NationStates Jolt Archive

This is an interesting article about lab grown meat. Could you bring yourself to eat this knowing how it was grown? You think this will catch on?

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/83C43DC5-EB8F-4504-A9D3-4E25CE6B7F05.htm

Hell yeah, I'd eat it.

I really don't see a problem with eating that. Seems better. No pollution, no cruelty to animals, no hormones/antibiotics...where's the problem?

Absolutely. The amount of processed, unnatural crap that we all eat every day is staggering. What's one more product?

I would try it, definitely.
But I seriously doubt that it will be comparable to the real thing, I can't imagine that they will be able to create quite the same texture or flavour.

If its up to scratch i'd serve it where I'm a chef

As long as it tastes like dead animal and consists of muscle cells, Im in.

The only reasons that I am a vegetarian are environmental concerns, animal cruelty, health. I don't eat meat now, but I would eat lab-grown, non-pork products.

i doubt i would go out of my way to eat it. its pretty creepy.

I'm a vegetarian, but for reasons of spiritual purity and asceticism rather than some vague "ethical" concern - so I probably wouldn't eat meat even if it was grown in a laboratory as opposed to on an animal. I'd be less likely to eat it, infact.

Does this mean the meat would be incredibly tender, as some animal hasn't been walking around toughening it up?

I'm a vegetarian and I wouldn't eat it! :)

Sure I would. It's like eating a meat flavoured gummy bear.

As long as it tastes like dead animal and consists of muscle cells, Im in.


Mmmmmm dead animal....

Meh, my meat had better be all natural!!! The very idea is...just...creepy.

Mmmmmm dead animal....
I prefer my food dead, Im not sure about you, but the twitching and screaming annoys me. Some people say it adds atmosphere, but it also means you have to eat it raw, since live animals dont cook well, they tend to struggle and such, and die before you can eat them.

I prefer my food dead, Im not sure about you, but the twitching and screaming annoys me. Some people say it adds atmosphere, but it also means you have to eat it raw, since live animals dont cook well, they tend to struggle and such, and die before you can eat them.

maybe if you just cooked like, one limb, and left the rest of the animal alone? might be a bit difficult though. You'd need some restraints, and possibly a flamethrower :p

generally, i consider anything that moves slower then me, and isnt too badly decayed a potential food source. and if im hungry, i can get pretty liberal on how i interpret 'badly decayed' so yeah, id eat it, especially if it was cheap:)

maybe if you just cooked like, one limb, and left the rest of the animal alone? might be a bit difficult though. You'd need some restraints, and possibly a flamethrower :p
I think that that would kill the animal from heat shock.
Perhaps if I used just a small butane ligher and cooked it a few inches at a time...

As the old Burger King commercial went..."Parts is Parts". I guess it wouldn't matter much to me how my hamburger or chicken nuggets were made. I don't think they're going to clone a T-Bone or a rack of back ribs anytime soon.

if I haven't drawn the line at cheese slices and fruit roll-ups, I won't be drawing the line at lab-grown meats. Hell, maybe they could even engineer some sort of turkey-chicken-pork-beef hybrid!

I would, but only because it is lab grown. For some reason, it reminds me of Dune where the Tleilaxu grew their food in tanks...

I definitely would eat that. I'd consider it safer even (as long as the lab's clean and the scientists reasonably smart). they could eliminate potential dangers such as mad cow and E. coli. Anyways, i'd eat pretty much anything.

Would it be halal?

:eek:

Sure. It can't be any worse than goat.

I wonder if we'd be able to tell if we were eating it? Would the taste & texture be any different?

As a substitute for the disgusting evil that is battery farming, I would consider it, but I'd have to have a bit more information. As it is now, I try to keep meat consumption relatively low-- rather difficult when my significant other won't eat veggies-- and buy whole organic free range chickens and chop them up myself... the cost is about the same as buying pre-cut bits if you're a fair hand with a sharp knife and you don't mind snapping a few joints.

It would definately be good on a stick

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b331/dunfee/KlavKhalash.jpg

oooooh, maybe they could replicate human meat! Don't tell me you haven't always wondered what it tastes like ;)

generally, i consider anything that moves slower then me, and isnt too badly decayed a potential food source. and if im hungry, i can get pretty liberal on how i interpret 'badly decayed' so yeah, id eat it, especially if it was cheap:)
This has nowhere near "cheap" written on it. One: it will be expensive due to teh nature of its creation, and two: it will be expensive because the government will be trying to protect the cattel and poultry industries from gonig under by meat that has pretty much no chance of being bad for you

I wonder how long it will take for a group against eating lab meat will form. People for the Ethical Treatment of Artificial Meat.

I really hope things like this catch on and replace killing animals. Knowing that meat production companies care naught for anything but profit, it seems likely.
I wouldn't eat it. I'm vegetarian and have been for a few years now - and the more I research vegetarianism the more benefits I see. The major part of it is, of course, I don't think humans have a right to decide that numerous other living things should cease to live just because they want a particular taste and texture in their mouth, and of course the environmental devastation caused by the production of meat is horrific, but there are health and body related things to take into consideration as well.
Humans aren't carnivorous animals - I know at least my mouth doesn't salivate when I see roadkill, and I wouldn't be able to hunt an animal without tools even if I wanted to. Consequently, eating meat a lot causes physical problems such as heart disease, obesity, lethargy, impotence, etc. The mental issues associated might not be relevant as far as lab grown meat goes, but eating meat can cause people to be more aggressive and violent. It's usually put down to the animal being in a shitload of pain and stress when it died (and probably its whole life), and when you eat that meat, you are taking that fear, stress and pain into your body. Of course, that might be eliminated through lab-grown meat, but still... it is muscle and flesh tissue we're not supposed to be taking into our bodies and it will still cause problems in your body.

There will always be that tradition of killing an actual animal and eating that animal in non-vegetarians, but if lab-grown meat were to take over, this would be limited to special events or other special things. It'll mean that everyday consumption of meat will come from lab-grown sources. Which means that factory farming and production-line slaughter of animals will be more or less replaced. People will still eat real meat or whatever in occasion, but lab-growing meat on a large scale will definitely have huge benefits.

Lab-growing the majority of meat is a great idea, but you have to consider that vegetarianism holds many benefits on both a physical and spiritual level, and it's always better to eat no meat, even if the meat is grown in a lab.

oooooh, maybe they could replicate human meat! Don't tell me you haven't always wondered what it tastes like ;)
Actually, that was the first type of flesh artificially grown.
It all started with a girl doing biology in university asking her lecturer if it was legal/ethical/okay to carry out a project where she artificially replicated her own flesh and ate it or served it to friends.

It sounds good, although I wonder what else they're growing in there. ^_^

oooooh, maybe they could replicate human meat! Don't tell me you haven't always wondered what it tastes like ;)


cant speak from personal experience, but iver heard it's supposed to be like pig ....'long-pork':)

kinda makes sense, we seem pretty similar to pigs...

i prefer good old-fashoned meat, right from the cow, with no intustrial crap on it

Hahahahaha. Megaloria's comment was funny until I realized it'll heppen soon enough.

So cool! I'd be all over this.

Can we have a poll?
I am currently vegetarian and I would eat it.
I am currently vegetarian and would not eat it.
I am currently omnivorous and would eat it.
I am currently omnivorous and would not eat it.

Sure, I'd eat it. It's healthy, right?

i prefer good old-fashoned meat, right from the cow, with no intustrial crap on itBeef makes humans ill if it is not aged first. Even if I weren't vegetarian, I don't think I'd want to eat "right from the cow". Lab meat sounds much more appealing to me than partially decayed cow.

Will it ooze blood when you push your fork into it? If not, then forget it. Eating meat is about remembering just how primative we really are.

(I eat loads of meat)

I would try it.

i prefer good old-fashoned meat, right from the cow, with no intustrial crap on it
With all the hormones and stuff they feed them there's no "good old-fashioned meat" anymore.

Will it ooze blood when you push your fork into it? If not, then forget it. Eating meat is about remembering just how primative we really are.

(I eat loads of meat)
It will have to be fed something to make it grow. Could as well be a blood-like substance.

I'd eat it. Hell, maybe they could "grow" the perfect steak. *grins*

Some odd things from the article:

Raising livestock requires million of gallons of water and hundreds of acres of land. Meat grown from tissue would bypass those requirements.

Only millions of gallons and only hundreds of acres? But you'll need land and water to grow plants to get the nutrients to grow the meat, won't you? Or maybe you could just process sewage, but then you'd have to replace the solar energy plants use with another source.

British physicist Alan Calvert calculated that the animals eaten by people produce 21% of the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity.

But any carbon released into the air from an animal would have to have come from a plant wich absorbed it from the air, so surely it would be a wash wouldn't it? Unless he means that 21% of fossil fuels are burnt to produce meat. (If land is cleared at a faster rate that regrowth occurs that will also contribute to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.) But the sentance says "animals eaten by people." That could just be the journalist using unfortunate wording. But then he goes on to say:

"Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels,"

Huh? So how do we save on carbon if vegetarianism doesn't reduce the use of fossil fuels? This is very odd.

It will have to be fed something to make it grow. Could as well be a blood-like substance.

Isn't there an artificial blood plasma already?

As for Megaloria's comment sounds all too likely. I bet it would be the religious fundamentalists that get behind it though. The kind that keep blathering about sanctity of life and that humans shouldn't be messing with gene codes, even for something like this.

Although it would be interesting to see how PETA reacts to this. You can't kill something that was never alive to begin with right? So since lab grown meat is not an animal per se, they would probably be unable to come to a decision. On a good day, I imagine the collective leadership would suffer from cerebral overload and have a stroke on the spot trying to figure out where this belongs. On a bad day, I imagine they would just as likely condemn it and get ALF on the firebombing campaign.

And back on topic, I don't see why not. So long as it is affordable, relatively tasty, and healthy, why shouldn't I eat it? Compared to the preservatives and hormones that are used in just about any mass farming techniques, it isn't that bad.

Meh, my meat had better be all natural!!! The very idea is...just...creepy.
Ditto. I eat as much organic food as I can. If I lived back in the country like where I grew up, I would probably grow my own animals and fruits/vegetables...just like I did as a kid. No hormones, no dangerous pesticides, no bullshit.

I say lets move right into growing lab furs! I's try the meat and wear the fur!

;) Yegh! No way! Only natural meat for me!

I say lets move right into growing lab furs! I's try the meat and wear the fur!
That's interesting... I doubt fur would be able to be grown in a lab, but leather?
Leather is a beautiful material to make things out of - it lasts ages, looks good, etc etc etc... just that it is made by torturing and killing innocent little animals.
Avoiding leather is really hard, finding non-leather shoes is near impossible. If leather were to be made in a lab... well...

I think that that would kill the animal from heat shock.
Perhaps if I used just a small butane ligher and cooked it a few inches at a time...
You wouldn't happen to work at Abu Grahaib or Guantanamo Bay, would you? :eek:

:p

Although its probably not a bad idea and may even grow to be the only logical option, as the son of a Master Butcher, the idea seems almost blasphemous to me. I really don't think I could bring myself to eat it. I'd go vegetarian before I touched that creepy stuff (I already eat only 1/5th of the amount of meat I did growing up). There's no way it could be anywhere near as good as the real thing. It would taste like it was grown in a lab. The amount of steroids and antibiotics in the meat you buy @ most places nowadays is awful enough, and I imagine with an initiative like this it would be worse yet. NO THANK YOU.

Of course I'd eat it.
If you think the meat they're eating now is all natural, you're increadibly dillusional, ingnorant or idiotic. People who wouldn't eat this voted for Bush.
Insulting others am I? Hell yeah!
There isn't enough meat currently in the world for everyone to eat meat.

The vegitarians who said they wouldn't eat this have convinced me that vegitarians are morons. Congratulations, you've done what all my friends couldn't. I can't believe that I even though vegitarians could be rational people.

Beef makes humans ill if it is not aged first. Even if I weren't vegetarian, I don't think I'd want to eat "right from the cow". Lab meat sounds much more appealing to me than partially decayed cow.
Excuse me? I don't know where THAT stupid idea came from, but my family raised our own cattle, pigs, rabbits, chickens and ducks when I was growing up. We didn't "age" ANY of our meat and I never got sick from eating it.

You wouldn't happen to work at Abu Grahaib or Guantanamo Bay, would you? :eek:

:p
I dont think anybody (sane) has accused them of cooking and eating inmates...
Yet :rolleyes:

Of course I'd eat it.
If you think the meat they're eating now is all natural, you're increadibly dillusional, ingnorant or idiotic. People who wouldn't eat this voted for Bush.
Insulting others am I? Hell yeah!
There isn't enough meat currently in the world for everyone to eat meat.

The vegitarians who said they wouldn't eat this have convinced me that vegitarians are morons. Congratulations, you've done what all my friends couldn't. I can't believe that I even though vegitarians could be rational people.
Haha, I don't like you.

Haha, I don't like you.
Haha, I don't like you either.

I dont think anybody (sane) has accused them of cooking and eating inmates...
Yet :rolleyes:
It was a FUCKING JOKE! I'm a conservative-leaning libertarian, for God's sake! :rolleyes:

Fuck yeah!

Haha, I don't like you either.
You angry little person, perhaps you should be eating less meat =P

You angry little person, perhaps you should be eating less meat =P
Heh, I acctually don't eat meat, can't stand the taste.
But I don't consider myself a vegitarian since I'm not irrational.

Heh, I acctually don't eat meat, can't stand the taste.
But I don't consider myself a vegitarian since I'm not irrational.
HAHAHAH! This is going in my sig. :D

Just like cheese production, meat production might prove to be more difficult than it seems.
For example, cheese requires very strick hygiene settings, otherwise bacteria of the wrong type invade the production line, and then you have to clean it all -- and it's very costly. Worse than that: fungus, which can establish itself and prove to be extremely hard to remove from the production lines -- spores are very resistant. One last invader is the bacteriophage or "phage", a kind of virus that ends up proliferating in cheese production tanks. It basically kills bacterias (the useful ones!) and fucks up the whole process. Once they're established, the producer will lose a whole batch of cheese, every now and then.

Now, think about this lab-grown meat.
It's basically flesh (animal cells), but without a immune system or a skin. Extremely vulnerable to ANYTHING. And it's grown in a very nutritious solution, which can be tempting for micro-organisms and bacteria. So how do you keep the harmful microorganisms away? You can't -- which means that you'll rely on -- guess what -- antibiotics!
Also, I suspect that the thin meat slice they'll produce will be processed mechanically and passed into a bleaching / cleaning bath before being packaged and sold. Just like the chicken nuggets made from "processed (and bleached) meat.

Just like cheese production, meat production might prove to be more difficult than it seems.
For example, cheese requires very strick hygiene settings, otherwise bacteria of the wrong type invade the production line, and then you have to clean it all -- and it's very costly. Worse than that: fungus, which can establish itself and prove to be extremely hard to remove from the production lines -- spores are very resistant. One last invader is the bacteriophage or "phage", a kind of virus that ends up proliferating in cheese production tanks. It basically kills bacterias (the useful ones!) and fucks up the whole process. Once they're established, the producer will lose a whole batch of cheese, every now and then.

Now, think about this lab-grown meat.
It's basically flesh (animal cells), but without a immune system or a skin. Extremely vulnerable to ANYTHING. And it's grown in a very nutritious solution, which can be tempting for micro-organisms and bacteria. So how do you keep the harmful microorganisms away? You can't -- which means that you'll rely on -- guess what -- antibiotics!
Also, I suspect that the thin meat slice they'll produce will be processed mechanically and passed into a bleaching / cleaning bath before being packaged and sold. Just like the chicken nuggets made from "processed (and bleached) meat.
If it was produced in an ultra-sterile environment it wouldn't need to be bleached or bombarded with antibiotics.
Also, naturally occurring, safe bacteria that can protect the meat from bad bacteria could be added.

If it was produced in an ultra-sterile environment
There's no such thing as a "sterile" environment.
The best we can do is clean the production line very often, with ultra-powerful cleaning solutions, but then what's the point.

Excuse me? I don't know where THAT stupid idea came from, but my family raised our own cattle, pigs, rabbits, chickens and ducks when I was growing up. We didn't "age" ANY of our meat and I never got sick from eating it.


While eating unaged meat won't neccessarily make you sick, letting hang for at least a couple days makes it much safer. I seriously doubt your family *often* ate the meat the same day you slaughtered the animal. This only applies to hoofed animals...poultry is something else entirely in regards to diseases etc.

Of course, your family may have numbered 50 and all been obese as hell, eating an entire steer for each dinner, but I doubt that. Besides, properly aged meat (especially beef) tastes MUCH better. I'm not saying your wrong or your experiences never happened, just that care must be taken with any meat for human consumption, and aging is part of it. I trump you on experience though: My father was a Master Butcher, and I worked many years with him both at his Deli and helping him select/slaughter/process the livestock that ended up on our meat counters. (All as organic as Gov't allowed...only the antibiotics req'd by law, no steriods, corn fed or free range....we had to be VERY careful about where the meat came from and everything involved in brining it to the counter for our customers) There is a far cry between raising livestock for your own consumption and preparing it for public consumption.

Of course, your family may have numbered 50 and all been obese as hell, eating an entire steer for each dinner, but I doubt that. Besides, properly aged meat (especially beef) tastes MUCH better.
Agreed! The process of aging meat is still being used in some countries such as Morocco, where they let a complete lamb carcass "dry" under the sun for a whole day. Then they prepare a slow-cooking stew, which tastes great.

Some meats age very well. You've named beef, yes, it's one of these. Then there's lamb, partridge, pheasant. I don't know for the rest. What's important is to age it before removing the skin.

Actually there's a French verb for this aging process -- "faisander". If there's a French word for it, then it's certainly a culinary "best practice"! LOL

I want a blanket of meat to wrap myself in at night.

In case anyone is interested, after an animal dies, muscle cells can continue to live for quite a while using anaerobic respiration which produces lactic acid that makes the muscles stiff. Waiting for this to breakdown (it's called hanging the meat here) makes the meat more tender. But I don't see how eating stiff, tough meat makes you sick. Besides the obvious, "This tough meat is disgusting, I feel sick."

I would, sure. I suspect it will take quite some time before you can "vat grow" a decent filet minon, but it's likely doable, and probably healthier and safer in the long run.

...is it kosher?

In case anyone is interested, after an animal dies, muscle cells can continue to live for quite a while using anaerobic respiration which produces lactic acid that makes the muscles stiff.
OMG!!!111 Noone has EVER heard of rigor mortis! CULL THE INFIDELS! :p

:headbang:

I would eat it. Its certainly more creepy to eat something that has been killed, than something that has been grown in much the same manner as a plant. I just hate those stringy bits in real meat, and meat without them would be perfect. If the taste isn't that great, you could mix it with actual animal meat.

But, even if this is a great idea, it's not going to be accepted. That's because we're governed by ecoterrorists, except in the USA, where vague "moral concerns" would prevent the acceptance of this production method. It'd take five seconds for the moralists and ecoterrorists to connect this with genetic engineering or something similar. Look what happened to nuclear power, or what is happening to genetic engineering right now. Ecoterrorists never cared about what is actually more environmentally friendly or better for people.

It would also be interesting to see whether or not this is actually better for the environment in the large scale. While animals are terrible polluters, is the production of the nutrients any better? Animal feed doesn't need much refining, but growth nutrients do.

It sounds like a fantastic idea, we can make it healthier and we dont have to kill any animals to get it.

My only concern is that fast food manufactures will use it to pack the meat with unhealthy (albeit delicious) additives. Provided a responsible company were to take this up I doubt this woyld be much of a problem.

Why not? If it tasted as good/better, I'd continue to eat it and if it didn't taste as good I'd go back to regular meat.

Interesting. I'd have to know how it tasted, but potentially it sounds good to me.

Flavor and texture are everything. If it tastes like rubber and has a texture like fiberboard, count me out.

But if I can get a medium rare burger that makes my mouth water, I really don't care if they came from a cow or not.

My hatred for cows and my desire to see them chopped for my food is trumped by my willingness to see them wiped out as obsolete.

I sure hope they don't become endangered species. :p

Consequently, eating meat a lot causes physical problems such as heart disease, obesity, lethargy, impotence, etc. The mental issues associated might not be relevant as far as lab grown meat goes, but eating meat can cause people to be more aggressive and violent. It's usually put down to the animal being in a shitload of pain and stress when it died (and probably its whole life), and when you eat that meat, you are taking that fear, stress and pain into your body. Of course, that might be eliminated through lab-grown meat, but still... it is muscle and flesh tissue we're not supposed to be taking into our bodies and it will still cause problems in your body.


Not all of those problems are caused by meat. Obesity comes more from processed foods such as chips, and other junk foods. Heart disease is another. You do know that you can get heart disease even if you don't eat the meat? Don't you?

Eating meat causes people to be more agressive and violent? You do know that Hitler was a no smoking, non drinking, vegitarian, don't you?

As to the bolded section, wtf? Could I have another serving of that delicious pain?

We're not supposed to be taking meat into our bodies? Humans are omnivores like chimps and doggies. Before mankind learned how to grow crops and harvest them, he was a meat-eater. Sure they didn't live long back then but what do you expect when you were always fighting off cougars and whatnot. Being a strict vegan can also cause problems in your body. Most vegans I run into look absolutely unhealthy (pale skin, bad complexion, etc.)

BTW Hell yeah I'll eat that science meat, it can't be any worse then the Spam I've been fed since childhood.

I'd definetly try it. whether i'd like it is a different thing altogether.

If it tastes good. Why not.

But in my opinion, it might probably taste not as good as the real thing. Best cuts are usually where the animal eats good food, gets pampered and healthy. Rather than chicken in a small coop, with all sorts of chemicals to make them fat.

I think it's worth further investigation, but it will never replace a nice fat steak, mmm steak

Not all of those problems are caused by meat. Obesity comes more from processed foods such as chips, and other junk foods. Heart disease is another. You do know that you can get heart disease even if you don't eat the meat? Don't you?

Eating meat causes people to be more agressive and violent? You do know that Hitler was a no smoking, non drinking, vegitarian, don't you?

As to the bolded section, wtf? Could I have another serving of that delicious pain?

We're not supposed to be taking meat into our bodies? Humans are omnivores like chimps and doggies. Before mankind learned how to grow crops and harvest them, he was a meat-eater. Sure they didn't live long back then but what do you expect when you were always fighting off cougars and whatnot. Being a strict vegan can also cause problems in your body. Most vegans I run into look absolutely unhealthy (pale skin, bad complexion, etc.)

BTW Hell yeah I'll eat that science meat, it can't be any worse then the Spam I've been fed since childhood.

No, hitler was violent because he was on speed and methamphetamines.
Also just a general nutcase beforehand