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GOOD Meat gets green light from FDA for cultivated meat
- ElijahLynn 4y agoTIL: Eat Just (same company that makes Just Egg) owns GOOD Meat.
- drivers99 4y agoSo they’re sticking with using confusing adjectives. It has to be intentional then. My mom eats vegan foods and sometimes gets just an egg on a sandwich if she asks if they have “just egg”. Imagine the confusion. “Let’s go to ${restaurant}.” “Do they have good meat?” “Yeah, it’s great!”
- stefantalpalaru 4y ago«GOOD Meat induces the ability for its adherent cell line to grow in suspension (“suspension adaptation”) through selective culture in the presence of bovine serum.» - https://www.fda.gov/media/166348/download https://www.fda.gov/media/166348/download Of course they use freshly-squeezed aborted calves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum?useskin=vector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum?useskin=vec...
- 93po 4y agoThey're not using that in their Singapore facility and presumably would move away from it as soon as they can for all facilities.
- stefantalpalaru 4y ago[dead]
- muglug 4y agoHow does the energy consumption of the bioreactors stack up against live animals? There’s two different opportunities here — a suffering-free meat substitute and a meat substitute with a lower carbon footprint. This can get us closer to the former, but it’s not obvious it gets us closer to the latter.
- sacred_numbers 4y agoTheoretically it should be way less energy intensive as well, since there won't be an animal expending energy to live for months before slaughter. Nor will there be a need to grow feathers, bones, or blood that end up as byproducts. Of course, this tech is still being developed, so it probably hasn't reached optimal efficiency, but it doesn't have to be that efficient to be better than standard animal agriculture.
- dflock 4y agoWell, if the cow eats grass, then you aren't paying for that energy input.
- aviramha 4y agoIt's not the input. It's the output. Stock animals emit gasses (like any other animal) and it's non-neglectable footprint.
- dtech 4y agoIt's the main reason beef and lamb are so much worse in terms of CO2-equivalent than pork or chicken, and cheese isn't good either.
- bayesian_horse 4y ago"Grass-fed" doesn't scale to the meat demand. It's a complacent luxury for some people, and that's all it's ever going to be until the Human population at least halves or becomes mostly vegan (so some people can enjoy better meat).
- mrshadowgoose 4y agoDoes it matter? The carbon problem can (and IMO should) be fundamentally fixed by wholly transitioning electrical generation to non-carbon producing sources. Industrial/commercial processes that have carbon footprints beyond their electrical expenditure, can be offset by using additional (non-carbon producing) electrical energy to perform carbon capture and sequestration. Yes, that would raise the cost of everything, which is why few politicians seriously focus on this option. The common component to pretty much every process, product and comfort in our our society is energy utilization. Most people are not going to give anything up just because "the carbon footprint is bad/worse". So let's work on making it so the carbon footprint isn't even a factor.
- user3939382 4y agoRed light from me. There is a psychological aspect to food unfortunately.
- EngManagerIsMe 4y agoCan you explain yourself a bit more? It's unclear what point you are trying to raise.
- steponlego 4y ago[flagged]
- DanHulton 4y agoThis is factually incorrect, as a quick examination of their comments will indicate.
- steponlego 4y agoSock2bot, a common business model.
- user3939382 4y agoThere is a psychological aspect to food [being appetizing] unfortunately
- 93po 4y agoMeat is more appetizing to me if it's not literally the corpse of an animal, and nothing suffered or died to create it.
- user3939382 4y agoI don't personally feel that way but 100% get where those are coming from that do.
- messe 4y agoAren't there good arguments[1] that lab-grown meat is a long way from being cost-competitive due to fundamental thermodynamic reasons? [1]: https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/ https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-sca... Associated discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621288
- whatshisface 4y ago>For cell-cultured meat to be viable at scale, he said, “We think vessel size needs to be north of 200,000 liters, cell density needs to go up, and media costs need to be in the cents, not dollars.” It sounds like they're aware of a few obstacles.
- gamblor956 4y agoNo, it fundamentally boiled down to two things: bovine serum costs, and hygiene costs. GOOD claims that it already produces cultured meat without using bovine serum, in their Singapore facility. As we have no details on what they use instead of bovine serum, it's hard to assess the economic viability of what they're doing. But it also means that the entire counterargument focused on bovine serum costs is no longer relevant. And many required nutrients today are industrially grown in bacteria or algae (for example, most of the vitamins in a daily multivitamin). And the hygiene portion was premised on using Class 8 clean rooms for production, i.e., the most hygienic clean rooms currently recognized. The difference in cost between a Class 5 clean room (the lowest level of recognized "clean room", and the one used by pharmaceutical production, nanotech production, medical device production, etc.) and a Class 8 clean room is like the difference between an integrated GPU and a 6090 TI Founder's Edition. The problem with assuming the absolute top-of-the-line equipment would be required is that this was the assumption that drove this entire portion of the counterargument, down to facility size, equipment requirements, etc., ignoring entirely how production actually occurs in the real world.
- vagabund 4y agoDo you have a link or could you explain more about the actual hygiene requirements? I remember reading the linked article at the time and the challenge of keeping cells bacteria free did sound pretty daunting.
- Shaggy2000 4y ago[flagged]
- EngManagerIsMe 4y agoCan you explain a bit more? This seems like basic biology -- cells grow whether they are attached to a cow or not, assuming you provide them with the basic ingredients they need and the environment they need to grow.
- whatshisface 4y agoMost cells will not grow in an infinite uniform lineage, but rather will try to develop into a cow, or stop reproducing at some point because they think they're in an old cow.
- djur 4y agoMost mammalian cells, sure. The majority of cells on Earth are not mammalian cells or even animal cells.
- jxramos 4y agoAh that's an interesting point, what cell family is on the table, something like prokaryotic vs eukaryotic.
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoJust for everyone's information before the chain continues. Cultured meat generally refers to real but modified animal cells. So when you're eating cultured chicken they're effectively similar or even identical to a real animal's cells.
- djur 4y agoSure. I'm just saying that there's nothing unearthly or, uh, "satanic" about a self-perpetuating cell line that doesn't turn into a whole multicellular organism. Sometimes it seems like the main thing people took away from the HeLa story was "aaaaah, spooky immortal cells!"
- EngManagerIsMe 4y agoI always preferred the moniker "clean meat" over "lab grown" or "cultivated meat". It's the same material as meat, but without the ethical questions surrounding the factory production of meat.
- codewithcheese 4y agoWhat makes it "clean" vs animal grown meat?
- bayesian_horse 4y agoI think he assumes the factory production aspects of how fetal bovine serum is collected taints the karma of lab grown meat. But that is indeed an entirely sentimental or spiritual concept. FBS doesn't contribute to the suffering of animals because it is a side product that is actually discarded most of the time. At worst, buying FBS means making the main production chain slightly more profitable. In any case, I don't believe "clean meat" means less animal suffering than "cultured meat". "Clean meat" is just as unscaleable as cultured meat (currently) because of demands on labor and land. You still need to kill an animal long before its natural death, and you raise that animal in the first place to kill it. So I don't follow that particular argument.
- ysavir 4y agoEh, it can go both ways. I would consider the term "clean meat" to refer to meat grown simply, meaning naturally, so quite opposite to your intention with "clean". I understand what you're getting at, but the message seems less about describing the product in question and more about assigning a virtue to it. That can be great for marketing towards specific crowds, but I think we should aim for a factual, neutral term to describe it.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoMaybe clean as in it comes from a source that didn’t have piss, guts, feces, and pathogens inside it.
- whatshisface 4y ago>The paste is “intended to be utilized as a human food ingredient to be mixed with other food ingredients” to make products such as chicken bites and boneless chicken breasts, said GOOD Meat, which combines cell-cultured and plant-based meat in its products sold in Singapore.
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoCurious to know why you chose to highlight this part, is it good or bad or just interesting in your view?
- whatshisface 4y agoIt's the main part of the story, good bad or interesting.
- heywoodlh 4y agoReminds me of the food paste in Fallout 4[0]. Even the name GOOD Meat sounds like an acronym that would exist in the Fallout universe. (I don't have strong feelings for or against cultivated meat) [0] https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Food_paste_(Fallout_4) https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Food_paste_(Fallout_4)
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 4y agoMeat paste is totally how a lot of meat products are made, so that makes sense for cultured meat. I once worked in a plant that largely made hotdogs. Pink slime everywhere.
- Metacelsus 4y agoAnd yet they're still using fetal bovine serum to grow the cells, according to the article. There are plenty of better culture media options, I wonder why they're not using them.
- akiselev 4y agoFrom the article: > Asked about bovine serum, Noyes told AFN: “Today’s FDA clearance, which was years in the making, involved a chicken cell line that is produced with a very low level of animal-derived nutrients that are effectively removed through the harvesting and washing procedure. Like in Singapore, our team will be pursuing an amendment for serum-free media with the FDA.” > He added: “GOOD Meat’s R&D operations have been free from animal-derived nutrients for over three years, and in January, we received the world’s first approval for serum-free media in Singapore, where we’ve been selling our cultivated chicken for more than two years. Moving to non-animal derived nutrients will not only lead to greater scalability and lower manufacturing costs, but also a more sustainable product.”
- dehrmann 4y agoAs a curious vegetarian (which at this point must be a lot of their prospective market), the bovine serum is a dealbreaker.
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoDo you consume dairy products?
- phire 4y agoI'm not a vegetarian, but even I feel it's not directly equivalent.
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoIf you took a look at how cows are treated in factory farms, it might change your feeling. I have seen people get physically sick when they found out.
- steponlego 4y agoWhat the heck is the market for this stuff? I'm repulsed by it, and I've asked around. None of the people I know who eat meat are even vaguely interested in this either. I mean sure a cow gets slaughtered but the alternative being presented, with vats of barnyard-alien-maniamal (yes the lab grown franken-meat industry has gleefully stated culturing human meat is a goal) hybrids twitching and gibbering in their nutrient-piss fluid goo... It's just dehumanizing. Maybe that's the point of this industry.
- messe 4y ago> I'm repulsed by it Can I ask why? Why is a bunch of cells grown in a clean-room environment more disgusting than a similar bunch harvested from free-range chicken potentially exposed to vastly more diseases? I don't mean to be facetious, really, I don't. I'm neither vegetarian nor vegan, and am not pursuing any kind of agenda with this line of questioning. I just don't understand where the feeling of disgust comes from.
- marlor 4y agoI’m not sure if this is the previous poster’s reason, but (given the implication that the poster is a vegetarian) it my simply be that many vegetarians are put off by the taste and texture of meat, whether it be real, cultured or fake (via textured proteins, etc.). But I think it’s pretty silly to think that vegetarians are the target market for fake or cultured meat. Surely not. If you’ve been vegetarian for a long time (life-long or for decades), then the distinctive texture of many meat products can be very off-putting. It’s not like anything you find in vegetable dishes (which is why fake and cultured meat products exist!), and if you’re not used to it, it can trigger you to gag as your brain sends signals that “this isn’t food as I know it”. This isn’t usually a problem. If you’re a vegetarian, you don’t have any requirement to eat meat. Except some restaurants are now excitedly adopting fake (vegetable protein-based) meats as a “vegetarian” option. It must be convenient as they don’t have to invent new vegetable-centric dishes, but many vegetarians just can’t manage to eat them even if they try. I’ve been to a couple of work dinners lately where the vegetarian option was a fake (TVP-based) meat, and had to just eat the side salad because the main dish triggered my gag reflex. I’m a life-long vegetarian and kind of wish I could eat meat, it would make life simpler. But I just can’t bring myself to chew or swallow it without plenty of water to wash it down. That said, I’m all for cultured meats as an option for meat-eaters. Go for it.
- trompetenaccoun 4y agoCultured meat is a good idea in theory, the end result depends on the exact implementation of course. Cultured meat is coming, you can already get it in selected restaurants in Singapore and Israel. It makes sense to combine protein consisting of real animal cells with plant food, both to bring down costs and for environmental reasons. They could also market it as more healthy I guess, although opinions regarding that will be divided of course.
- DoreenMichele 4y agoThe food industry is highly regulated. A couple of key points: “The key takeaway here is that with this landmark decision, we are now the first company with cultivated meat approvals in two countries – the US and Singapore,” Eat Just VP and head of global communications Andrew Noyes told AFN. “And we’re the only company in the world that has ever sold to consumers.” In the US, the FDA regulates cell collection, banking, growth and differentiation for cultivated meat and poultry. Regulatory oversight then switches to the USDA once the cells are harvested and through the processing and labeling stages.
- bayesian_horse 4y agoFood regulation in the US sucks. In the EU we have both a "higher level of regulation" and it's more effective in most regards. Maybe some food production is cheaper in the US, partly from less regulation, but not by much and you wouldn't know it from consumer prices. Overall, most of the EU enjoys a high quality of cheap food (yes, it increased quite a bit the last year...) and the food safety is actually higher.
- Rustwerks 4y agoI'm saddened that they are just growing chicken. It's a safe and boring choice when they could be presenting endangered species burgers, pate, lark tongue, or other intriguing possibilities. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan
- Mizoguchi 4y agoWildType is growing Salmon.
- wardedVibe 4y agoGive it a couple of years to get the basics down. Though I suppose offering particularly weird stuff could help with the prestige/high price phase of things. Also I should really reread Transmetropolitan, its a great series.
- bayesian_horse 4y agoChicken meat is versatile and the cultivation is probably a lot easier. There is a lot more biotechnology knowledge about chicken meat.
- shrubble 4y agoAs long as it is properly and fully labeled, so that people can know whether or not this product is used in what they are eating... I wonder to what extent the patents expiring as mentioned in the article, have led to this push?
- hulitu 4y agoFinally we have Soylent green. /s