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People are also trying to make meat without animals, by culturing animal tissues outside of an animal. You can see on a number of previous HN threads on this to
by schoen 9y ago
People are also trying to make meat without animals, by culturing animal tissues outside of an animal. You can see on a number of previous HN threads on this topic that a lot of animal advocacy groups have been forming a consensus about supporting these. I don't think any limits have been established on their eventual "realism" or biological similarity to tissues grown inside an animal.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat for a lot of interesting ideas and references.
- kawsper 9y agoAs that Wikipedia article mentions we would need a plant-based growth medium to get the meat to grow. Today they are using fetal bovine serum as a growth medium, which is both expensive and it is a by-product from the dairy industry. When a cow coming for slaughter is identified to be pregnant, the cow is slaughtered and bled, and the fetus is removed from the mother and brought into a blood collection facility. The fetus, which is kept alive alive during the following process to ensure blood quality, has a needle inserted into its beating heart. The blood is then drained until the fetus dies. The whole process takes about 5 minutes. The blood is then refined and filtered, and the resulting extract is fetal bovine serum. Until we no longer extract fetuses, I can't see many animal advocacy groups being that positive about it.
- KitDuncan 9y agoI am a vegan and I am aware of the use of fetal bovine serum and I am all for it. Still way better than slaughtering billions of animals every year. Until we have a plant-based growth medium I won't eat any fake meat myself though.
- schoen 9y agoI didn't know about this aspect; thanks for pointing it out. Do you know how plausible alternatives would be? I guess the chemistry of the serum is pretty specific and maybe challenging to replicate, as in human blood transfusions most blood products are taken from a human donor rather than synthesized.
- kawsper 9y agoI don't know, sorry. But I know it is an area that is currently receiving a lot of research because of how expensive the serum is.