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I tried the first no-kill, lab-grown chicken burger
- jfengel 6y ago"It tastes, at least to this reporter, like a chicken burger."
- VBprogrammer 6y agoThat's great news. I will be the last person to give up eating meat willingly but if I could happily replace 95% of the meat I eat with a good substitute I'd do it tomorrow.
- reaperducer 6y agoI prefer the phrase "chicken-flavored burger." Chickens come from eggs, which come from other chickens. Chickens do not come from a laboratory.
- Stephen304 6y agoExcept in this case, the chicken meat came from cells taken from eggs which were presumably in the laboratory, which came from another chicken.
- saagarjha 6y agoThis seems like the same thing as "diamonds come from the ground".
- kelchm 6y agoWell if we’re going to go that route, maybe it should be called “synthetic chicken”.
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoThats just a DeBeers marketing ploy. Although, that is exactly what Perdue would do
- f00zz 6y agoI'd be down with that. Given the choice I'd go for the synthetic one.
- majormajor 6y agoWhat would you call it if it was "beef," where the name of the meat is already different than the name of the animal?
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoIt is literally chicken meat
- kwertyoowiyop 6y agoShhh, you’re interrupting the pedant
- nitemice 6y agoAnd almonds don't lactate. Do you call almond milk "almond-flavoured water"? There's a reason people use existing "technically incorrect" product names to refer to replacement products like this. It's so people who are used to consuming the original products see the replacement as a replacement, on level footing with the original. Almost no one is going to replace dairy milk with soy bean-flavoured water, and chicken patties with chicken-flavoured burgers. The latter sound like dodgy knock-offs and people don't want to put that kind of thing in their bodies. Also, "chicken-flavored burger" isn't really accurate to what this is. It may be lab-grown, but it's still meat. A "chicken-flavored burger" sounds like a vegetarian patty with chicken-like seasoning and flavours.
- socialdemocrat 6y agoWhy don’t we call one “naturally grown and killed chicken” and the other “humanely grown synthetic chicken”
- waiseristy 6y ago"...explains that muscle cells naturally contract when they are grown, making the fibres that result in the flakes of the burger that you would expect." I wonder how similar these fibers are to actual chicken/beef. My understanding is that these vat-grown meats are essentially just compressed globs of cells, with no real structure
- markdown 6y agoI guess that's why they're only good as burger patties. Can't be hard to match the texture of ground chicken.
- mortenjorck 6y ago> Savir says the production cost of his chicken burger is $35, which seems high but is dramatically less than it was a few years ago. In 2013, a Dutch pharmacologist, Mark Post, made history by eating the first lab-grown beef burger. It cost about £225,000. There may also be some differences in complexity between the process involved for cultured beef versus cultured poultry, but even if the difference is 10x, this is the kind of reduction in costs that tends to point toward a technology actually becoming feasible in the mainstream. It's quite possible that the global meat industry will look very different another seven years from now.
- peanut_worm 6y agoDo they call Chicken Sandwiches “Chicken Burgers” somewhere?
- junglesurfer 6y agoYup! In the UK generally they are known as Chicken Burgers, AFAIK.
- grecy 6y agoYep, here in BC, Canada it's common to order a "Chicken Burger", not a "Chicken Sandwich".
- paxys 6y agoYes, pretty much everywhere in the world. I have never understood why it is called chicken sandwich instead of chicken burger in the US.
- NikolaeVarius 6y agoI would not be surprised if a Beef Hamburger lobby is associated with this.
- kevinmchugh 6y agoBean burgers and turkey burgers are both common in the US.
- kevinmchugh 6y agoI've very rarely seen ground chicken served on a bun. A chicken sandwich in the US is usually a whole deboned breast or thigh, fried or grilled. I have seen ground chicken, griddled or grilled, called a chicken burger.
- BHSPitMonkey 6y agoAll over Europe you'll see fried/grilled chicken on a bun referred to as a "chicken burger" (often in English, even where that isn't the spoken language). This is even the case in places like KFC. I'm firmly against this nomenclature, but I suppose these places are set in their old ways for some reason :)
- jjtheblunt 6y agoThey mention that (in the US) pets consume a significant quantity of meat, understandably. An interesting datapoint: our dog will eat Beyond Beef, and of course my wife's actual beef, but shuns Impossible Burger. I wonder why. I've repeated the experiment across numerous dinners.
- david-gpu 6y agoI've tried the beyond burger in two different occasions and both times it had the foulest smell, reminiscent of a burnt tire. I wonder whether there's some genetic variation that causes some of us to be revolted by it, like some people who can't stand the taste of cilantro or Brussels sprouts.
- colanderman 6y agoI don't get the burnt tire smell, but Beyond has a very strange aftertaste to me, and does not sit well in my stomach at all. Impossible on the other hand is delicious and digests just fine.
- lumberingjack 6y agoSo now you're saying that everybody's dogs are causing global warming and Peta was right?
- paxys 6y agoIf everyone in the world was made to tour their nearest factory farm, technologies like this one would be fully funded and accepted overnight.
- dsrees 6y agoWhile true that factory farms are a nightmare, lab grown meat is not the only alternative. There are plenty of regenerative farms out there that produce quality product in the most humane and environmentally beneficial way possible. Check out Polyface Farm in VA or Brown Ranch in ND for examples.
- ricefield 6y agoNot necessarily. I'm sure there are plenty of people who have zero compunction about the practices of factory farms, so long as they get to enjoy their meat.
- skissane 6y ago> I'm sure there are plenty of people who have zero compunction about the practices of factory farms Like the people who work there. If you had compunction, you would lose it quick, or else you wouldn’t last long Many people have shown an extraordinary lack of compunction in doing things far worse than factory farming (from the viewpoint of human-centric ethics at least), e.g Auschwitz, Srebrenica, Sinjar
- estaseuropano 6y agoSlaughterhouse workers are among the most exploited in any country, usually recruited from the lowest paid immigrants, and while some do it for 40 years without issues - or might already arrive with their own baggage -, many end up with PTSD or other psychological issues. See e.g. this review: https://yaleglobalhealthreview.com/2016/01/25/a-call-to-action-psychological-harm-in-slaughterhouse-workers/ https://yaleglobalhealthreview.com/2016/01/25/a-call-to-acti...
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- powersnail 6y agoI think, in my life, I'll see mass-produced artificially grown meat become indistinguishable (cooking-and-eating-wise) from regular meat. Maybe they'll even taste better than regular meat, by controlling the skin/fat/muscle distribution. The current technology isn't there, yet. But it looks like that it's actually going to be feasible in the next few decades. I'm no biologist or environmental scientist. To my naive understanding, it's going to be a good thing. It means that we'll meddle with the animals less, reduce the environmental impact, and also make high-quality, fresh meat more accessible. No more Chef Ramsay proffering a piece of filet mignon and saying, "Now, this, is the Rolls-Royce of steak".
- simcop2387 6y agoNot sure about the skin part, but the fat and muscle part is absolutely going to be doable right now. All you'd need to do is take the meat and lay it out with some meat glue to create the distribution you want. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1oSqI4jnTM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1oSqI4jnTM
- klipt 6y agoYes but, once you've introduced pathogens to the inside by slicing it up and gluing it back together, it's not longer safe to cook the inside rare like you can with a whole piece.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- bassman9000 6y agohigh-quality, fresh meat more accessible We're still arguing if GMOs will be toxic to humans in the long term, and now we want to grow a whole chunk of animal in a lab, and proclaim nothing's wrong with it?
- saagarjha 6y agoMany people are not arguing that.
- jpxw 6y agoI wonder what the carbon footprint of this is, vs a real chicken burger. Edit: it says in the article: “ 96% lower greenhouse gas emissions “
- disposekinetics 6y agoThat's impressive, thank you for sharing. It is likely in the near future we will have far greener meat options.
- ianbicking 6y agoThat sounds impossible: how can a burger that costs $35 to produce possibly have less of an environmental impact?
- rowanG077 6y agoA factor is that the they have scientist running around their lab growing it. That labor isn't cheap.
- _underfl0w_ 6y agoI thought those numbers sounded a little exaggerated and hand-wavey too. I highly doubt this takes into account things like emissions from vehicles used to transport the meats, for example.
- rpdillon 6y agoI think those measures are orthogonal. Often cheap goods are cheap because they externalize cost onto the environment. One example is recycling: better for the environment (at least in some cases), but costs more than just throwing everything away, often to the point that it isn't affordable.
- Andys 6y agoThe way these numbers usually work out is by comparing with the absolute worst possible industrial farming process (which is excessive in its pollution and waste).
- ouid 6y ago"some animal rights activists argue it perpetuates an unhealthy obsession with eating animals." Here we see a journalist in its natural habitat, trying to foster a sense of outrage where none at all exists, in the hopes of luring its prey to share the article. If it succeeds, it will be rewarded with eyeballs aplenty, which, in the cold harsh winter, will prove critical to the success of its offspring.
- umvi 6y agoIndeed. If this were a wikipedia article it would be: "some animal rights activists[who?] argue it perpetuates an unhealthy obsession with eating animals." I'd like to see a source on which "animal rights activists" this journalist is referring to. PETA? Random Twitter users? You can find a small minority against literally anything if you go scrounging.
- indigodaddy 6y agoI’d offer that you would find that most vegetarians and virtually all vegans would not eat lab-grown meat.
- saagarjha 6y agoReally? Even those that converted to being vegetarian and/or vegan?
- ahelwer 6y agoYou sort of lose your taste for it after a while. Been a vegetarian for five years, have occasionally tried a bite of someone else's meat dish. The blood taste is really strong when you haven't grown used to it. The texture is also kinda gross.
- saagarjha 6y agoI mean, I have no issues remaining vegetarian, but I wouldn't say that some good chicken wings don't smell appetizing to me (having enjoyed them prior to becoming vegetarian). That being said, I haven't actually tried eating meat in all these years so maybe it wouldn't taste great when I actually ate it.
- crazygringo 6y ago> Similar to other patties, such as the McChicken, the burger is not just meat but heavily supplemented with other ingredients to add texture and flavour. Roughly 50% is plant-based proteins, with added seasonings. That sounds about right. Even chicken nuggets and chicken patties "made from chicken" are an entirely recreated textured product made from chicken slurry from a blender, soy protein, binding agents, water, and seasonings. I'm not even remotely surprised they're able to create a lab-grown "chicken patty". I'm honestly not even sure what the difference would be between this and a 100% soy protein version, in terms of taste and texture? This "chicken burger" is, of course, nothing like an actual chicken breast or thigh. There's a reason it has to be breaded and fried, to mask the total lack of any real meat texture whatsoever.
- leipert 6y ago> I'm honestly not even sure what the difference would be between this and a 100% soy protein version, in terms of taste and texture? In Germany Burger King sells plant based nuggets. Barely a difference, we recently ordered both Chicken and Plant based nuggets, maybe the chicken one still had a bit more structure. But to be honest, one drowns them in sauce anyway. Probably will go for plant based ones in the future.
- dilDDoS 6y ago> flavoured by wasabi and chilli mayonnaise Wouldn't it have been better to just taste the meat patty without such strong flavors to mask any weirdness? If I was eating the first lab-grown chicken burger, I think I'd want to try it as plain as possible first (i.e. bun and maybe not much else). Either way I'm happy about the progress. Maybe lab grown meat will stand a better chance of eliminating factory farming than plant based meats.
- jhu247 6y agoThis sounds promising as there doesn't appear to be many natural or artificial substitutes to imitate the feel or taste of the meat like there are in current no-kill red meat products.
- dmje 6y agoThing is, I just don't see the point. There's plenty enough really great tasting vegetarian food already, and meat substitutes if you need that sort of thing. From a sciencey pov it's fascinating but I'm not sure I get the need.
- vmception 6y agobasically if it doesn't make you feel lethargic later then it doesnt replicate the experience of eating animals it is the energy needed to consume it that people enjoy the distinction of, compared to substitutes which also compromise somewhat (less than in prior years) on taste and texture lab grown meat accomplishes that alongside the taste of fat
- amanaplanacanal 6y agoIn my experience it’s carbohydrate rather than meat which makes me feel lethargic after eating.
- kortilla 6y agoWell it’s clear vegetarian food and the substitutes aren’t cutting it. People still want fried chicken, pork chops, meatballs, etc. Until we get to a point where literally the only difference between a lab grown filet mignon and a grass fed one is cost, people will be raising animals for mass slaughter.
- ricefield 6y agoThere are plenty of people who are difficult to convince to reduce their meat consumption using vegetarian food and meat substitutes alone. Providing choices like this will make it easier to get more folks to reduce meat consumption or go vegetarian.
- rowanG077 6y agoIt's also about health. Every good vegan meat replacementnis ultra processen food. It's also easier in general to have a balanced diet if you include meat.
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- buzzy_hacker 6y agoAwesome. If people are interested in this, I highly recommend checking out the nonprofit Good Food Institute at https://gfi.org/ https://gfi.org/
- ianbicking 6y agoI think this is all nonsense. Chickens are incredibly efficient meat production machines. The feed conversion ration on chickens is 1.6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Poultry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio#Poultry – that's incredible to consider, 1.6 pounds of feed turns into 1 pound of chicken! Chickens don't just produce meat, they are self-contained meat growing machines with components to support that growth, including the ability to extract and filter nutrients from food with limited processing, a built-in enclosure for the process with self-healing abilities, a control system to deliver nutrients periodically and maintain system temperature, control systems to create a balance of nutrients at the cellular level, resilient systems to deliver those nutrients, and on and on. No lab will be as efficient in making chicken meat as a chicken is. And it's not because God got it right the first time around: chickens are human products, but a chicken is product that leverages all of the resilience, complexity, and power of a full organism. (There are ethical questions about factory farming... but it should be noted that those are not environmental questions.)
- socialdemocrat 6y agoUpvoted even if I strongly disagree because your provided so much good detailed info. Really should be different votes for agreement, interest, quality of argument etc.
- estaseuropano 6y agoThat's like arguing hydroponics will never be more cosy-efficient than a greenhouse which will never be more cost-efficient than a garden. Because the former each uses more energy and speciality materials while the latter each can offer a more integrated ecosystem. I'd you see it purely economically, the question is just a matter of inputs vs outputs. If you can take grain and circumvent the inefficiencies of a chicken (gets sick, grows feathers, grows bones, produces excrement, ...) and instead get the same nutrients more directly to produce meat of course it's more efficient. The question is just how much else is needed - energy, space, cost of producing the initial materials, harvesting time, ... Not to mention moral implications that a vegetarian might care about or practical elements (can you grow it with flavour?; do you need less space?; ...). That said, obviously its not going to touch the ubiquity of chickens anytime soon - eapecially in poorer countries - as the tech is high cost while you can start your own chicken coop with two eggs or chicka. But heated greenhouses are also not replacing tomato fields and yet they have a huge role in some regions of the world.
- staplung 6y agoIt's basically ChickieNobs from Margaret Atwood's _Oryx and Crake_. http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1559 http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1559
- socialdemocrat 6y agoSounds great! While I have been gradually reducing my meat intake. I still love it too much to totally give it up. This sounds like a great solution. I don’t think eating animals is unethical but I am not a fan of how industrial agriculture works. Especially how animals are treated. This approach could solve all the problems. It is better for the animals and we don’t have to listen to the most crazy animals rights activists anymore.
- pgcj_poster 6y ago> Perhaps the biggest hurdle, however, is the “yuck” factor. For many, the idea of lab-grown flesh remains unenticing, or even blasphemous. I struggle to imagine a more disgusting way to obtain meat than getting it off a dead animal.
- Jowsey 6y agoYeah, when I think of lab grown meat I imagine something grown in a clean, controlled environment. Would much rather eat that than the alternative
- Metacelsus 6y agocmd-F "fetal bovine serum": phrase not found. That's what nobody mentions about this. Until FBS is replaced in the culture medium, this method will be much worse than farming chickens.
- forgotmypw17 6y agoThis. Hardly an improvement overall.
- vincvinc 6y agoCould you elaborate? I am very curious to know about the potential downsides.
- 2038AD 6y agoIt's not cruelty-free
- kazinator 6y ago> Perhaps the biggest hurdle, however, is the “yuck” factor. For many, the idea of lab-grown flesh remains unenticing, or even blasphemous. I mean, cleanly grown in a nice lab: yuck! Damn it, I want mine from a chicken that wallowed in shit all its life in some tiny box together with thousands of others.
- zwass 6y agoI personally feel better when I eat animal protein, however I try to supplement with a lot of plant-based protein. These are exciting developments in the food industry. I welcome a future in which meat can be eaten with lower environmental and ethical consequences.
- isignal 6y agoDoes the process use "chicken stem cells" or presumably cells from eggs as the input to the reaction? Wonder what is the ratio of stem cells to nutrients to make this chicken? For economic feasibility, I would guess it needs to be mostly nutrients. Seems like there's another SF based company in this space too - Just Eat[1] [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/12/02/eat-just-lab-grown-chicken-gets-regulatory-approval-singapore/3791581001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/12/02/eat-jus... -
- lumberingjack 6y agoThere's lettuce on that he absolutely did kill something and plants are alive please eat more cows stop killing all of the live plants
- fithisux 6y agoVeggie burgers do not get the credit they deserve.