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> but if lab-grown meat is proven to be a safe We need to fully understand its safety, nutritional content, and long-term health effects. Our understanding o

by pella 4y ago

> but if lab-grown meat is proven to be a safe We need to fully understand its safety, nutritional content, and long-term health effects. Our understanding of the full biochemical spectrum of our diets is still limited. Therefore, it's important to ensure that lab-grown meat adequately replicates the complex array of nutrients and other beneficial compounds found in conventionally produced meat. Long-term effects: Since lab-grown meat is a relatively new technology, the long-term health effects of consuming it are not yet known. Rigorous safety testing and research are needed to establish its safety over time. --------------- Modern nutrition is largely unexplored territory "The unmapped chemical complexity of our diet" December 2019 Nature Food DOI:10.1038/s43016-019-0005-1 "Our understanding of how diet affects health is limited to 150 key nutritional components that are tracked and catalogued by the United States Department of Agriculture and other national databases. Although this knowledge has been transformative for health sciences, helping unveil the role of calories, sugar, fat, vitamins and other nutritional factors in the emergence of common diseases, these nutritional components represent only a small fraction of the more than 26,000 distinct, definable biochemicals present in our food—many of which have documented effects on health but remain unquantified in any systematic fashion across different individual foods. Using new advances such as machine learning, a high-resolution library of these biochemicals could enable the systematic study of the full biochemical spectrum of our diets, opening new avenues for understanding the composition of what we eat, and how it affects health and disease." https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337846288_The_unmapped_chemical_complexity_of_our_diet https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337846288_The_unmap...

_0w8t 4y ago
By the same reasoning factory farms that feed cows with grain, not grass, should be banned, as it very significantly alter meat nutrition.
- Retric 4y ago
  Grains are grasses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae The difference is we are feeding them grass seeds vs grass leaves.
  - simondw 4y ago
    That commonality doesn't seem sufficient (to me, a non-expert) to show that there is no difference in meat nutrition.
    - Retric 4y ago
      It definitely makes a difference, cows gain a lot of fat on a grain diet. The original reason people did this was the meat tasted better, but we’re extending that time period because subsidized grains are so cheap.
  - _0w8t 4y ago
    Omega fatty acids profiles of leafs and grains are entirely different. That ratio directly translates into the composition of cellular membranes of cows and eventually humans who eat them. Plus there are very different vitamin composition and even amino acids ratios are different.
- pella 4y ago
  Many individuals remain skeptical about the concept of evolutionary nutritional adaptation, arguing that our bodies have not adequately adapted to a variety of modern foods and additives. Indeed, there is mounting evidence suggesting that ultra-processed foods can have negative impacts on our health. In the ongoing debate surrounding breast milk and baby formula, the majority continues to favor breast milk as the optimal choice for infant nutrition.
  - fauxpause_ 4y ago
    This argument is all over the place. Ultra processed foods are clearly garbage. There is no nuance to this. There is no need for a deep study needed on unclear aspects of nutrition. They are plainly bad nutrition wise. Breast milk is not an active debate. It’s not determined by “the majority” either. It is pretty clear that breast milk is better for a baby developmentally. None of this actually supports your earlier assertion that lab grown food would have fundamentally different nutrition rules than other foods.
  - hombre_fatal 4y ago
    Coevolving with meat didn't stop saturated fat from raising our rate of cardiovascular disease. Due to antagonistic pleiotropy and short term reproductive selection you could even argue that novel foods have an advantage over the foods we've "adapted to" since our bodies never learned to make short term trade-offs with those foods. Those skeptics should also be skeptical of the naturalistic fallacy.
illiarian 4y ago
> We need to fully understand its safety, nutritional content, and long-term health effects. This is the same "reasoning" that ultimately led to ban on most GMO foods like actual long-term tasty tomatos. For some reason we demand significantly stricter controls over anything "lab-grown" than on anything "natural". Note: I'm not calling for lax controls. I'm callling for controls that are not more stringent than those on "natural" products. Because honestly there's literally nothing natural about any food we consumr.
- blululu 4y ago
  This is a pretty sensible policy. Things that are ‘natural’ typically have a much longer period of human and animal use. The amount of data that is latent in their extensive history offers much more certainty about their long term safety than a few short term studies. The real concern with GMOs is not about something like a genetic collapse but the fact that the technology is only really capable of enabling the use of more exotic pesticides and herbicides in food stocks. While I’m all for running science experiments and killing aphids, an unrestrained embrace of the chemical industry nearly cost us the bald eagle. Given that there is currently a massive food surplus and I pay taxes to prop up the at industry, I really don’t see the need to engage in a widespread experiment on pesticide use when targeted smaller scale studies would suffice.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    > Things that are ‘natural’ typically have a much longer period of human and animal use. Most of the hybrids you're consuming are nowhere to be found in nature. But since they are "natural" somehow they are absolved of most sins. And then boom and E. coli outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_o... or listeriosis outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_listeriosis_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_listeriosis... > The real concern with GMOs is not about something like a genetic collapse but the fact that the technology is only really capable of enabling the use of more exotic pesticides and herbicides in food stocks. That is not nearly the main concern. If anything, GMOs would allow us to forego most exotic pesticides and herbicides. > I really don’t see the need to engage in a widespread experiment on pesticide use when targeted smaller scale studies would suffice. What I "love" about discussions like this is that they immediately veer off territory that is only tenuously adjacent, at best.
Retric 4y ago
That’s a wildly misleading take on nutrition. Basically all foods are cells so they contain all the normal cellular machinery like DNA. As long as lab grown meat is just normal animal cells nothing new is going on. Where you need to care about each individual molecule is if we where creating food one molecule at a time via a replicator or something so we could have wildly unusual ratios of these individual components. In that context sugar is actually less “natural” than lab grown meat because it’s so concentrated.
- pella 4y ago
  > Basically all foods are cells Modern nutritional ingredients no longer contain only natural substances, and most additives are untested. "The European Commission is banning titanium dioxide (E171) as a food additive in the EU, starting with a six-month phasing out period as of February 7, 2022, until August 7, 2022, after which a full ban applies. Following the publication of Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/63 in the EU’s Official Journal (OJ) on January 18, 2022, Annex II and III to Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 on food additives will be amended accordingly. The Regulation also includes a commitment to review the necessity to maintain or delete titanium dioxide (E171) from the EU list of food additives for exclusive use as a color in medicinal products. On November 30, 2021, the Commission had already published Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/2090 in the OJ, denying the authorization of titanium dioxide (E171) as a feed additive for all animal species." https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/european-union-titanium-dioxide-banned-food-additive-eu https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/european-union-titanium-dioxid... in 2000, E171 was considered safe, but now it is not. Generally, it can be concluded that the half-life of food additives' safety is quite short.
  - illiarian 4y ago
    https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/titanium-dioxide-e171-no-longer-considered-safe-when-used-food-additive https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/titanium-dioxide-e171-no-... "Although the evidence for general toxic effects was not conclusive, on the basis of the new data and strengthened methods we could not rule out a concern for genotoxicity and consequently we could not establish a safe level for daily intake of the food additive." So EU took the "better safe than sorry" approach which actually is sensible.
pella 4y ago
Nassim Nicholas Taleb: """ I am scared of living in a society that doesn't find it obvious that things perfected by nature over millions of years are scientifically speaking, safer than things made by some "scientists" in a lab. Statistically, the "large n" of nature makes it > scientific. """ https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1172495876717273088 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1172495876717273088
- pazimzadeh 4y ago
  he comes to the right conclusion but his reasoning is poor
- illiarian 4y ago
  > I am scared of living in a society that doesn't find it obvious that things perfected by nature over millions of years are scientifically speaking, safer than things made by some "scientists" in a lab. This is the "natural corn" you consume vs. the actual natural corn: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/670657 https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/670657 Same goes for all "natural things" you eat.
  - pella 4y ago
    https://necsi.edu/the-precautionary-principle https://necsi.edu/the-precautionary-principle "Our analysis makes clear that the PP is essential for a limited set of contexts and can be used to justify only a limited set of actions. We discuss the implications for nuclear energy and GMOs. GMOs represent a public risk of global harm, while harm from nuclear energy is comparatively limited and better characterized. PP should be used to prescribe severe limits on GMOs."
    - illiarian 4y ago
      I wonder what their answer would be to Green Revolution in the 60s... Also, I can't get past random graphs with random numbers with zero explanation of the axes. There are valid concerns expressed, but they are buried underneath an avalanche of demagoguery.
andsoitis 4y ago
This feels like a GPT comment, but I’ll bite: > it's important to ensure that lab-grown meat adequately replicates the complex array of nutrients and other beneficial compounds found in conventionally produced meat Why?
- goldfeld 4y ago
  "important to ensure", "complex array", I've been working with GPT a lot and this GPT-speak is so blatantly weasel worded. Maybe GPT doesn't know any better because the world is so weasel worded into being, with trendspeak and buzzfeeding, poor thing.
  - andsoitis 4y ago
    for me, it is the condescending tone that gives it a away many times feels more like PR/corporate-speak than human speak.

by pella 4y ago

_0w8t 4y ago

By the same reasoning factory farms that feed cows with grain, not grass, should be banned, as it very significantly alter meat nutrition.

Retric 4y ago
Grains are grasses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae The difference is we are feeding them grass seeds vs grass leaves.
- simondw 4y ago
  That commonality doesn't seem sufficient (to me, a non-expert) to show that there is no difference in meat nutrition.
  - Retric 4y ago
    It definitely makes a difference, cows gain a lot of fat on a grain diet. The original reason people did this was the meat tasted better, but we’re extending that time period because subsidized grains are so cheap.
- _0w8t 4y ago
  Omega fatty acids profiles of leafs and grains are entirely different. That ratio directly translates into the composition of cellular membranes of cows and eventually humans who eat them. Plus there are very different vitamin composition and even amino acids ratios are different.
pella 4y ago
Many individuals remain skeptical about the concept of evolutionary nutritional adaptation, arguing that our bodies have not adequately adapted to a variety of modern foods and additives. Indeed, there is mounting evidence suggesting that ultra-processed foods can have negative impacts on our health. In the ongoing debate surrounding breast milk and baby formula, the majority continues to favor breast milk as the optimal choice for infant nutrition.
- fauxpause_ 4y ago
  This argument is all over the place. Ultra processed foods are clearly garbage. There is no nuance to this. There is no need for a deep study needed on unclear aspects of nutrition. They are plainly bad nutrition wise. Breast milk is not an active debate. It’s not determined by “the majority” either. It is pretty clear that breast milk is better for a baby developmentally. None of this actually supports your earlier assertion that lab grown food would have fundamentally different nutrition rules than other foods.
- hombre_fatal 4y ago
  Coevolving with meat didn't stop saturated fat from raising our rate of cardiovascular disease. Due to antagonistic pleiotropy and short term reproductive selection you could even argue that novel foods have an advantage over the foods we've "adapted to" since our bodies never learned to make short term trade-offs with those foods. Those skeptics should also be skeptical of the naturalistic fallacy.

illiarian 4y ago

> We need to fully understand its safety, nutritional content, and long-term health effects. This is the same "reasoning" that ultimately led to ban on most GMO foods like actual long-term tasty tomatos. For some reason we demand significantly stricter controls over anything "lab-grown" than on anything "natural". Note: I'm not calling for lax controls. I'm callling for controls that are not more stringent than those on "natural" products. Because honestly there's literally nothing natural about any food we consumr.

blululu 4y ago
This is a pretty sensible policy. Things that are ‘natural’ typically have a much longer period of human and animal use. The amount of data that is latent in their extensive history offers much more certainty about their long term safety than a few short term studies. The real concern with GMOs is not about something like a genetic collapse but the fact that the technology is only really capable of enabling the use of more exotic pesticides and herbicides in food stocks. While I’m all for running science experiments and killing aphids, an unrestrained embrace of the chemical industry nearly cost us the bald eagle. Given that there is currently a massive food surplus and I pay taxes to prop up the at industry, I really don’t see the need to engage in a widespread experiment on pesticide use when targeted smaller scale studies would suffice.
- illiarian 4y ago
  > Things that are ‘natural’ typically have a much longer period of human and animal use. Most of the hybrids you're consuming are nowhere to be found in nature. But since they are "natural" somehow they are absolved of most sins. And then boom and E. coli outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_o... or listeriosis outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_listeriosis_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_listeriosis... > The real concern with GMOs is not about something like a genetic collapse but the fact that the technology is only really capable of enabling the use of more exotic pesticides and herbicides in food stocks. That is not nearly the main concern. If anything, GMOs would allow us to forego most exotic pesticides and herbicides. > I really don’t see the need to engage in a widespread experiment on pesticide use when targeted smaller scale studies would suffice. What I "love" about discussions like this is that they immediately veer off territory that is only tenuously adjacent, at best.

Retric 4y ago

That’s a wildly misleading take on nutrition. Basically all foods are cells so they contain all the normal cellular machinery like DNA. As long as lab grown meat is just normal animal cells nothing new is going on. Where you need to care about each individual molecule is if we where creating food one molecule at a time via a replicator or something so we could have wildly unusual ratios of these individual components. In that context sugar is actually less “natural” than lab grown meat because it’s so concentrated.

pella 4y ago
> Basically all foods are cells Modern nutritional ingredients no longer contain only natural substances, and most additives are untested. "The European Commission is banning titanium dioxide (E171) as a food additive in the EU, starting with a six-month phasing out period as of February 7, 2022, until August 7, 2022, after which a full ban applies. Following the publication of Commission Regulation (EU) 2022/63 in the EU’s Official Journal (OJ) on January 18, 2022, Annex II and III to Regulation (EC) No 1333/2008 on food additives will be amended accordingly. The Regulation also includes a commitment to review the necessity to maintain or delete titanium dioxide (E171) from the EU list of food additives for exclusive use as a color in medicinal products. On November 30, 2021, the Commission had already published Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/2090 in the OJ, denying the authorization of titanium dioxide (E171) as a feed additive for all animal species." https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/european-union-titanium-dioxide-banned-food-additive-eu https://www.fas.usda.gov/data/european-union-titanium-dioxid... in 2000, E171 was considered safe, but now it is not. Generally, it can be concluded that the half-life of food additives' safety is quite short.
- illiarian 4y ago
  https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/titanium-dioxide-e171-no-longer-considered-safe-when-used-food-additive https://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/news/titanium-dioxide-e171-no-... "Although the evidence for general toxic effects was not conclusive, on the basis of the new data and strengthened methods we could not rule out a concern for genotoxicity and consequently we could not establish a safe level for daily intake of the food additive." So EU took the "better safe than sorry" approach which actually is sensible.

pella 4y ago

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: """ I am scared of living in a society that doesn't find it obvious that things perfected by nature over millions of years are scientifically speaking, safer than things made by some "scientists" in a lab. Statistically, the "large n" of nature makes it > scientific. """ https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1172495876717273088 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1172495876717273088

pazimzadeh 4y ago
he comes to the right conclusion but his reasoning is poor
illiarian 4y ago
> I am scared of living in a society that doesn't find it obvious that things perfected by nature over millions of years are scientifically speaking, safer than things made by some "scientists" in a lab. This is the "natural corn" you consume vs. the actual natural corn: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/670657 https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/670657 Same goes for all "natural things" you eat.
- pella 4y ago
  https://necsi.edu/the-precautionary-principle https://necsi.edu/the-precautionary-principle "Our analysis makes clear that the PP is essential for a limited set of contexts and can be used to justify only a limited set of actions. We discuss the implications for nuclear energy and GMOs. GMOs represent a public risk of global harm, while harm from nuclear energy is comparatively limited and better characterized. PP should be used to prescribe severe limits on GMOs."
  - illiarian 4y ago
    I wonder what their answer would be to Green Revolution in the 60s... Also, I can't get past random graphs with random numbers with zero explanation of the axes. There are valid concerns expressed, but they are buried underneath an avalanche of demagoguery.

andsoitis 4y ago

This feels like a GPT comment, but I’ll bite: > it's important to ensure that lab-grown meat adequately replicates the complex array of nutrients and other beneficial compounds found in conventionally produced meat Why?

goldfeld 4y ago
"important to ensure", "complex array", I've been working with GPT a lot and this GPT-speak is so blatantly weasel worded. Maybe GPT doesn't know any better because the world is so weasel worded into being, with trendspeak and buzzfeeding, poor thing.
- andsoitis 4y ago
  for me, it is the condescending tone that gives it a away many times feels more like PR/corporate-speak than human speak.