Many SF novels talk about ‘vat’ grown meats… And apparently they are now here…
Purveyors of lab-grown meat — who prefer the term “cell-cultivated,” to avoid the mad-scientist-with-a-test-tube image — foresee a world where our plates are full of steak but animal slaughter is largely a thing of the past.
Why it matters: Investors are pouring money into the sector and its promise of cruelty-free meals that are (maybe) better for the environment, but many unknowns remain.
- For now, meat grown from animal cells is only available in the U.S. in very limited quantities at two high-end restaurants.
- Chicken is the first proof-of-concept product, and while the taste is familiar, the texture is a work in progress.
- It remains to be seen if the technology to “grow” meat at scale will prove economical — and if consumers will welcome the results.
- “It is unmistakable that this is chicken or beef,” said Uma Valeti, the CEO of Upside Foods, which made some of the first cultivated meatballs, chicken and duck.
- “All the fundamental building blocks come from cells,” he told Axios. “We get cells from the animal or eggs — all we need is a drop.”
Full article HERE from Axios.com
Welp, ‘I’ for one, won’t be paying $70 to $150 to ‘try’ small bites of this stuff.
I can’t help but wonder if this is going to go the same way ‘plant based’ meat has gone, and no, I haven’t tried any of that either.
Of course if various governments get their way about how much farm and ranch land is available, we may not have a choice…
What is the raw material for the ‘cells’ and where does it come from. Depending on the source, vat grown meat, with a mad scientist making it might be fairly accurate. I also won’t be paying that price, and if it doesn’t come down to significantly less than real meat, I don’t expect most people will either.
Steve nailed it.
And what about recycling?
“Soylent green is people!”
Yup. Soylent green does come to mind.
I can see that in the future when they slaughter all the cattle and cows and chickens to attempt to stop the false global warming that they then will turn to cells from deceased humans to make the meat for living humans to dine on. Soylent Green anybody?
“…slaughter all the cattle and cows and chickens…”
Wouldn’t be the first time. By 1871, buffalo hides were worth as much as $3. And to further stir the pot–
https://www.blackstone.com/news/press/blackstone-to-acquire-ancestry-leading-online-family-history-business-for-4-7-billion/
If the manufacturer paid me a couple hundred, I’d consider trying it.
But maybe not.
Cells may be cells, but cells in a healthy animal have an immune system that prevents excessive contamination with cells harmful to ingest. (We select out unhealthy animals.) There is stuff we know about process with animals, that we get for free, that we do not know to need to replace in absence fo the animal. Then, weird carcinogenic effects. Scale up issues. I’m not so confident that the mad ignorant technocratic leadership would not also push this technology well before it is anywhere near there, much less safe.
Lab grown “meat” will provide the opportunity for evil people to introduced all manner of experimental drugs and poisons into society for all manner of nefarious purposes.
I really don’t trust anything done for the environment. I doubt this will have the nutritional value of the real thing, nor will the process be as efficient as a living animal at turning the inputs into protein.
When artificial fibre became common and cheap, the wool industry responded by creating a brand that is well-known and patented. Buy something with that label and you can be confident that you are getting what you pay for.
I’ll be stunned if the red meat industry does not respond in the same way.
There will always be those who will buy junk-food, just as there are people who will buy clothing without regard to what goes into it. Those of us who care about our food will do what adults do….. Read. The. Label.
No Frankenfoods for me….
All- Thanks for the comments, and yes, there ‘are’ issues… MANY issues. RHT- One wonders ‘why’ they want that so badly!
The world economic forum types want absolute control and have stated that they want to reduce population. What better way than to totally undermine agriculture and then have industrial accidents. Sorry that you are all starving. Of course the real elite will be eating Kobe beaf and all the fixings if something doesn’t happen to fix things. Personally I’m praying regularly.
“Let them eat cake?”
Remember what followed.
At 78 I don’t have time to wait for any long term studies, so I won’t partake.
I tried a veggie burger sometime back. Don’t remember where or when, probably because the brain tries to block out traumatic experiences.
Hammer- Look at the number of ‘processing plants’ that have burned in the last year…
Bob- Me neither…
My view is when my boss came in one day at lunch and said to everyone, “I eating an Impossible Burger, you know the plant burger and it tastes just like meat.” I said, “I eat cow, am not a cow.” and he shut up.
In theory I’m fine with vat meat. I’m not at all a vegetarian but I do think that causing animals suffering while raising them for food is not morally wonderful so if it were to replace some of the really unpleasant low-end factory pork/chicken producers and the like that would be good.
OTOH there are massive numbers of ways the end product goes wrong and that could be bad (even excluding deliberately introducing drugs of some sort). And unlike actual animals, if you have a failure you can’t simply wait a year (or less) for the next generation of birds or animals to be born/hatched. So it has nasty failure modes, is dependent on a more complex supply chain, and for all we know will have sufficient subtle differences to real animal protein that it induces some weird disease – the word prion comes to mind for some reason.
I’m strongly in favor of rich people paying $100+ to test it though
So hideous.