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Coming soon: chicken meat without slaughter
- jacquesm 11y agoChicken Little comes home to roost. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1002 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1002
- ars 11y agoThis announcement is a little early. They should wait till they actually start working on it. Or maybe this is really actually a call for volunteers to work with them.
- yeukhon 11y agoI am not a cook / chef, so I don't know exactly how to translate my understanding to proper words here. A lot of people prefer fresh meat over frozen meat for the true flavor of the meat. The meat produced from a lamb running around all day vs from a lamb confined in a tiny space are very different. If you just want meat like cheap McDonald hamburgers, cultured meat is probably okay (assuming the scientists are able to add taste to cultured meat, last I read a few years back they said the meat taste like plastic [1]...). Also looking at the meat produced in the lab, the meat look gross... [1]: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/08/lab_grown_meat_will_never_taste_right_it_s_a_waste_of_time.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/201...
- kevindeasis 11y agoThat article was from 2013 I can't remember exactly, but I think it was Chamath Palihapitiya that funded a startup that does lab-grown meat. The fascinating thing is that they realized it is so hard to differentiate the lab-grown meat from actual slaughtered meat. I'll be right back and find that article. Edit: I can't find the article and I don't know who owns that startup. Most of the sources I find are from link where I am not sure if they are reliable: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/15/impossible-burger-our-test-tube-meat-tastes-great.html http://www.cnbc.com/2015/05/15/impossible-burger-our-test-tu... http://www.techinsider.io/impossible-foods-cheeseburger-backed-by-bill-gates-2015-10 http://www.techinsider.io/impossible-foods-cheeseburger-back...
- rch 11y agoSome of the most desirable traits of beef could actually be easier to reproduce in a controlled environment. I could imagine that once perfected, steaks produced in this way might be exceptionally tender.
- yeukhon 11y agoAh tender is the word. I am not sure, we have to see. My gut says there will still be some difference in tenderness and in the flavor of the meat.
- XorNot 11y agoAs someone who feels he should be vegetarian but is ultimately not into vegetables enough to actually do it, I'm all for this. Put it supermarkets and it'll be the only meat I'll buy.
- necessity 11y agoEat at a good vegetarian restaurant, you'd be surprised with the amount of tasty non-salad dishes that can be made without meat. Where I used to eat there were fantastic lasagnas, various kinds of pasta with various sauces, and some classical "meat-centered" dishes with seasoned "soy beef" to emulate meat -- which of course comes nowhere near real beef, but isn't all that bad. Lots of salad too, of course. If you're lactose intolerant then you'd probably have to cook your own dishes using lactose-free dairy products. If you're vegan than I wouldn’t know what to recommend.
- SwellJoe 11y agoMost reasonably large cities have at least a couple of really good vegetarian restaurants, and some have a couple of really good vegan restaurants. Asian restaurants are historically the strongest on this front, but, I've seen an upsurge in the past decade in much broader options (I've been vegetarian, occasional vegan, for 22 years). But, almost any Asian restaurant has tofu options on the menu that are probably vegan and are probably delicious. I'm back to traveling full-time (I did it for four years in a motorhome, and have hit the road again in a travel trailer), in very remote locations, and small towns almost never have vegan or vegetarian restaurants. So, I go for Chinese, when I want to go out. There's nearly always at least a couple of delicious options on the menu. Honestly, I would choose tofu over meat in almost any Asian dish. It's just a nicer texture when prepared well and picks up the flavor of the dish.
- vidarh 11y agoThe "almost any Asian restaurant" really depends on where you are. Especially Chinese, because of the massive regional adaptations of Chinese food (e.g. the same "Chinese" dishes in California, London, Oslo or Beijing can look and taste like entirely different dishes - I still find the constant presence of oranges in a lot of "California Chinese" food hilarious, for example). I live London, and while I have no interest in vegetarian food, the few times I've been out with vegetarians to Chinese restaurants in London for example, it's been an exercise in frustration to the point that I won't do it again, because many places you'll ask if disk x is vegetarian, get told it is, order it and find out that it's full of shrimp or covered in fish powder, or cooked in animal fats, and when you bring it up with them they're confused and appear to not understand that this means the dish isn't vegetarian... I've been to Chinese restaurants where finding any vegetarian dishes other than plain boiled rice has been almost impossible. (as for tofu.... I'd rather starve; I can stomach it in small quantities in addition to something else, but I can't handle it as a meat replacement)
- FrankenPC 11y agoThere's so much to good meat: fats, amino acids, natural flavors, curing, etc. I suppose to the McNugget crowd, this will be awesome.
- such_a_casual 11y agoGood for all of us. It'll drive down the cost of meat and eliminate the need to dedicate tons of resources to raising livestock (if you read the article, it claims half of all land mass is dedicated to livestock and their food. it also claims that 1/3rd of our fresh water goes to that as well). If you don't see this as a win for everyone, you aren't thinking hard enough.
- SwellJoe 11y agoAntibiotics (and the antibiotic resistant bacteria we now enjoy because of the ocean of antibiotics used in meat farming), hormones, environmental destruction on a scale only matched by the fossil fuels industry, and increased risk of a number of cancers and other age-related diseases. The vast majority of meat consumed is not "good meat", by your definition, and never will be. Consumption of good meat by all the meat eaters of the world is not ecologically or economically feasible. It is irresponsible to pretend that it is. It's worth discussing what makes "good meat" good, but it's not useful to imagine a world where several billion people can eat organic grass-fed beef every day, because that way lies destruction for all of us.
- FrankenPC 11y agoI didn't say any of that. You and another commentator are stuffing words into my mout...er comment. A more relevant point would be along the lines: Why bother? I'm 99% vegan myself. Not because I care about animal suffering (which I do) or because I care about the impact on the planet and global warming (which I also care about), but because I LOVE non-meat foods. They are cheap, easy to acquire, and delicious. This obsession with making fake meat seems like a terrible idea to begin with. It's like saying we all really want meat. We all don't because it's a terrible addiction and obsession.
- Eric_WVGG 11y ago
- Alex3917 11y agoThere are plenty of mushrooms that can substitute for meat, it's just that none of them are being commercially produced. If you had Calvatia Gigantea grown in the right soil and properly prepared I doubt many people would be able to tell the difference between that and chicken. Same with Laetiporus sulphureus, but grown on logs. Similarly I doubt many people would be able to tell the difference between beef jerky and jerky made from Grifola frondosa, even in a side-by-side comparison.
- hatmatrix 11y agoAs a cousin of mushrooms (still in the fungi family), doesn't Quorn's mycoprotein products qualify as a class that's achieved commercial success?
- the_gastropod 11y agoDo you make this yourself? Or are there products on the market? Sounds interesting.
- Alex3917 11y agoAll made myself. For the jerky I use this recipe: http://the3foragers.blogspot.com/2013/10/hen-of-woods-recipe-hen-jerky.html http://the3foragers.blogspot.com/2013/10/hen-of-woods-recipe... Except for that I substitute the regular maple syrup for smoked maple syrup from here: http://www.sugarbobsfinestkind.com/ http://www.sugarbobsfinestkind.com/ It's super easy, you just need a food dehydrator. For the chicken of the woods I usually just cook it with barbecue sauce and then throw it on pizza. And with the giant puffballs I think the best way is to slice them half an inch think, first cook them down a little in a pan and then bread and fry them and treat them like chicken parm. There are some recipes here: http://www.mssf.org/cookbook/puffballs.html http://www.mssf.org/cookbook/puffballs.html For each mushroom the basic thing to know is whether it's a mushroom that takes dairy or oil. Most of them only taste good if cooked in either butter or olive oil, but not both. Also, using veggie salt instead of regular salt tends to be key for whatever reason.
- 11y ago
- avar 11y agoRelated question since this is an Israeli foundation. What do jews and muslims think about the kosher / halal-ness of eating cultured pork if there was such a thing? I.e. do they consider the animal itself dirty, or its inherent genetic structure?
- gecko 11y agoIt's still not kosher/halal if its made from the cells of a treyf animal. Both religions already have a concept of how pork-derived things aren't religiously acceptable, and pork-derived cultured meat would obviously be an example of that. (Note that the meat they're making here really is chicken; its just a chicken cloned in such a way that only the breast grows.) That said, kosher/hallal beef "bacon" does a brisk business in NYC, so who knows.
- dogma1138 11y agoIt will never be halal as it's not butchered so it cannot be guaranteed Halal. As far as Kosher goes it's not that far but there are quite a few loopholes that could be used to classify this as not-meat, or find some way to make it Kosher. Kosher unlike Halal has different "levels" based on which organization actually gave it the certification usually, as far as I know Kosher most Kosher meat in the US are not butchered exactly according to Jewish tradition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shechita so there might be already a precedence to allow it. You probably won't see the hardcore-est Orthodox Jewry eating eat, but It will be quite viable for most observant Jews.
- Crito 11y agoI am the descendant of a countlessly long line of meat eaters. I'll stick with the slaughter version, it has worked well thus far. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
- SwellJoe 11y agoYou're also the descendant of a long line of either oppressors or oppressed (white in America=long line of oppressors). You aren't using that to excuse stealing land from your Mexican neighbor, today, I would hope. So, why use that as a reason to continue the environmental and ethical disaster that is eating meat? If you want to keep eating meat because you just don't care, say so. Don't excuse it with "the way my great granddaddy did it", because there are plenty of things about the way great granddaddy did it that are morally repugnant to us today. Unless you are also supporting slavery/segregation, returning to no legal interracial or LGBTQ marriage, a world without child labor laws, a world with no vote for women, etc. you really shouldn't use that excuse.
- nemothekid 11y ago> You aren't using that to excuse stealing land from your Mexican neighbor, today, I would hope. While I understand your statement, I read it more as he was continuing to eat meat for the health benefits, not moral ones. Of course you could then say "If all your ancestors smoked cigarettes would you too..."
- such_a_casual 11y agoWho cares if one dude wants to eat slaughtered meat? That is completely irrelevant. If fast food places like McDonalds and frozen food companies like Stouffer's get on board, it's going to make a massive difference. Plus, it means that meat will be cheaper for those who have difficulty affording it now. I don't see a need to change anyone's mind on this. Being a much cheaper product, capitalism will take care of everything.
- necessity 11y ago>the environmental and ethical disaster that is eating meat? I'd say there is arguably no environmental disaster in meat production, and even if there is, the mere act of eating meat does not imply in it, it would depend on the amount of meat eaten per person and the production scale required to supply that. The ethics of it depends on who you're talking with. Your position is not "the righteous one", it might be "the right thing to do according to X school of thought", but never an absolute ethical truth.
- richsherwood 11y agoThis is great. Currently I cook a lot with seitan which is great for a meat substitute but boy do I miss juicy beef burgers sometimes.
- richsherwood 11y agoThis is great. Currently I cook a lot with seitan which is great for a meat substitute but boy do I miss juicy beef burgers sometimes.
- richsherwood 11y agoThis is great. Currently I cook a lot with seitan which is great for a meat substitute but boy do I miss juicy beef burgers sometimes.
- allencoin 11y agoI'm looking forward to trying the real-life implementation of "ChickieNobs" from Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake.
- Paul-ish 11y agoWill the lab grown meats have the same nutritional value as meat from animals?
- onion2k 11y agoLab grown meat is meat. It's chemically identical to what you get from an animal, but it's grown in a Petri dish instead of a cow. The nutritional value is exactly the same.
- gohrt 11y agoI doubt it'd be exactly the same, since the metabolic pathways that feed the cells are different.
- dangrossman 11y agoThe "meat" you buy at the store is a hunk of muscle, fat, blood vessels, blood, nerves and connective tissue, and it's saturated in the myriad of vitamins, nutrients and other substances consumed or created by a living being. The "meat" created by this reactor is just a pile of muscle fiber. They extract a single kind of stem cell from an animal, coax it into becoming a muscle fiber, and grow lots of those fibers. Just muscle, fed by only what's in the gel it's grown on, no fat, no vasculature, no connective tissue, and without any of the substances an animal produces in other types of cells. It's not just missing a lot, either. It also has at least one thing added that "meat" doesn't necessarily: antibiotics. There's no immune system in a hunk of replicated muscle fiber, nor is this lab currently growing the tissue in a sterile environment, so it has to be treated with antibiotics. If you were to print a nutrition label for a pound of meat from the grocery store, and a pound of what this lab grows, not much on those labels would match up. Even the protein content: muscle fiber forms protein through exercise, but this slab of cells in a dish has never walked to a trough. How are they working around that? Watch for their patent filings.
- such_a_casual 11y agoYou can stimulate muscles with electricity. So I don't think that will be an issue. However, I agree that the taste won't be the same. All natural meat does not taste the same, I don't see how something grown in a petri dish could taste like every other piece of beef when not every piece of beef tastes the same. It will certainly have its own taste to it. But I think in the end, it will taste better than what we can grow naturally because all of the variables are so controlled. Maybe it will taste like shit when it first comes out, but I'm sure they will engineer a way to make it taste better. They will be able to manipulate the nutritional information as well.
- ilaksh 11y agoThey don't mention how they get the fetal bovine serum used to grow the meat.
- webkike 11y agoBut what about the actual shape of the cut of meat? I doubt if I buy a cultured thigh of chicken I'd get it with the skin and bones, for some reason, although my biotechnical knowledge is lacking. These things are essential for cooking so a future where all out meat is literally just large slabs of flesh would be unenjoyable.
- pcmaffey 11y agoSlaughter has never been the negative side of raising animals. It is in fact, the slaughtering of an animal that teaches us to respect it, to honor its life given, and ensure that we provide as humane a life and death as possible. Distancing ourselves from the hard work of growing, raising, and killing our own food creates an enormous gap in cultural awareness about where our life energy comes from. This is clearly seen with the impact of industrial farming. Widening the gap IMO is the wrong direction to go. Of course, we will go there because we are human and we can. But I fear for the consequences as we distance ourselves further and further from the natural world. Garbage in, garbage out.
- sebular 11y agoI'm pretty sure most people would disagree with you. People who choose vegetarianism for conscientious reasons don't do it because we've distanced ourselves from our sources of meat, they do it because we slaughter and torture an unthinkably large number of living beings in order to get a chicken bacon sandwich. Some people lament what you're talking about, and they do it equally for raising livestock as well as growing and harvesting our own fruits and vegetables. That growing distance between us and our food production is certainly an issue, but it's the infinitely lesser one compared to the violence of meat consumption. Given that humans crave the types of food they crave, I don't see lab-grown meat as anything but a pure win for science, humanity, and all living beings. In my mind, it's an achievement on par with fire, the wheel, electricity, antibiotics/sterilization, and the internet.
- pcmaffey 11y agoI certainly understand this POV, as I once held it, until living and working on an off-grid farm. My point is that the abhorrence towards animal slaughter has more to do with the industrialized process, and the poor treatment of animals because of mass market demands, then the fact that animals are killed. Animals can be raised and killed in a humane way, and doing so teaches us about the natural cycle of life, a reminder of our mortality. We can certainly choose to abstain from that cycle. But as you say, humans crave the foods they crave. I will venture a guess and say that lab-grown meat will not satisfy that craving. Like GMO tomatoes, it may appear all the same, but beneath the shiny appearance of a solution will be a vacuous gap in substance. We can erode our "food pyramid" with cheap, artificial solutions, or we can do the real work of (1) creating sustainable, humane food systems, and (2) educating people about healthy diets and thus curbing the global craving for flesh. Lastly, what will happen to all the chickens, pigs, cows, etc of the world? Like horses, they will become domestic novelties. People like me will raise them and give them a good life, while their world population shrinks to negligence, until eventually, they are forgotten to extinction, but for the symbolic names of their imitation meat. "Chicken" will be a brand, an algorithm that only slightly differs from the "Steak" algorithm.
- NH_2 11y agoI get that lab meat is largely considered a transcendent technological solution to the ethical dilemma of slaughtering livestock, but at the same time I can't help but think that this dooms chickens and cows to obsoletion and eventual extinction.
- sfilipov 11y agoI think the demand for real chicken/beef will go down but there always will be people who buy "organic", "real", etc.
- Falling3 11y agoI'd love to see existing meat subsidies moved to either vegetables or lab-grown meat. That would certainly help to further shrink the market of people who need the "real" stuff.
- CaptSpify 11y agoIs that a bad thing? Weren't they basically bred into their current state simply because it makes them easy for us to consume?
- Falling3 11y agoWhat's wrong with that? Species shouldn't exist at the expense of the individuals it comprises.
- RogtamBar 11y agoSame is true for humanity. Technology marching on is dooming us to becoming obsolete. Already there are people who are effectively unemployable. Once this is extended to the majority.. it won't be pretty. Life of leisure has driven even high-status people bonkers. Once it is a mass phenomenon, it's not going to be pretty.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoIn the long run, I think fake meat (both the in vitro stuff and the industrial stuff) has serious disadvantages over foods properly prepared from whole ingredients whose ultimate form happens to be vegan. If that's true, I figure why not go straight for the endgame and help people get their hands on that stuff. Lots of space for innovation there.
- Falling3 11y agoI'm interested in this from the animal rights perspective. I don't doubt that a breakthrough in this area would help us bring about a drastic decrease in animals slaughtered for consumption so I welcome it.
- dennisgorelik 11y agoIf artificial chicken meat is successful - it would dramatically reduce chickens population.