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If I understood your comment correctly (I'm sorry if I didn't) - isn't it grown in essentially sterile conditions, so lack of immune system isn't an issue as I

If I understood your comment correctly (I'm sorry if I didn't) - isn't it grown in essentially sterile conditions, so lack of immune system isn't an issue as I must imagine it shouldn't be able to communicate any transmissible diseases?

mlindner 4y ago
"Sterile conditions" isn't really a thing without temperatures high enough to cook the meat.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
aendruk 4y ago
That’s correct. The challenge is that ensuring purity of ingredients during production is tricky at scale. A small mistake could ruin a large batch of food, lowering total yields and raising costs. Ideally the production process would include something analogous to the immune system to make it more robust. For certain contaminants simple outcompetition by probiotics might suffice.
- kube-system 4y ago
  The alternative, natural meat, is even trickier to keep sterile at scale. This is why it is advised to cook meat fully. The presence of bacteria on natural animal meat is common.
  - lost_tourist 4y ago
    It's more than "common" it's almost 100% guaranteed.
  - aendruk 4y ago
    This is a misleading statement. We don’t even try to keep slaughtered meat sterile during production; the animal’s immune system makes that unnecessary.
    - kube-system 4y ago
      We don't keep natural meat sterile during production because it would kill the chicken, which results in zero output of chicken. Chickens' immune systems are quite fallible, and they do not keep the chicken in a sterile state. Chickens are full of dangerous bacteria despite having an immune system.
      - aendruk 4y ago
        That’s not wrong. This thread began with a loose definition of “sterile” that you demonstrated understanding of above. The rest of us did OP the courtesy of not nitpicking it.
prometheus76 4y ago
The sterile conditions become more fragile and easily contaminatible the larger the batch gets. So they need to increase the size of batches to make it economically viable, but increasing batch sizes makes it more likely to get contaminated, which kills the whole batch. Then you have to dispose of bio-waste material that has been contaminated in a safe and economic fashion, which is a whole different set of problems.

mlindner 4y ago

"Sterile conditions" isn't really a thing without temperatures high enough to cook the meat.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

aendruk 4y ago

That’s correct. The challenge is that ensuring purity of ingredients during production is tricky at scale. A small mistake could ruin a large batch of food, lowering total yields and raising costs. Ideally the production process would include something analogous to the immune system to make it more robust. For certain contaminants simple outcompetition by probiotics might suffice.

kube-system 4y ago
The alternative, natural meat, is even trickier to keep sterile at scale. This is why it is advised to cook meat fully. The presence of bacteria on natural animal meat is common.
- lost_tourist 4y ago
  It's more than "common" it's almost 100% guaranteed.
- aendruk 4y ago
  This is a misleading statement. We don’t even try to keep slaughtered meat sterile during production; the animal’s immune system makes that unnecessary.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    We don't keep natural meat sterile during production because it would kill the chicken, which results in zero output of chicken. Chickens' immune systems are quite fallible, and they do not keep the chicken in a sterile state. Chickens are full of dangerous bacteria despite having an immune system.
    - aendruk 4y ago
      That’s not wrong. This thread began with a loose definition of “sterile” that you demonstrated understanding of above. The rest of us did OP the courtesy of not nitpicking it.

prometheus76 4y ago

The sterile conditions become more fragile and easily contaminatible the larger the batch gets. So they need to increase the size of batches to make it economically viable, but increasing batch sizes makes it more likely to get contaminated, which kills the whole batch. Then you have to dispose of bio-waste material that has been contaminated in a safe and economic fashion, which is a whole different set of problems.