Lab-grown meat could be coming to a fast-food chain near you

Really the only safe meat is grass-fed beef, or 100% organic chicken/turkey. Eat fastfood, you're not eating real meat. Go to safeway, or a large chain, and the meat you buy is full of harmones and chemicals. Now laboratory produced meat? I'd consider it if it didn't have any of the crap that is in the meat we regularly buy, but call me skeptical.

For people who try to eat healthy, organic, and fresh food, this will strike a nerve. But the other 95% of the population which stuffs their faces with much worse on a daily basis?

I remember an older saying,
"you are what you eat"

reply to post by MysticPearl

Really the only safe meat is grass-fed beef, or 100% organic chicken/turkey.

What is "organic?"

What is so safe about it?

Eat fastfood, you're not eating real meat.

This certainly depends upon what you order. Generally, unless you order from the veggie-menu, you're getting about the same thing you would get had you bought a package of meat from the store ("organic" or otherwise). I say "generally" because they have controls on the consistency and press the meat into patties to make orders more uniform.

Go to safeway, or a large chain, and the meat you buy is full of harmones and chemicals.

I'm not sure what a harmone is. You?

Many naturally occurring substances are, trigger the release of, or metabolize into growth hormones. The consumption of protein triggers the release of growth hormones, as does exercise (damage to muscle tissue). Further - these 'chemicals' are not fed to cattle in the weeks prior to their slaughter - they are metabolized long before it gets killed and put on your plate. Not that it would hurt you to eat one in the midst of consuming enriched foods.

Now laboratory produced meat?

I don't think it will catch on, really. Genetically modified bacteria hold more promise for making "super jello" rich in various vitamins, proteins and minerals. Perhaps even more interestingly - certain forms of algae can feed off of gamma and x-ray radiation, which makes them particularly novel for sustenance in space. I don't think tumor-meat will be very popular, or practical by comparison. It's likely the steps necessary to 'grow' the meat to be at all comparable to 'real' meat in flavor and texture will be far less efficient than current farming methods.

Kind of like hydroponics. One of the reasons we don't see it used is that it's very costly to run an effective setup (for industrial purposes). Further - many of the high-yield setups do, indeed, have yields of epic proportions - but the food is lacking in flavor and some nutritional content. Conditions that replicate the biomass and mineral content of soil are possible - but crop yields drop considerably.

It's simply more cost effective in most regions for farms to simply be open fields with irrigation and fertilization systems. At the present time.

For people who try to eat healthy, organic, and fresh food, this will strike a nerve. But the other 95% of the population which stuffs their faces with much worse on a daily basis?

Your body doesn't know or care if the food put into it is "fresh" or has been frozen for half a century. Molecular structure being equal - your body will break it down the same way. That's the cool thing about our digestive system - for the most part, it will break down everything into compounds it can use - and ignore a wide range of the things it can't use (and even some harmful things).

What matters more is how you balance your diet and exercise. Sure - I want my own garden - because I like varieties of tomatoes and vegetables that aren't common in the grocery store, and they generally taste better. I, and my body, couldn't really care less if it was grown with chemical fertilziers or compost. And it really couldn't care less if it's been genetically modified or not.

To kind of re-iterate - the problem most people have is that they over-consume starches and carbohydrates with other high-calorie offerings that exceed their needs. They fail to supply their body with other metabolic catalysts (such as B-vitamins) often found in vegetables. They become lethargic and gain weight - which further discourages activity (takes more effort to do stuff).

Then they supplement all of this with copious amounts of alcohol and comment on how they suffer from chronic incontinence. When prompted to make slight changes to their diet to help restore some health to their body - the response is that they like their current diet and do not wish to sacrifice their lifestyle.

I can't help but feel that the "dieting" and "organic" crowd have done little but start and perpetuate a myth that a healthy diet is some kind of difficult change in one's life worthy of praise. Sure - in some respect, it is - but kind of like how taking out the trash is an 'accomplishment worthy of praise' - you did something positive, but you didn't just complete a 30-mile marathon, either.

It's become a sort of 'clique' - the "organic" crowd and the "health nuts" who would eat grass before a fast food meal. To be "healthy" - one must sacrifice all the foods they know and love while paying premium price for stuff labeled "organic" (because, you know, the other food on the shelf is somehow inorganic).

It's silly. Keep basic relationships in mind - rice and beans often form a complete protein, berries often improve fat-soluble vitamin uptake (ADE&K), citrus tends to improve calcium uptake - stuff like that - little things to remember to help supplement your diet. The biggest help for most people would just be to find a salad and dressing they like (whatever "harm" that dressing could possibly do to them - the added greenery to their diet would far outweigh).

But, there again, I'm the oddball among my room mates. I go shopping for food - not frozen microwave pizzas and other "I'm hungry -now- food" - I'm used to cooking for my dad and brothers - pot-roasts, spaghetti to feed a small army, soups, etc. That's what I think of when I think "food." Something you cook on the stove and serve on a plate. I also don't consider something a real sandwich unless it has lettuce, tomato, and pickles on it.

But, I'm straying way off topic.

I saw this on the news and it grossed me out!

They said it will have more nutrients than real meat. How is that possible? I don't think anything made in a lab with their "special ingredients" will be more beneficial to me. You know they will put things in it that are harmful and say they are good for you.

No thanks.

reply to post by mblahnikluver

I saw this on the news and it grossed me out!

Can't say I'm too enthusiastic, either.

They said it will have more nutrients than real meat. How is that possible?

The cellular mass can be directly fed and supplied in ways that cannot be accomplished by feeding a cow. It's marginally similar to hydroponics - whereby plant roots are fed and supplied via water-soluble nutrients quite directly, removing many of the restrictions soil imposes upon the process. The nutritional content of the fruits of that plant will depend heavily upon the feeding and various other parameters related to the plant's growth (light, day/night cycles and feeding schedules, etc).

I don't think anything made in a lab with their "special ingredients" will be more beneficial to me.

To be blunt - opinions are irrelevant. Regardless of what you think - meats produced in this fashion have the -capacity- to have better nutritional content than normal meats. Generally speaking, however, it is unnecessary in the average diet. Just as vitamin supplements are unnecessary for the average person. It would be more important, however, in applications where meats/proteins were both essential and hard to supply (such as expeditionary teams, space exploration, etc).

You know they will put things in it that are harmful and say they are good for you.

Who is "they?" The people who work at the hypothetical facilities making this sort of meat?

Why would they put stuff in their product to harm you, knowingly? What reason do you have to believe the modus operandi of such institutions will be malicious in nature?

That a very good news, IMHO. Think of how many poor animals can be saved by using such meat. It may also be more efficient.

I hope it will be tasty enough..

Originally posted by SatoriTheory

With global meat demand expected to grow almost 40 percent by 2025, scientists in the US and Europe have been working to develop synthetic, lab-grown meat they say could help offset climate change and provide a healthier, safer alternative to conventional meat production.

What an absolute steaming pile of lab-grown-BS! This has nothing to do with demand and everything to do with patenting and profiteering. The disgusting capitalist bar-stewards!

The race for bigger profits disgusts me.

st.

edit on 29-5-2011 by SatoriTheory because: misquoted

edit on 29-5-2011 by SatoriTheory because: (no reason given)

They should be allowed to profit for a time(until patent expires after 15 years I think). After that the knowledge will become public. The thing we should be cautious about from a legitimate perspective is how safe is it?
Because if this method is safer and more economical then why not? We won't need to slaughter animals anymore and we could convert some farmland to wild land while still maintaining global food supply. Plus it would be a huge breakthrough in helping our species expand beyond Earth.

Originally posted by korathin

They should be allowed to profit for a time(until patent expires after 15 years I think). After that the knowledge will become public. The thing we should be cautious about from a legitimate perspective is how safe is it?
Because if this method is safer and more economical then why not? We won't need to slaughter animals anymore and we could convert some farmland to wild land while still maintaining global food supply. Plus it would be a huge breakthrough in helping our species expand beyond Earth.

Sadly where profits are involved you will never know for sure if something is safe or not.
In order to test the safeness of this stuff would require testing it across generations, to be positively sure of no side effects. Will a multinational be willing to wait so long to see the result?
The race for bigger profits to satisfy the share holder greed will mean 'science results' will be bought and paid for. Then when the true results are known, it will be far too late to do anything about it.
Then you have the situation of who ever controls the patents controls production and final cost. Do you really think third world countries are going to benefit? I mean come on, really?

All this is for is for finding new revenue streams. It has nothing to do with benefiting man-kind.
If man is to expand beyond earth, then I think the food supply will be with 'meals-in-a-pill', not lab grown meat.

Capitalism has a lot to answer for, human greed is ruining this planet.

reply to post by SatoriTheory

Capitalism has a lot to answer for, human greed is ruining this planet.

Eh, I'll bite. Deny ignorance, right?

Sadly where profits are involved you will never know for sure if something is safe or not.

I'd rather just eat my meal.

Here's the problem with this "test to make sure it's safe" nonsense with food and "does it shorten my lifespan by four years?" - our bodies, and the foods we eat, are so enormously diverse as to make most studies almost useless in terms of cause/effect determination.

A simple example - tea. We'll not even get into the different blends (species) - just touch on your basic tea that you'll get in a bag from most stores. There are several thousand chemical compounds in tea. There are several million -different- chemical reactions that occur in the body at any given time. Forget testing - you need supercomputing power and simulation models that exceed the world's computing power (and combined knowledge of chemistry) simply to make an attempt at predicting "what could go wrong" with drinking tea.

As if that's not bad enough, the process for making tea is not exact. Agitating the tea in the water will result in a much more effective transfer of compounds to the water. Water that is too cool will not draw some compounds out of the tea leaves, and some compounds (the heavier and more bitter ones) take much longer to draw out than others. Making tea by sunlight - "sun tea" - is also popular in some regions, but exposure to ultraviolet light breaks many of the compounds in tea down into smaller (different) chemical compounds.

It gets worse: some people add lemon, milk, or other products to their tea. The citric acid in lemons reacts to a number of the compounds in the tea, changing them. Compounds in milk also bind to various chemicals within the tea, preventing your body from taking up the compound from both the tea and milk. en.wikipedia.org...

A study[78] at the Charité Hospital of the Berlin Universities showed that adding milk to tea will block the normal, healthful effects that tea has in protecting against cardiovascular disease. This occurs because casein from the milk binds to the molecules in tea that cause the arteries to relax, especially EGCG.

Drinking tea, particularly green tea, with citrus such as lemon juice is common. Studies, including a study from Purdue University in 2007, found that most of the antioxidant catechins are not absorbed into the bloodstream when tea is drunk by itself. The study, however, found that adding citrus to the tea lowers the pH in the small intestine and causes more of the catechins to be absorbed.[83][84]

Factor this across a whole plate of food.

It's absolutely futile.

The race for bigger profits to satisfy the share holder greed will mean 'science results' will be bought and paid for. Then when the true results are known, it will be far too late to do anything about it.
Then you have the situation of who ever controls the patents controls production and final cost. Do you really think third world countries are going to benefit? I mean come on, really?

Nothing is better for business than an untapped market. The first person/company to figure out how to make affordable meats to sell to -second-world- nations (the difference between first and second world is average household meat consumption) is going to be quite wealthy in a short order of time. Much like the people who ground up unused parts of animals and packaged it into hot-dogs and SPAM.

Business is a relationship that requires respect to work. Each party exchanges something of value. I don't have time to raise my own cows, kill them, and process my own meat (on top of all the other responsibilities I have) - exchanging something of common accepted value for meat that someone else has already acquired and processed allows me to focus on other aspects of life (such as wiring people's homes). Since they now have something of value - they can now exchange it for things in their life that they cannot reasonably accomplish on their own (perhaps they pay someone to mow their lawn and another person to fix the septic tank).

Corporations don't change the relationship, really - though they do seem a bit less personal - a likely reason they are the target of such unfounded suspicion.

All this is for is for finding new revenue streams.

Not really. The price of setting up such meat producing facilities combined with the marketing effort it would require to make any kind of market penetration into established markets makes the entire proposal very unattractive from a business standpoint.

It has nothing to do with benefiting man-kind.

That is an impossible accusation of business. All business is centered around the exchange of goods and services that people lack to fulfil their goals in life. Thus, the goal of business is to improve the lives of everyone involved. It can be expected that there will be disagreement over exactly how valuable a business/person's contributions are - but you cannot sell someone something they do not want, or cannot pay for.

If man is to expand beyond earth, then I think the food supply will be with 'meals-in-a-pill', not lab grown meat.

Tablets are insufficient. They suffer from the same problems as liquid diets and those lacking fiber. By time you were to structure a tablet so as to not cause these problems, you may as well eat the plant and animal matter it is based off of.

Capitalism has a lot to answer for, human greed is ruining this planet.

Capitalism is not interchangeable with greed. Anti-capitalism, however, can be said to be fueled by envy.

The greatest evils of capitalism pale in comparison to the envious greed that seeks to dictate the assets and lifestyle of another human being. Wanting someone to pay "their fair share" is the pinnacle of human arrogance and greed to suggest that one being is worthy of judging fairness and value of another's existence.

Honestly, I'm not a fan of "consumerism". But if lab-grown meat taste just as good or better than animals, serve me up one! As long as it doesn't move on its own, I'm good.

Originally posted by Aim64C
Eh, I'll bite. Deny ignorance, right?

No offence, but as you are american, you are indoctrinated from birth to believe life is all about the 'American Dream', make more money, be competitive, think about yourself, not about others, more more more, greed. Look at the world around you, instead of just your own country. See what multinationals are doing to the word in the race for profits to satisfy their share holders. Whether it be soft drink manufacturers damaging water supplies, or sports clothing manufacturers paying minute wages to keep their costs down.

Where is the compassion? Where is the empathy towards our fellow humans? You claim the goal of business is to improve the lives of everyone. Try telling that to the Australian lady who has to pay out $1500 a month for pills.Australian Womans pays $1500/mnth to stay alive

Sorry to be so blunt, but if you actually think big business are operating in the best interests of the people, then you are completely ignorant of the world around you.

Deny Ignorance? Yes.

Here's the problem with this "test to make sure it's safe" nonsense with food and "does it shorten my lifespan by four years?" - our bodies, and the foods we eat, are so enormously diverse as to make most studies almost useless in terms of cause/effect determination.

Well, in actual fact its not nonsense. You are comparing apples and oranges. Your tea example is a chemical reaction, tea has been around for hundreds, if not thousands of years, its fair to say it has had a good testing. Growing muscle in a lab is very different from mixing a bit of milk or lemon with tea.

It's absolutely futile.

Correct, so why take the chance? What's wrong with living within our means? Instead of looking at ways of trying to meet future demand, why not find ways of reducing that demand?

Corporations don't change the relationship, really - though they do seem a bit less personal - a likely reason they are the target of such unfounded suspicion.

Or well founded suspicion. Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, what was the concern? Share prices? Or the environment?
Has BP et all tried to protect themselves, or the people and environment they have ruined?

Not really. The price of setting up such meat producing facilities combined with the marketing effort it would require to make any kind of market penetration into established markets makes the entire proposal very unattractive from a business standpoint.

Once you have cornered the market. Own the patents. Perfected the process. You control the costs. If it was so unattractive, a business wouldn't do it. Businesses are about making money.

That is an impossible accusation of business. All business is centered around the exchange of goods and services that people lack to fulfil their goals in life. Thus, the goal of business is to improve the lives of everyone involved. It can be expected that there will be disagreement over exactly how valuable a business/person's contributions are - but you cannot sell someone something they do not want, or cannot pay for.

Its a perfectly just accusation. If it was about benefiting mankind we would all be working as one. We would all be sharing what we have. We would all be living like kings and queens. There wouldn't be people starving in Africa at the same time as the average American sits down to a single dinner plate that contains more food than an African see's in a week.

Tablets are insufficient. They suffer from the same problems as liquid diets and those lacking fiber. By time you were to structure a tablet so as to not cause these problems, you may as well eat the plant and animal matter it is based off of.

Insufficient at the moment maybe. But then by the time we have the ability to expand beyond the boundaries of this planet, who knows what will be possible? Not you, nor me. There is no reason at all why a small pill cannot contain everything the body needs.

Capitalism is not interchangeable with greed. Anti-capitalism, however, can be said to be fueled by envy.

Completely ridiculous comment. Anti-capitalism is in no way fueled by envy, it is about equality, everyone having an equal chance, everyone viewed as being equal. If it was about envy, an anti-capitalist would simply become capitalist and quench their greed thirst. Capitalism is interchangeable with greed. But, believe whatever helps you sleep at night.

The greatest evils of capitalism pale in comparison to the envious greed that seeks to dictate the assets and lifestyle of another human being. Wanting someone to pay "their fair share" is the pinnacle of human arrogance and greed to suggest that one being is worthy of judging fairness and value of another's existence.

Absolute nonsense. This envious greed would just encourage those who are envious to try and equal or better those they are envious of. They would in effect become capitalist.
We are born with nothing. We don't choose what style of life we are born into. We could just as easily be born into a pauper's life as to be born into a wealthy life. Where is the equality? Do the poor have an equal chance of succeeding, an equal chance of an excellent education as the wealthy? Come on, open your eyes.

When we die we take nothing with us.

Nice meeting you Mr Capitalist-Businessman.