyways so it hardly changes my outlook either way
100% agree with this. I wanted to ask though, have you tried those new mycelium steaks that are out now? They're so so good! Delicious and affordable and made pretty sustainably too. I'd like to see more of that kinda stuff around
I'd love to but can't find them in a supermarket near me. I'll keep looking
Gods I fucking hate where the aggrecultural subsidies are. Price point is certainly a factor keeping me from switching to more of the plant based foods.
I'm not completely opposed to it, but I think it would need to do better than plant-based meat alternatives in terms of water, energy and land use for me to actually be considerable. But even then, I have started to not like the taste of very meaty meat (I ate ham some time ago on accident and it was ok-ish from a taste point, but I can't imagine eating a steak or something similar, even lab-grown).
I'm just afraid that it will be impossible to distinguish between real meat and lab meat. You'll start seeing "lab meat" for sale that is advertised as ethical and ecological, but might actually contain mostly actual animals. Also, I fear that the fake meats we have today get totally replaced my lab meat, the same way fake meats like beyond and impossible mostly replaced the shelf space of the more tradicional veggie burgers.
In general I think it will be a net positive for veganism, but capitalism always has a way to screw us over.
I feel if you're doing lab grown meat for consumption you're hilariously missing the point. Once you get off it for awhile you realize how absolutely disgusting it really is. Like, it's so covered in fecal bacteria you're practically eating the animal's poop and the chemicals they use to clean it aren't pleasant either.
Lab grown meat is covered in animal fecal material?
No that was just a tangent
Lab grown meat is an excuse for people that aren't capable of empathy to tell themselves its all gonna be okay oNcE LaB MeAt iS AffOrDAble