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What about "ethical meat"? I love meat, but I still think killing an animal for food, when you don't really have to, is an ethical gray area. Lab-grown meat i

by daenz 7y ago

What about "ethical meat"? I love meat, but I still think killing an animal for food, when you don't really have to, is an ethical gray area. Lab-grown meat is the first time we don't have to consider the ethics of killing an animal in order to eat meat.

OnlineGladiator 7y ago
Fun fact: all the lab grown meat today requires fetal bovine serum - they literally kill newborn calves and suck the juices out of their hearts to grow these meats. https://slate.com/technology/2017/07/the-gruesome-truth-about-lab-grown-meat.html https://slate.com/technology/2017/07/the-gruesome-truth-abou...
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Why not abort the fetuses?
  - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
    No idea - I assume because it's easier? This isn't my wheelhouse. I just remember when I found out I was surprised it seemed nobody else knew (at least everybody else I told seemed surprised) since it's pushed so heavily as an ethical alternative to meat and they're still killing animals to make it.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      Once the culture is started you don't have to kill more calves. Of course, accidents when growing cell cultures still happen.
      - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
        But how much meat do you get from each culture?
  - larnmar 7y ago
    It’s a peculiarity of modern American ethics that some people think that this would be significantly more ethical.
est31 7y ago
It would reduce the issue to ethics only though. Whether you agree with the ethics part or not, lab-grown meat will likely also require less resources and thus will be better for the environment (and it would also be cheaper if governments wouldn't support lifestock breeding with money). In my eyes that's the bigger advantage compared to the ethics question. For the ethical part, I personally don't agree with the "killing animal for food" part. For me, it's perfectly okay to kill an animal for food and anyone who thinks I should stop eating meat is a problem in my eyes (if you don't want to eat meat, I won't judge, but please don't judge me either). Where I do have ethical concerns though is when animals are kept in bad conditions throughout their lives to minimize price. The impact is felt by humans as well, as those conditions often involve giving the animals antibiotics which leads to super germ evolution (and those germs land in the meat we buy to finally land in humans!). Hopefully we'll have minimum standards in the future for growing animals for food. Those standards will make "real" meat more expensive but most people won't care as they can eat lab grown meat.
buboard 7y ago
the ethical bit is a small part to me. Hopefully this meat can be more nutritious, standardized, bacteria/infections/antibiotic free and overall a lot more economical as methods are improved.
- sandoooo 7y ago
  I doubt it. In fact I foresee a lot of unique long-term health problems when people start eating this as a major part of their diet. Think of it as the early versions of a huge and complicated piece of software whose coders just sort of hacked it together from reverse-engineered APIs with zero documentation.

by daenz 7y ago

OnlineGladiator 7y ago

Fun fact: all the lab grown meat today requires fetal bovine serum - they literally kill newborn calves and suck the juices out of their hearts to grow these meats. https://slate.com/technology/2017/07/the-gruesome-truth-about-lab-grown-meat.html https://slate.com/technology/2017/07/the-gruesome-truth-abou...

lonelappde 7y ago
Why not abort the fetuses?
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  No idea - I assume because it's easier? This isn't my wheelhouse. I just remember when I found out I was surprised it seemed nobody else knew (at least everybody else I told seemed surprised) since it's pushed so heavily as an ethical alternative to meat and they're still killing animals to make it.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Once the culture is started you don't have to kill more calves. Of course, accidents when growing cell cultures still happen.
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      But how much meat do you get from each culture?
- larnmar 7y ago
  It’s a peculiarity of modern American ethics that some people think that this would be significantly more ethical.

est31 7y ago

It would reduce the issue to ethics only though. Whether you agree with the ethics part or not, lab-grown meat will likely also require less resources and thus will be better for the environment (and it would also be cheaper if governments wouldn't support lifestock breeding with money). In my eyes that's the bigger advantage compared to the ethics question. For the ethical part, I personally don't agree with the "killing animal for food" part. For me, it's perfectly okay to kill an animal for food and anyone who thinks I should stop eating meat is a problem in my eyes (if you don't want to eat meat, I won't judge, but please don't judge me either). Where I do have ethical concerns though is when animals are kept in bad conditions throughout their lives to minimize price. The impact is felt by humans as well, as those conditions often involve giving the animals antibiotics which leads to super germ evolution (and those germs land in the meat we buy to finally land in humans!). Hopefully we'll have minimum standards in the future for growing animals for food. Those standards will make "real" meat more expensive but most people won't care as they can eat lab grown meat.

buboard 7y ago

the ethical bit is a small part to me. Hopefully this meat can be more nutritious, standardized, bacteria/infections/antibiotic free and overall a lot more economical as methods are improved.

sandoooo 7y ago
I doubt it. In fact I foresee a lot of unique long-term health problems when people start eating this as a major part of their diet. Think of it as the early versions of a huge and complicated piece of software whose coders just sort of hacked it together from reverse-engineered APIs with zero documentation.