4 ms·
There have been a lot of articles about lab-grown meat lately, but none of them have solved the big problem in the space: fetal bovine serum. FBS is widely use
by Mizza 6y ago
There have been a lot of articles about lab-grown meat lately, but none of them have solved the big problem in the space: fetal bovine serum.
FBS is widely used for cell cultures in laboratories, but I as far as I'm aware, this is the first time that it's used as an industrial process for consumer products (although maybe it's used in commercial pharma, I don't know). FBS extraction is a "slaughterhouse" technology, so these new products don't yet move us any closer to the goal of ending industrial animal slaughter. In fact, this could actually be a step in the wrong direction.
I've kept an eye on this space for a while, and there have been plenty of announcements of artificial FBS, but none of them have ever been able to offer any proof, just vapor.
If a company comes along with a synthetic plant-derived alternative to FBS, and they can actually prove it works, invest heavily. They're the ones who will change the world.
EDIT: Good news! I found there is now a commercially available FBS alternative called 'FastGro'. It is very expensive - $264.60 per 100ml - and it doesn't say how it's made, but hey, it's a start.
It's also worth checking out their brochure just because of how hilarious and awesome the art is: https://media.mpbio.com/document/file/brochure/dest/l/s/1/0/2/LS102019-EN-FastGro-Brochure.pdf https://media.mpbio.com/document/file/brochure/dest/l/s/1/0/...
- viraptor 6y agoI'm a bit confused here. If there a chicken version of FBS? Or is FBS used in chicken-culture meat growth?
- Mizza 6y agoFBS is growing the chicken-culture. The fact that it's bovine is ancillary, it's just a convenient source of the good proteins for organism development as we have a whole system in place to grow and slaughter cows already. There are some technical problems with FBS as well, it varies in quality and in composition of the component proteins, so a synethetic/plant alternative that could be adjusted for different purposes would be useful in the lab as well.
- aaron695 6y agoFetal bovine serum is so expense anyway, even if you wanted to use it it's not practical, it seems... This article addressees this with Eat Just in Singapore (They are looking at plant based in the future) - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/02/no-kill-lab-grown-meat-to-go-on-sale-for-first-time https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/02/no-kill-... I'd read it as this is just to get another round of funding. At best a very expensive restaurant might sell slithers for the experience. But I think it is a industry that's moving forward, so it's all a good thing. Many other industries are just stuck in scam stage.