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I am really really excited about lab grown meat making it into the mass market and ultimately becoming cheaper than traditional meat. The environmental benefits
by VelNZ 10y ago
I am really really excited about lab grown meat making it into the mass market and ultimately becoming cheaper than traditional meat. The environmental benefits will be insane; how much of the earth is currently devoted to either raising animals or growing feed to feed animals? If we can centralise the production of meat, suddenly we have huge swathes of land that, perhaps naively, I hope can be reforested.
- dilemma 10y ago>If we can centralise the production of meat Sounds like a huge disease risk.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoYou should tour a factory farming operation. Lab grown meat could be as safe as vaccine production; both done in controlled, sterile environments. EDIT: Seriously though, don't do the tour if you ever want to eat meat again. Doubly so for walking a slaughterhouse floor. There are some things you cannot unsee.
- bronson 10y agoI can't upvote this enough. If you're worried about disease, you do not want to see where your meat comes from. There's no way lab meat could ever come close to this scale of filth. (not talking about $50/lb locally slaughtered meat of course)
- dilemma 10y agoI don't doubt that the factory is going to be a grim sight. I was more thinking about the centralization aspect, which would cause massive damage if the lab covering an entire state or country was contaminated.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoMy point was that they're both centralized, but you have far more control over a lab setting (http://i.imgur.com/KW1LrLg.jpg http://i.imgur.com/KW1LrLg.jpg) than something like this: http://i.imgur.com/SDUbUBQ.jpg http://i.imgur.com/SDUbUBQ.jpg
- Retric 10y agoA factory is not going to produce a states worth of meat. Possibly a small city's worth, but Americans eat 1 billion pounds of meat per year an this stuff is going to take at least hours if not weeks to grow.
- Hupriene 10y agoI think you are off by quite a bit on how much meat Americans eat. 214.8 lbs per capita per annum * 318 million people = ~68 billion lbs per annum See: http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/statistics/per-capita-consumption-of-poultry-and-livestock-1965-to-estimated-2012-in-pounds/ http://www.nationalchickencouncil.org/about-the-industry/sta...
- Retric 10y agoThere are 50 states. So, a states worth of meat should be around a billion pounds. Granted, some states have a relatively tiny population.
- lisivka 10y agoEvery farm animal has vaccine production built-in, so it does not matter.
- toomuchtodo 10y agoThis is not true. They can produce their own antibodies, but will still become infected.
- lisivka 10y agoMost of these infections are easy to detect and cure with vitamins and antibiotics. For billions of lbs of meat consumed monthly in USA, how often this is the problem? Diseases are not a (massive) problem when animals already have quite effective immune system.
- gravypod 10y ago> how much of the earth is currently devoted to either raising animals or growing feed to feed animals Probably just as much of the Earth as will be needed to run this operation. Power, plant mass, and people aren't free resources.
- zaroth 10y agoThe energy required to sustain and grow a life form (the cow) is orders of magnitude greater than the energy in the final product (steak). A lab can improve on that ratio.
- api 10y agoNot even close. Cattle are labor and space intensive as well as guzzling feed and water. All of the latter has to be shipped via trucks and pipes.
- artifaxx 10y agoIt feels that way, but estimates look quite promising. If lab grown meat ends up using 1% of the land needed for animal production that would make a huge difference! http://phys.org/news/2011-06-lab-grown-meat-emissions-energy.html http://phys.org/news/2011-06-lab-grown-meat-emissions-energy...
- charlesdm 10y agoAm I the only one here who probably wouldn't buy artificial meat? I'm not a massive meat eater, but when I go shopping, I tend to buy better quality stuff without caring too much for the price. I'd give it a try, but would probably still buy "the real deal". > Suddenly we have huge swathes of land that, perhaps naively, I hope can be reforested. Those plots would still be owned by farmers, and planting trees on them would bring in close to zero revenue.
- jacalata 10y agoIf there's a larger benefit to planting trees, then it would make sense for the government to offer incentives to plant trees, so they could make money.
- shshhdhs 10y agoI imagine that would be a one time subsidy, not annually?
- TheGRS 10y agoForest land still needs to be maintained, at least to a degree.
- jacalata 10y agoDepends, if the benefit is from having them remain there then an annual tax credit or similar seems reasonable. You probably don't want a situation where you get paid more for annual logging and replanting then maintaining a forest in place.
- dTal 10y agoYou might, if the harvested wood were used for permanent structures. The whole operation would be a carbon sink.
- Flammy 10y ago> Those plots would still be owned by farmers, and planting trees on them would bring in close to zero revenue. There are lots of farming subsidies out there. Even subsidies for letting the land return to (and maintain it in) its "natural" state. Source: Family members do this in Iowa.
- Balgair 10y agoI'm currently looking at my bag of Cheetos and there is a largish 'warning'/statement on the back that says : "Produced with Genetic Engineering." Economics aside, I think you are going to have to put something like that on every unit of lab-meat that is sold, if not those words exactly (depends on the tech). People, for some reason, have gotten onto the 'Organic = Better' bus. Lab-meat is going to have to go against that zeitgeist. We already know that people will pay a lot more for 'organic' beef burgers, so I think we can say that the ethical issues are not in fact issues for most consumers, the health ones are though. Lab-meat, for most American consumers, is a no-go. Say McD's uses lab-meat, and they can undercut the price of a 'cheeseburger' by, what, 25%? A lot of people are still going to go to BK, as their marketers will gleefully and truthfully advertise that their burgers are 'real.' Outside of Sodexo, frozen dinners, and HotPocket, the only people that are going to buy lab-meat products are the dreadfully poor ones. A large market, unfortunately, but not one that you can reap big margins from.