7 ms·

A cell cultured startup working in exotic meats (2022)

15 points by nsoonhui 4y ago

jaclaz 4y ago
[2022] The idea is simply genius, no way to compare the product to the real thing, even the few that actually may have tasted tiger or lion meat, how often did they eat it, maybe once in their lifetime. Next step could be synthetic meat of extincted animals, even more failproof.
- 3327 4y ago
  [dead]
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  I want a me-burger. Small jab once, then they send me frozen ground me on some interval.
  - version_five 4y ago
    Have you heard of prions? There's an evolutionary reason why your idea is super creepy
    - galangalalgol 4y ago
      They are exclusively in nervous tissue right? I'm assuming they are only growing skeletal muscle, perhaps with some adipose cells as well?
      - jwestbury 4y ago
        Not sure about kuru specifically, but other prion diseases can be acquired through tainted meat, e.g. BSE.
        galangalalgol 4y ago
        Well normally all skeletal muscle contains nerves which might have at least some of the proteins that could flip. But in this case you wouldn't want the muscle to activate, it is like the purest kobe veal kept in a box so that it's muscles never even had to work once. I have often joked engineer meat is like kobe veal, kept in a box and fed nothing but beer. Maybe soon I can test my theory.
      - throwawaymaths 4y ago
        Nope. In fact the highest concentration of prions is in your tongue.
    - jwestbury 4y ago
      Prions are a risk when eating meat in general. BSE (mad cow) can be transmitted to humans, and there's some limited laboratory evidence that scrapie can be transmitted cross-species, as well. Though you do raise an interesting though -- are prions going to be more or less likely (or the same) in cultured meat?
    - SamBam 4y ago
      Prions are spread by eating (or otherwise becoming infected with) prions, not by eating something that is you, or is similar to you. There's no reason why a lab-grown me-burger would have prions in it. Or, at least, it's no more likely than a lab-grown beef burger spontaneously developing Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
  - DrThunder 4y ago
    You could cut small pieces off yourself now and fry them up. They'll regrow so what's the difference? If that bothers you, maybe you ought to reconsider what you're saying?
- SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
  > Next step could be synthetic meat of extincted animals, It has been suggested before (by cstross I think) that the next step is celebrity endorsements. With their cells. There must be someone that you think of as "tasty". And it won't harm them, in fact they'll get paid when you buy.
  - jaclaz 4y ago
    I don't know, probably that would taste like chicken ;): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tastes_like_chicken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tastes_like_chicken
  - waste_monk 4y ago
    I'm sure there would be plenty of folk who would love to chow down on a Taylor Swift steak, or a Chris Hemsworth burger. Probably decent money to be made, if you can get the celebrities to agree to it. I wonder if this would act as a "harm reduction" mechanism for celebrity-obsessed weirdos who would otherwise stalk or attempt to harm them to feel close to them, or if it would actually encourage bad behaviour...
rwmj 4y ago
Practically speaking, aren't the meats of meat-eating animals unpalatable? Edit: Looks like there are some good reasons, although they probably don't apply to lab-grown meat: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-humans-generally-dont-eat-meat-from-carnivorous-mammals-e-g-lions-panthers-wildcats?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-humans-generally-dont-e...
- galangalalgol 4y ago
  I have been told both bobcat and mountain lion are delicious.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Bear is supposedly decent. I've always wanted to try a marine mammal. I bet the fatty blubber would work well in a soup or smoked.
    - IntrepidWorm 4y ago
      Bears are also not obligate carnivores, unlike big cats which nearly exclusively eat meat.
- stenl 4y ago
  Salmon and cod are both delicious.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    But bear is famously terrible
version_five 4y ago
Burgers are a gimmicky way to present this. Most commercial burgers are made of low quality meat and slathered with sauces and served on an oversized bun. Unless they're really going to do meat-forward burgers that are served medium rare with minimal toppings, nobody is going to notice the meat in the burger. They should imo be aiming at preparations that feature the flavor of the meat.
- TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
  They're using cell cultures, it's unlikely they'll get fully formed steaks rippling with fats and ligaments, for now, so ground meat burgers it is.
- trws 4y ago
  You’re absolutely right, if their goal is for people to get the flavor and texture of the meat. This is cultured meat though, which tends to develop far less connective tissue than it would in nature, so the point may well be to disguise the texture.
wonderwonder 4y ago
Its an interesting idea, though he did start to lose me when he started pitching snake oil style lists of benefits regarding brain health and doctors telling parents to feed their kids lion meat. Interestingly I noticed I had different reactions to the thought of eating different animals. No issue with the herbivores (giraffe, zebra, etc.) but a very negative reaction to the thought of consuming big cats. Not sure why. If there is a way to verify the source of the protein (animal type) by a government regulator I would be willing to give it a go. While its far in the future I have always liked the idea of space missions being able to take cell cultures and grow their own protein removing their reliance on earth based food supplies. Makes the idea of a generation ship more realistic (although still terrible for the generation that are born, live and die on it)
abcc8 4y ago
Mammalian cells in research labs are grown in media that is composed of 1) multiple powdered components that are readily obtainable through isolation from bacteria/yeast or synthesis and, 2) 10% FBS (fetal bovine serum). Until these cultured meat companies can come up with a suitable replacement for FBS, due to environmental, moral, cost, etc concerns, none of these solutions are terribly viable. I personally wouldn't want to eat (or pay for) a tiger streak that required liters of FBS to grow.
- PretzelPirate 4y ago
  > I personally wouldn't want to eat (or pay for) a tiger streak that required liters of FBS to grow. Since FBS is collected from a bovine fetus at slaughter houses, I'm not sure that anyone who currently eats meat and dairy should have an ethical problem with this. You're already paying for the animals to be slaughtered.
  - pclmulqdq 4y ago
    I assume that if this is a serum that comes only from bovine fetuses, more cows are slaughtered per pound of cultured meat than per pound of natural-grown meat. That would make this much less sustainable.
    - bastawhiz 4y ago
      If the cow was going to be slaughtered anyway, and you still get the meat, what does it matter if you get less serum per cow than meat per cow? Shouldn't we be glad we're getting more utility per cow slaughtered?
      - iancmceachern 4y ago
        Yes, but that's not the point. The point is that this process will never replace the other, because of its dependence on it
    - rsynnott 4y ago
nickdothutton 4y ago
No Orangutan were harmed in bringing you this delicious burger.
Depurator 4y ago
In case anyone is curious about cell cultured seafood as well, here's a paste from a reply I made elsewhere: I like to look at GFI's yearly state of alternative seafood reports [1] to get a sense of the landscape. New harvest has a good list of research they have funded which gets into the weeds a bit [2], check this one for example [3]. We wrote some pros and cons in my recent article that may be interesting [4]. This is a list of some players: Finless Foods, BlueNalu, Wildtype, Shiok Meats, Bluu Seafood. Most are at the pilot plant stage and have announced reaching market this or next year. Note that the investment landscape have changed dramatically last year, so timelines will likely change. Finally: I think its going to be exciting to see alternatives coming out soon. For me the pros are definitely welfare and biodiversity related, while the cons are feed and co2 related. 1: https://gfi.org/resource/alternative-seafood-state-of-the-industry-report/ https://gfi.org/resource/alternative-seafood-state-of-the-in... 2: https://new-harvest.org/publications/ https://new-harvest.org/publications/ 3: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00043/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.0004... 4: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X21004668 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X2...
- monk_e_boy 4y ago
  Fish is wildlife (mostly) so the sooner we stop taking it, the better. Farmers ensure they have cattle for next year. The fishing industry doesn't take that care over next years stock. Stop eating fish. Please. Just move to chicken or some other meat.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    >. The fishing industry doesn't take that care over next years stock. Many nations do exactly that for fisheries within their territorial waters.
  - Depurator 4y ago
    Only high value species are interesting for the cultivated meat indsutry. The overwhelming majority of salmon is farmed, especially atlantic salmon [1, page 17]. Yellowtail tuna is increasinly farmed as well, but sure wild stocks of tuna are still getting depleted. Eating chicken or some other meat is not better than eating fish. 1: https://mowi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Salmon-Industry-Handbook-1.pdf https://mowi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Salmon-Indu...
LatteLazy 4y ago
Tiger/Human/T-Rex meat always seemed like a much more interesting sales proposition than trying to compete with beef/pork/chicken which people already have available and cheap...
DrThunder 4y ago
Can anyone tell me how this lab grown meat has any sustenance? Animals get vitamins, minerals etc. from their lifestyles and what they eat. I see this stuff as the equivalent of white bread. Yeah it might look similar but nutritionally it's as good as eating cardboard. No way I'm trying this lab grown artificial meat until his extensive nutritional studies. The FDA's food pyramid ought to be enough to not trust them on approving this. As with most food, the more industrialized it gets the worse it is for our health and you can bet the moment they can commercialize this the point it's profitable then whether it's healthy or not will be inconsequential.
- oifjsidjf 4y ago
  It's ironic that this is get downvoted since the question is 100% valid. People think you can just dump some vitamins and minerals in the food that "that will make it healthy".
  - DrThunder 4y ago
    The hypocrisy is astounding. Typically the same people downvoting this will call our current mechanized food industry a blight on humanity that's destroying the earth, unhealthy, and harming animals. Yet, they're willing to let these same people feed them mass produced bio-lab meat without questioning one bit. The FDA is out there recommending frosted mini wheats over chicken right now. I don't trust a thing coming out of there mouths. They're just paid off by the highest bidder.

15 points by nsoonhui 4y ago

[2022] The idea is simply genius, no way to compare the product to the real thing, even the few that actually may have tasted tiger or lion meat, how often did they eat it, maybe once in their lifetime. Next step could be synthetic meat of extincted animals, even more failproof.

3327 4y ago
[dead]
galangalalgol 4y ago
I want a me-burger. Small jab once, then they send me frozen ground me on some interval.
- version_five 4y ago
  Have you heard of prions? There's an evolutionary reason why your idea is super creepy
  - galangalalgol 4y ago
    They are exclusively in nervous tissue right? I'm assuming they are only growing skeletal muscle, perhaps with some adipose cells as well?
    - jwestbury 4y ago
      Not sure about kuru specifically, but other prion diseases can be acquired through tainted meat, e.g. BSE.
      - galangalalgol 4y ago
        Well normally all skeletal muscle contains nerves which might have at least some of the proteins that could flip. But in this case you wouldn't want the muscle to activate, it is like the purest kobe veal kept in a box so that it's muscles never even had to work once. I have often joked engineer meat is like kobe veal, kept in a box and fed nothing but beer. Maybe soon I can test my theory.
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
      Nope. In fact the highest concentration of prions is in your tongue.
  - jwestbury 4y ago
    Prions are a risk when eating meat in general. BSE (mad cow) can be transmitted to humans, and there's some limited laboratory evidence that scrapie can be transmitted cross-species, as well. Though you do raise an interesting though -- are prions going to be more or less likely (or the same) in cultured meat?
  - SamBam 4y ago
    Prions are spread by eating (or otherwise becoming infected with) prions, not by eating something that is you, or is similar to you. There's no reason why a lab-grown me-burger would have prions in it. Or, at least, it's no more likely than a lab-grown beef burger spontaneously developing Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease.
- DrThunder 4y ago
  You could cut small pieces off yourself now and fry them up. They'll regrow so what's the difference? If that bothers you, maybe you ought to reconsider what you're saying?
SideburnsOfDoom 4y ago
> Next step could be synthetic meat of extincted animals, It has been suggested before (by cstross I think) that the next step is celebrity endorsements. With their cells. There must be someone that you think of as "tasty". And it won't harm them, in fact they'll get paid when you buy.
- jaclaz 4y ago
  I don't know, probably that would taste like chicken ;): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tastes_like_chicken https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tastes_like_chicken
- waste_monk 4y ago
  I'm sure there would be plenty of folk who would love to chow down on a Taylor Swift steak, or a Chris Hemsworth burger. Probably decent money to be made, if you can get the celebrities to agree to it. I wonder if this would act as a "harm reduction" mechanism for celebrity-obsessed weirdos who would otherwise stalk or attempt to harm them to feel close to them, or if it would actually encourage bad behaviour...

rwmj 4y ago

Practically speaking, aren't the meats of meat-eating animals unpalatable? Edit: Looks like there are some good reasons, although they probably don't apply to lab-grown meat: https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-humans-generally-dont-eat-meat-from-carnivorous-mammals-e-g-lions-panthers-wildcats?share=1 https://www.quora.com/Why-is-it-that-humans-generally-dont-e...

galangalalgol 4y ago
I have been told both bobcat and mountain lion are delicious.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Bear is supposedly decent. I've always wanted to try a marine mammal. I bet the fatty blubber would work well in a soup or smoked.
  - IntrepidWorm 4y ago
    Bears are also not obligate carnivores, unlike big cats which nearly exclusively eat meat.
stenl 4y ago
Salmon and cod are both delicious.
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  But bear is famously terrible

version_five 4y ago

Burgers are a gimmicky way to present this. Most commercial burgers are made of low quality meat and slathered with sauces and served on an oversized bun. Unless they're really going to do meat-forward burgers that are served medium rare with minimal toppings, nobody is going to notice the meat in the burger. They should imo be aiming at preparations that feature the flavor of the meat.

TEP_Kim_Il_Sung 4y ago
They're using cell cultures, it's unlikely they'll get fully formed steaks rippling with fats and ligaments, for now, so ground meat burgers it is.
trws 4y ago
You’re absolutely right, if their goal is for people to get the flavor and texture of the meat. This is cultured meat though, which tends to develop far less connective tissue than it would in nature, so the point may well be to disguise the texture.

wonderwonder 4y ago

Its an interesting idea, though he did start to lose me when he started pitching snake oil style lists of benefits regarding brain health and doctors telling parents to feed their kids lion meat. Interestingly I noticed I had different reactions to the thought of eating different animals. No issue with the herbivores (giraffe, zebra, etc.) but a very negative reaction to the thought of consuming big cats. Not sure why. If there is a way to verify the source of the protein (animal type) by a government regulator I would be willing to give it a go. While its far in the future I have always liked the idea of space missions being able to take cell cultures and grow their own protein removing their reliance on earth based food supplies. Makes the idea of a generation ship more realistic (although still terrible for the generation that are born, live and die on it)

abcc8 4y ago

Mammalian cells in research labs are grown in media that is composed of 1) multiple powdered components that are readily obtainable through isolation from bacteria/yeast or synthesis and, 2) 10% FBS (fetal bovine serum). Until these cultured meat companies can come up with a suitable replacement for FBS, due to environmental, moral, cost, etc concerns, none of these solutions are terribly viable. I personally wouldn't want to eat (or pay for) a tiger streak that required liters of FBS to grow.

PretzelPirate 4y ago
> I personally wouldn't want to eat (or pay for) a tiger streak that required liters of FBS to grow. Since FBS is collected from a bovine fetus at slaughter houses, I'm not sure that anyone who currently eats meat and dairy should have an ethical problem with this. You're already paying for the animals to be slaughtered.
- pclmulqdq 4y ago
  I assume that if this is a serum that comes only from bovine fetuses, more cows are slaughtered per pound of cultured meat than per pound of natural-grown meat. That would make this much less sustainable.
  - bastawhiz 4y ago
    If the cow was going to be slaughtered anyway, and you still get the meat, what does it matter if you get less serum per cow than meat per cow? Shouldn't we be glad we're getting more utility per cow slaughtered?
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      Yes, but that's not the point. The point is that this process will never replace the other, because of its dependence on it
  - rsynnott 4y ago

nickdothutton 4y ago

No Orangutan were harmed in bringing you this delicious burger.

Depurator 4y ago

In case anyone is curious about cell cultured seafood as well, here's a paste from a reply I made elsewhere: I like to look at GFI's yearly state of alternative seafood reports [1] to get a sense of the landscape. New harvest has a good list of research they have funded which gets into the weeds a bit [2], check this one for example [3]. We wrote some pros and cons in my recent article that may be interesting [4]. This is a list of some players: Finless Foods, BlueNalu, Wildtype, Shiok Meats, Bluu Seafood. Most are at the pilot plant stage and have announced reaching market this or next year. Note that the investment landscape have changed dramatically last year, so timelines will likely change. Finally: I think its going to be exciting to see alternatives coming out soon. For me the pros are definitely welfare and biodiversity related, while the cons are feed and co2 related. 1: https://gfi.org/resource/alternative-seafood-state-of-the-industry-report/ https://gfi.org/resource/alternative-seafood-state-of-the-in... 2: https://new-harvest.org/publications/ https://new-harvest.org/publications/ 3: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00043/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.0004... 4: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X21004668 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X2...

monk_e_boy 4y ago
Fish is wildlife (mostly) so the sooner we stop taking it, the better. Farmers ensure they have cattle for next year. The fishing industry doesn't take that care over next years stock. Stop eating fish. Please. Just move to chicken or some other meat.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >. The fishing industry doesn't take that care over next years stock. Many nations do exactly that for fisheries within their territorial waters.
- Depurator 4y ago
  Only high value species are interesting for the cultivated meat indsutry. The overwhelming majority of salmon is farmed, especially atlantic salmon [1, page 17]. Yellowtail tuna is increasinly farmed as well, but sure wild stocks of tuna are still getting depleted. Eating chicken or some other meat is not better than eating fish. 1: https://mowi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Salmon-Industry-Handbook-1.pdf https://mowi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/2022-Salmon-Indu...

LatteLazy 4y ago

Tiger/Human/T-Rex meat always seemed like a much more interesting sales proposition than trying to compete with beef/pork/chicken which people already have available and cheap...

DrThunder 4y ago

Can anyone tell me how this lab grown meat has any sustenance? Animals get vitamins, minerals etc. from their lifestyles and what they eat. I see this stuff as the equivalent of white bread. Yeah it might look similar but nutritionally it's as good as eating cardboard. No way I'm trying this lab grown artificial meat until his extensive nutritional studies. The FDA's food pyramid ought to be enough to not trust them on approving this. As with most food, the more industrialized it gets the worse it is for our health and you can bet the moment they can commercialize this the point it's profitable then whether it's healthy or not will be inconsequential.

oifjsidjf 4y ago
It's ironic that this is get downvoted since the question is 100% valid. People think you can just dump some vitamins and minerals in the food that "that will make it healthy".
- DrThunder 4y ago
  The hypocrisy is astounding. Typically the same people downvoting this will call our current mechanized food industry a blight on humanity that's destroying the earth, unhealthy, and harming animals. Yet, they're willing to let these same people feed them mass produced bio-lab meat without questioning one bit. The FDA is out there recommending frosted mini wheats over chicken right now. I don't trust a thing coming out of there mouths. They're just paid off by the highest bidder.