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Is there any indication that the "lab-grown" tissue is really produced without animal products? Most mammalian cell culture requires "serum," the non-cellular
by xkcd-sucks 9y ago
Is there any indication that the "lab-grown" tissue is really produced without animal products?
Most mammalian cell culture requires "serum," the non-cellular fraction of blood from a similar critter which contains a pretty complex mixture of growth factors, hormones etc. plus other proteiny things like collagen.
Serum-free cell culture is tricky in well characterized cell lines, and "meat" is tissue culture from cells which is tricky in itself, at production scale which is also tricky by itself. For context, pharma companies manufacturing biologics at scale do use animal serum in cultures despite animal products being a vector for contamination issues which have literally killed successful pharma companies.
Also, cell culture requires antibiotics much more than animal farming requires antibiotics, so don't expect "ethical" tissue culture groups to voluntarily minimize antibiotic usage any more than farmers do
tl;dr cells grown in labs like to eat animal products and other things that people consider unethical
Edit: If you can grow realistic muscle tissue at feeding-people scale you've accomplished something much bigger than "ethical meat." If you're just producing animal cells-- basically textureless slime-- it would be more ethical to process existing waste meat into a palatable form aka rebranding "pink slime" as "recycled meat" or something.