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"The growth medium for the Singapore production line includes foetal bovine serum, which is extracted from foetal blood, but this is largely removed before cons

"The growth medium for the Singapore production line includes foetal bovine serum, which is extracted from foetal blood, but this is largely removed before consumption." As a vegetarian, I have to wonder who the target market for this is. Meat substitutes that don't use any animal cells whatsoever have existed for a long time, and many of them are pretty convincing, and even when they're not they often delicious in their own right. It's cheese that I find to be the last great frontier as far as substitutes go. There just isn't even a remotely passible substitute for many cheeses.

dnissley 6y ago
Most existing meat substitutes don't match the nutritional profile of meat very well (and even if they do, there are differences between how well animal proteins/fats are made use of by the body compared to plant proteins/fats) and overall are just incredibly processed foods with long ingredient lists full of questionable substances, so that's the draw for me personally.
bun_at_work 6y ago
The target market will be people who want to eat real meat. Not everyone is convinced that being vegetarian is an option for them, and they don't have to be so convinced with this option.
dustinmoris 6y ago
> It's cheese that I find to be the last great frontier as far as substitutes go. There just isn't even a remotely passible substitute for many cheeses. 99% vegetarian, 1% pescatarian here and I agree with your statement, but I'd add milk and eggs to that list. There is no substitute for eggs at the moment AFAIK and despite many probably pointing me to all the oat/nut/soy milk replacements none of them comes even close to real milk for me. I can tolerate a bit of oat milk with my coffee every now and then, but can't have a bowl of cereal with milk substitutes. Just doesn't taste right. Also I'm concerned about the much higher glucose intake from oat milks than real milk.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "There is no substitute for eggs at the moment AFAIK" It depends on what form you're using the eggs in. I don't think there's any substitute for hard-boiled eggs, or sunny-side-up fried eggs, for example. However, tofu-scrambles make a good substitute for scrambled eggs, in my experience. There are also a million substitutes for eggs in baking. "despite many probably pointing me to all the oat/nut/soy milk replacements none of them comes even close to real milk for me" Ok, they might not taste like milk per se, but I find some soy milk and other nut milks taste much better than ordinary milk.. though different. Many of them do tend to be sweeter, and I personally like that.. they taste more like a dessert to me, which I'm usually fine with. Glucose is a problem, but there's no reason they couldn't use sugar substitutes, of which there are many (though unfortunately some of the best, like tagatose, are still pretty expensive).
  - porker 6y ago
    > Glucose is a problem, but there's no reason they couldn't use sugar substitutes, of which there are many (though unfortunately some of the best, like tagatose, are still pretty expensive). Have you tried allulose? I can't get it in my country, but it sounds better than others.
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      "Have you tried allulose?" I have, actually. It's ok, but I find it a lot less sweet than sugar, so I have to use maybe 2x to 3x as much as I would regular sugar.. add to this that it's probably 10x as expensive as sugar and it is just way too expensive for me. Not to mention that at least the brand I tried was a lot finer than ordinary table sugar, and was closer to powdered sugar in consistency. This is ok for some applications, but not others. I found tagatose to be much, much better, as it's virtually indistinguishable from sugar for me. It's also way more expensive than sugar, but at least it's comparable to sugar in sweetness, so you only have to use about as much as you'd use of regular sugar. Tagatose also doesn't have any weird aftertaste to it, unlike stevia, for instance. Overall, it's by far the best sugar substitute I've ever tried, and would highly recommend it.
orev 6y ago
The critical issue with animal farming is not the issues that many vegans are focused on (cruelty, exploitation, etc), it’s climate change. The general population wants to eat meat, and finding a way to produce it with fewer greenhouse gas emissions is critical to address that.
gavinray 6y ago
I have mild moral qualms with killing and eating animals (treat others the way you want to be treated). But unfortunately, meat protein has some of the highest biological value, outside of egg whites/whey/dairy proteins. When you factor in how cheap low-grade meat is, it winds up being incredibly economical to just eat a bunch of $2/lb chicken and whatnot. Especially if you're trying to eat upwards of 200-250g of protein a day, it gets expensive fast. So I have sort of accepted this hypocritical double-standard, where I recognize that what I am doing is not entirely ethical but at the same time it's too practical for me to give up. Plus, I love meat. Lab-grown meat at somewhere near the price of regular meat has been a dream for me because then I get to have my cake and eat it too. Don't have to give up meat, or try to substitute non-meat proteins for it, and no actual sentient being has to suffer and die in order for me to continue doing so. Huge win-win, can't come soon enough. I would eat the plant-based stuff if someone could prove comparable biological value and the price was the same or only marginally higher, too. I really don't care, as long as it tastes (doesn't even have to look) like meat, and the bodily effects are identical.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "meat protein has some of the highest biological value" By what standard? When I looked in to this for myself, it seemed like it's very unlikely for vegetarians to have protein deficiencies as long as they ate enough calories to sustain themselves and ate a decent variety of food (which they should be doing anyway, to stave off other health issues).
  - gavinray 6y ago
    Ah, the term "biological value" probably sounds abstract, but no that's the pedantic/scientific term for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_value The tl;dr is that it boils down to amino-acid profile. There are 9 Essential Amino Acid's (EAA's) that human body can't synthesize from other amino acids. A food's biological value is determined (primarily) by it's amino acid profile. It's also not just about the overall amount, but also the ratio, since the way that amino acid absorption works is on a first-come-first-serve basis and so the proportion matters almost as much as composition. There's a list of common foods and their biological value on that page if you're curious. > "When I looked in to this for myself, it seemed like it's very unlikely for vegetarians to have protein deficiencies as long as they ate enough calories to sustain themselves and ate a decent variety of food (which they should be doing anyway, to stave off other health issues)." Ah, yeah. For the average person, it doesn't matter. You can pretty much eat anything and be alright. The grand majority of people have god-awful diets and seem to function just fine. I recreationally bodybuild so my dietary requirements are kind of an edgecase scenario.
mellosouls 6y ago
As with some other comments I assume this is more aimed at the meat-eating market than vegetarians etc. As somebody who hasn't eaten meat for years, I've long used "fake meat" substitutes because I originally missed normal meat, but the idea of eating actual meat (even lab-bred) triggers a disgust reflex now; I'll stick with the fake stuff.
Bedon292 6y ago
They also go on to say that will not be used in the future, it is just what they were using at the time this approval process started. So it will likely be more acceptable in the future. As a meat eater, this is very interesting to me. I try to be as environmentally responsible as I can when it comes to meat, but its still all bad really. I cannot go more than a few days tops without animal protein, or I start to get weird cravings. Could I eventually get past it? Probably, but not interested in doing so. But I certainly am interested in more environmentally friendly options, if they are safe and economical.
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  "I cannot go more than a few days tops without animal protein, or I start to get weird cravings" Have you tried many vegetarian meat substitutes? When I talk to meat eaters about this, many of them haven't tried many at all, and if they had tried anything it's maybe one product ten years ago. The world of vegetarian meat substitutes has exploded in recent years, and there is just so much variety these days, many of them are really incredibly delicious and I'd stack them up against most meat any day. Ok, they might not be 100% accurate, and tend to lack the blood, veins, gristle, skin, fat and bones of authentic meat products, but I think most people can live without those, if not even actively want to avoid some of that.
  - Bedon292 6y ago
    Yeah, I have. Although never as the only thing I eat for a longer period. So I suppose that would be an interesting experiment. I actually really like the impossible burger, not as much as a real one, but I have ordered it on multiple occasions. Beyond is ok. And I have had some great black bean burgers, but they don't quite hit the spot. I also probably don't have the correctly balanced diet when I have done that in the past. And I have found a protein heavy diet is what my body prefers, and carbs are not super great for me. End up heavy and tired. And the vegetarian / vegan stuff we have done in the past have been far to carb heavy for me. And I love cheese. Mac and cheese, alfredo, things like that. And I have yet to find a substitute that is acceptable to me in the cheese department. Although I have been able to cut back on the dairy the last few weeks, so its possible I could eventually cut it out. That just hasn't been on my priority list.
rsynnott 6y ago
> As a vegetarian, I have to wonder who the target market for this is. It's effectively a prototype. As noted in the article, the next version won't use this.

dnissley 6y ago

Most existing meat substitutes don't match the nutritional profile of meat very well (and even if they do, there are differences between how well animal proteins/fats are made use of by the body compared to plant proteins/fats) and overall are just incredibly processed foods with long ingredient lists full of questionable substances, so that's the draw for me personally.

bun_at_work 6y ago

The target market will be people who want to eat real meat. Not everyone is convinced that being vegetarian is an option for them, and they don't have to be so convinced with this option.

dustinmoris 6y ago

> It's cheese that I find to be the last great frontier as far as substitutes go. There just isn't even a remotely passible substitute for many cheeses. 99% vegetarian, 1% pescatarian here and I agree with your statement, but I'd add milk and eggs to that list. There is no substitute for eggs at the moment AFAIK and despite many probably pointing me to all the oat/nut/soy milk replacements none of them comes even close to real milk for me. I can tolerate a bit of oat milk with my coffee every now and then, but can't have a bowl of cereal with milk substitutes. Just doesn't taste right. Also I'm concerned about the much higher glucose intake from oat milks than real milk.

pmoriarty 6y ago
"There is no substitute for eggs at the moment AFAIK" It depends on what form you're using the eggs in. I don't think there's any substitute for hard-boiled eggs, or sunny-side-up fried eggs, for example. However, tofu-scrambles make a good substitute for scrambled eggs, in my experience. There are also a million substitutes for eggs in baking. "despite many probably pointing me to all the oat/nut/soy milk replacements none of them comes even close to real milk for me" Ok, they might not taste like milk per se, but I find some soy milk and other nut milks taste much better than ordinary milk.. though different. Many of them do tend to be sweeter, and I personally like that.. they taste more like a dessert to me, which I'm usually fine with. Glucose is a problem, but there's no reason they couldn't use sugar substitutes, of which there are many (though unfortunately some of the best, like tagatose, are still pretty expensive).
- porker 6y ago
  > Glucose is a problem, but there's no reason they couldn't use sugar substitutes, of which there are many (though unfortunately some of the best, like tagatose, are still pretty expensive). Have you tried allulose? I can't get it in my country, but it sounds better than others.
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    "Have you tried allulose?" I have, actually. It's ok, but I find it a lot less sweet than sugar, so I have to use maybe 2x to 3x as much as I would regular sugar.. add to this that it's probably 10x as expensive as sugar and it is just way too expensive for me. Not to mention that at least the brand I tried was a lot finer than ordinary table sugar, and was closer to powdered sugar in consistency. This is ok for some applications, but not others. I found tagatose to be much, much better, as it's virtually indistinguishable from sugar for me. It's also way more expensive than sugar, but at least it's comparable to sugar in sweetness, so you only have to use about as much as you'd use of regular sugar. Tagatose also doesn't have any weird aftertaste to it, unlike stevia, for instance. Overall, it's by far the best sugar substitute I've ever tried, and would highly recommend it.

orev 6y ago

The critical issue with animal farming is not the issues that many vegans are focused on (cruelty, exploitation, etc), it’s climate change. The general population wants to eat meat, and finding a way to produce it with fewer greenhouse gas emissions is critical to address that.

gavinray 6y ago

I have mild moral qualms with killing and eating animals (treat others the way you want to be treated). But unfortunately, meat protein has some of the highest biological value, outside of egg whites/whey/dairy proteins. When you factor in how cheap low-grade meat is, it winds up being incredibly economical to just eat a bunch of $2/lb chicken and whatnot. Especially if you're trying to eat upwards of 200-250g of protein a day, it gets expensive fast. So I have sort of accepted this hypocritical double-standard, where I recognize that what I am doing is not entirely ethical but at the same time it's too practical for me to give up. Plus, I love meat. Lab-grown meat at somewhere near the price of regular meat has been a dream for me because then I get to have my cake and eat it too. Don't have to give up meat, or try to substitute non-meat proteins for it, and no actual sentient being has to suffer and die in order for me to continue doing so. Huge win-win, can't come soon enough. I would eat the plant-based stuff if someone could prove comparable biological value and the price was the same or only marginally higher, too. I really don't care, as long as it tastes (doesn't even have to look) like meat, and the bodily effects are identical.

pmoriarty 6y ago
"meat protein has some of the highest biological value" By what standard? When I looked in to this for myself, it seemed like it's very unlikely for vegetarians to have protein deficiencies as long as they ate enough calories to sustain themselves and ate a decent variety of food (which they should be doing anyway, to stave off other health issues).
- gavinray 6y ago
  Ah, the term "biological value" probably sounds abstract, but no that's the pedantic/scientific term for it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_value https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_value The tl;dr is that it boils down to amino-acid profile. There are 9 Essential Amino Acid's (EAA's) that human body can't synthesize from other amino acids. A food's biological value is determined (primarily) by it's amino acid profile. It's also not just about the overall amount, but also the ratio, since the way that amino acid absorption works is on a first-come-first-serve basis and so the proportion matters almost as much as composition. There's a list of common foods and their biological value on that page if you're curious. > "When I looked in to this for myself, it seemed like it's very unlikely for vegetarians to have protein deficiencies as long as they ate enough calories to sustain themselves and ate a decent variety of food (which they should be doing anyway, to stave off other health issues)." Ah, yeah. For the average person, it doesn't matter. You can pretty much eat anything and be alright. The grand majority of people have god-awful diets and seem to function just fine. I recreationally bodybuild so my dietary requirements are kind of an edgecase scenario.

mellosouls 6y ago

As with some other comments I assume this is more aimed at the meat-eating market than vegetarians etc. As somebody who hasn't eaten meat for years, I've long used "fake meat" substitutes because I originally missed normal meat, but the idea of eating actual meat (even lab-bred) triggers a disgust reflex now; I'll stick with the fake stuff.

Bedon292 6y ago

They also go on to say that will not be used in the future, it is just what they were using at the time this approval process started. So it will likely be more acceptable in the future. As a meat eater, this is very interesting to me. I try to be as environmentally responsible as I can when it comes to meat, but its still all bad really. I cannot go more than a few days tops without animal protein, or I start to get weird cravings. Could I eventually get past it? Probably, but not interested in doing so. But I certainly am interested in more environmentally friendly options, if they are safe and economical.

pmoriarty 6y ago
"I cannot go more than a few days tops without animal protein, or I start to get weird cravings" Have you tried many vegetarian meat substitutes? When I talk to meat eaters about this, many of them haven't tried many at all, and if they had tried anything it's maybe one product ten years ago. The world of vegetarian meat substitutes has exploded in recent years, and there is just so much variety these days, many of them are really incredibly delicious and I'd stack them up against most meat any day. Ok, they might not be 100% accurate, and tend to lack the blood, veins, gristle, skin, fat and bones of authentic meat products, but I think most people can live without those, if not even actively want to avoid some of that.
- Bedon292 6y ago
  Yeah, I have. Although never as the only thing I eat for a longer period. So I suppose that would be an interesting experiment. I actually really like the impossible burger, not as much as a real one, but I have ordered it on multiple occasions. Beyond is ok. And I have had some great black bean burgers, but they don't quite hit the spot. I also probably don't have the correctly balanced diet when I have done that in the past. And I have found a protein heavy diet is what my body prefers, and carbs are not super great for me. End up heavy and tired. And the vegetarian / vegan stuff we have done in the past have been far to carb heavy for me. And I love cheese. Mac and cheese, alfredo, things like that. And I have yet to find a substitute that is acceptable to me in the cheese department. Although I have been able to cut back on the dairy the last few weeks, so its possible I could eventually cut it out. That just hasn't been on my priority list.

rsynnott 6y ago

> As a vegetarian, I have to wonder who the target market for this is. It's effectively a prototype. As noted in the article, the next version won't use this.