As a thinking experiment, let us consider that on the 1st of January of 2025 it is announced that an advance making possible growing any kind of animal tissue in laboratory conditions as been achieved and that it is possible to scale it in order to achieve industrial grade production level.
There is no limit on which animal tissues can be grown, so, any species is achieveable, only being needed a small cell sample from an animal to start productio, and the cultivated tissues are safe for consumption.
There won’t be any perceiveable price change to the end consummer, as the growing is a complex and labour intensive process, requiring specialized equipments and personnel.
Would you change to this new diet option?
I’d want to try some exotic synthetic meats you can’t or shouldn’t get anymore like dodo or dolphin. I wouldn’t have the stomach to try it but you can bet there’ll be some market for synthetic long pig. For normal consumption though I don’t eat much meat now so I’d probably just go with whichever if there’s no difference in cost or calories.
I am extremely unkeen on handing control of all food production to large corporations.
Agreed!
Is this really up for debate?
Florida bans lab-grown meat, adding to similar efforts in three other states
Much like with the fossil fuel industry squeezing out renewable energies at every opportunity, I suspect we’re going to see the powerful agricultural lobbies shut down competitors until the owners of these big businesses can insert themselves as the sole proprietors of the lab meat industry.
On the flip side, retailers are going to want to drive down their costs, so they’ll only switch when the price drops below the current floor set by firms like Tycoon and Cargill. But once it does… you’ll be foolish to assume what you’re eating isn’t lab grown if it means a business increasing its profits.
The end result will be people who want lab meat finding themselves prohibited from buying it and people who don’t want lab meat unwittingly consuming it.
There exists a world outside corpo US. Like europe which has better competition in every way. Even ads are better here than in the US.
europe which has better competition in every way
M&A is coming for Europe in a big way as the neoliberal policies of the states seep in through all the cracks. 2025 is gearing up to be a big year for Euro bank consolidation. We’ve already seen a lot of the industrial sector hollowed out of the Southern EU states and consolidated in Germany. Crackups like what happened in Yugoslavia in the 90s and border wars like what we’re seeing with Ukraine/Russia have also immolated domestic industry in a way we haven’t seen since the Years of Lead.
Even ads are better here than in the US.
We’ll see how long that lasts. If the UK is a bellweather, it looks like the Elon-ification of your economy is just a matter of time.
European sad agreeing noises
As long as it scaled to reasonably the same price as current meat, I’d absolutely do it unless there were some significant downsides like it somehow being even worse for the environment.
This ^
If it’s better for the environment and doesn’t involve the industrial scale poor treatment and wanton slaughter of animals, AND it tastes just as good, I’d be on-board instantly. Even with a premium price hike for consistency.
Roll on quality facon, wagu beeef, and octo-chi k en drumsticks.
I do think that flora missed a trick with vegan, fake meats though…
“I can’t believe it’s not bacon/ burger/ chicken” they would have slaughtered that ad campaign
It already exists. We need to be pouring subsidies into it. I would absolutely switch, if it was widely available.
Not only is it better for the environment, but it’s also not loaded with antibiotics or been exposed to fecal matter at the farm.
1st of January of 2025 it is announced that an advance making possible growing any kind of animal tissue in laboratory conditions
Let me tell ya.
Which protein? Sonic hedgehog? Tell genetic engieneers what protein you want, and they will make yeast make that protein. Or ecoli. Or rice. Or tomato. Or anything else.
Reminder that the meat you buy at the grocery store is as also as human modified as it gets and NOTHING like the wild game that our ancestors ate. The animal itself is probably GMO, spends its entire life in a steel cage standing in its own shit and piss and is given specialized, highly processed feed to optimize how much meat it produces (or just has a tube down its throat so we don’t have to worry about it eating fast enough). Not to mention tons of antibiotics that are given to the animal just to ensure it survives the hell we put them through which definitely makes it into the meat and therefore into you as well. And they’re slaughtered and butchered by underpaid overworked factory workers who have to balance fulfilling brutal quotas with carefully extracting the meat and not getting it contaminated with shit from the animal’s guts or the myriad other disgusting things around the meat that you wouldn’t want to eat (you can guess how well that usually goes).
Animal cells (without the animal itself and also no central nervous system to experience suffering) growing in a clean, well controlled lab in tanks of sterile cell media doesn’t sound so bad in comparison.
Additional reminder that nearly all of the worst infectious diseases in history have been caused partially or completely by animal agriculture: the plague, spanish flu, smallpox, whooping cough, swine flu, bird flu, covid, etc. So if you’re worried about the long term health implications of lab grown meat, you should be ten times more worried about long term the health implications of regular meat, to the point where you should be worried even if you don’t eat meat.
Impossible Burgers already exist and are fucking delicious.
But, sure, if I can have pastrami or corned beef again without requiring a cow experience a life full of torment, emit a cow’s lifetime of methane, or have any of that happen where a forest should instead have been left untouched, I’d try it!
I had some impossible patty from restaurants and it’s actually not bad and fairly close to meat flavor.
The beyond stuff is a hard pass.
I’d rather go vegan. Falafel all the way.
If it was healthy, affordable, and tasty, then yes.
If it isn’t all three, then Veganism can continue to go fuck itself.
You are not limited to meat and lab-created meat, you know? Vegetarians can tell you to eat eggs and cheese if you want. Vegans will tell you that there are large varieties of plant-based proteins, amongst: lentils, soy, whole cereals, even green vegetables. While these tend to not be as complete nor bio-available as meat or eggs, if you combine them you can have various, delicious and protein-rich meals. I am personally working out a lot and my mostly vegan diet (some eggs and cheese from time to time) is enough for my protein needs.
I mean, if your goal is to keep the meat experience, then yeah, I get your point. But other than that…
Because Veganism is yet another new age fad diet based in pseudoscience and I will have no part in it. It’s just Einstein Pain Wave nonsense.
People showing empathy towards animals and their living condition isn’t exactly what I would label pseudoscience. It has nothing to do with science to begin with
I mean, if your goal is to keep the meat experience, then yeah, I get your point.
I think that was indeed very obviously the point. The point of both the comment you were replying to and this lab grown meat idea as a whole.
I’m not really good with obvious subtexts, I’m sorry ^^
Cutting down on eating meat is as good as going vegan
Villianising anyone and everyone who even so much as touches a chicken breast is a damn blunder and totally puts me off against the community
Then again, most vegans that are decent wouldn’t be pushy and tell people they’re vegan
Why would I ever cut down on meat though? It’s filling, delicious, and the reason why humans evolved intelligence in the first place.
Because humans found similar delicious alternatives?
I mean, it’s your choice and Europe and America heavily depend on a meat based diet with the exception of bread
I’d try it if the price came down. Fake meat is in the store now but I still eat the real thing. Maybe the current stuff isn’t what OP is talking about.
I’ve been vegan for almost 25 years, and vegetarian for couple years before that… and I’d be happy it existed, but I wouldn’t eat it. I don’t miss meat, and the idea of eating any of it just grosses me out.
Same, I get why beyond meat exists but I can’t touch the stuff myself and it sucks when that’s the only option available
I actually like Beyond/Impossible lol. I guess for me it’s about knowing that it’s made out of vegetables.
If I could afford it yeah of course
Jesus, people bitch about processed foods but have no issues with whatever shit has to be put into this to make it grow?
Most that bitch about processed foods have no idea what “processed” actually means.
Most of the ‘chemicals’ they’re worried about occur naturally at quantity in plants and fruit.
The lab-grown meat uses the same organics that happen in the animal to trigger growth.
That said, price-wise, real meat will have to become very very expensive before lab-grown meat will be competitive. Breeding cattle is expensive, but a lot of it is just making sure life happens. Cows are hearty, self feed and have immune systems.
That said, price-wise, real meat will have to become very very expensive before lab-grown meat will be competitive.
At least in the U.S., meat production/pricing is heavily subsidized.
That article is highly suspect. The prices of beef cows sans tax credits is readily available, as is the average meat yield. A Big Mac uses 1/5 of a pound of lean cooked meat (2x 1.6 oz patties). So let’s be generous assume that it’s one quarter pound uncooked. $30 per quarter pound would put your average beef cow up around $54,000. At that price, The farmers would be getting 1 million a year per 19 head of cattle.
And all that’s assuming that we’re just grounding up all the random beef into ground beef. Ground beef is generally taken from the trimmings of the steaks and roasts or we’re volume is required at least the cheapest of the roasts.
Certainly the subsidy is there, But it’s more like pennies on the dollar rather than dollars on the penny.
$30 per quarter pound
The second sentence of the article gives $30 as the unsubsidized price of one pound of hamburger meat, not 1/5 pound. You have to read it more carefully if you want to get into the details.
Setting aside the details for a minute, how would a subsidy of only pennies on the dollar even be plausible? One purpose of agricultural subsidies is to stabilize prices; pennies on the dollar can’t do that.
