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The ethical argument for the adoption of artificial beef is always brought out during these stories. But they forget to mention that the lab grown meat only co
by qyv 10y ago
The ethical argument for the adoption of artificial beef is always brought out during these stories. But they forget to mention that the lab grown meat only contains lean meat cells and in order to make it taste good they need to add animal fat. As in, fat from farmed and slaughtered animals.
- pen2l 10y agoShouldn't creating artificial fat be easier than creating artificial meat? (I confess I have the impression that it would be easier based on a mere hunch... fat just seems less "complicated")
- iaw 10y agoWith zero knowledge on the subject my guess would be that they've focused on the protein structure and not the fat structures in their efforts. I suspect there are a lot of similarly shaped fat structures that taste differently which makes it seem like a similar but different problem. In short, my guess would be that they need to focus on that after they solve this problem. The value of the meat is probably higher than that of the fat though so the ordering makes sense.
- tootie 10y agoCan't you use plant fat?
- xyzzy123 10y agoYep, or just cook in butter.
- tootie 10y agoWell, that's animal fat. Which is his complaint that this will still require raising cows.
- dan1234 10y agoTraditional butter is made by churning milk, so while a cow is still required, it doesn't need to be slaughtered to make the burger. I wonder if it would be possible to cook it in soy butter?
- jholman 10y agoGiven that soy butter is marketed as similar to peanut butter, and has about 1/3 the fat of butter, I'm gonna go with "probably not and what were you thinking?" (I mean, sure, it's possible to cook your lean beef in peanut butter, so fine, technically "yes it's possible")
- tootie 10y agoI know it's culinary heresy, but unless you're eating it raw (like spread on a piece of baguette) it doesn't matter much what kind of fat you cook with in most preparations. If you were to take 99% lean ground beef right now and soak it with a few spoons of olive oil or canola, it would probably be pretty rich and moist.
- 6502nerdface 10y agoThe kind of fat does matter for cooking and flavor. Different smoke points, water contents, caramels, etc. Much as crisco was developed in the early 20th c as a vegetable-based substitute for lard, someone could develop something crisco-like but specifically formulated to be marbled together with vat meat, and to sizzle within roughly the same parameters as steak fat.
- nooyurrsdey 10y agodo you think there will be a way to replace actual animal fat over time with another source? Is it cost holding it back or is it scientifically infeasible?
- stupidcar 10y agoHuman fat. Just build the meat lab next to a liposuction clinic. Problem solved. In fact, if you build a burger joint there as well, you've got a perfect Fat Cycle. People can go to the clinic to get their flab hoovered off, then head into the restaurant and eat it all back in burger form.
- hkhall 10y agoThanks Tyler.
- trentmb 10y agoAt least its fat neutral
- ordinary 10y agoA couple of days ago, I got a DVD-R in my mailbox. When I looked at was on it, it appeared to be a list of conspiracy theory videos. The file names of several of these alleged that aborted fetuses (human) were used in the meat industry, by McDonalds specifically. I decided not to watch them.