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The Struggle to Make Lab-Grown Meat
- freeone3000 4y agoIt appears to be currently made using more equipment, with less scale, and to top it all off they still use animal cell lines! It’s nowhere near ready.
- Maken 4y agoOf course they need to use animal cells. The point is to be able to grow meat without "conscience", aka a central nervous system.
- iszomer 4y ago_You want to go to the Island._
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- monkey_monkey 4y agohttps://archive.is/OkKk4 https://archive.is/OkKk4
- narrator 4y agoProbably just like vertical farming, it uses vastly more energy than traditional farming. Maybe Elon would be interested in this tech for food production on Mars where it might make more sense. If it requires a lot of equipment maintenance, it might not even be good on Mars since spare parts are hard to manufacture there.
- esperent 4y ago> Probably just like vertical farming, it uses vastly more energy than traditional farming. That's an unfounded assumption - vertical vegetable farming uses more energy than traditional vegetable farming (with a trade-off of less land). However, farming animals also uses more energy than farmi9 vegetables. So it's possible that lab grown meat won't use more energy than farm grown meat, and will come with enough other benefits - less water and land use, less cruelty, less antibiotics, less risk of cross transmission of disease - that even if there is an increase in energy use, the trade-off will be worth it.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoFarming animals doesn't use more energy than farming vegetables. You use a truly staggering amount of petrochemicals making fertiliser, spreading fertiliser, cultivating fields, planting seeds, harvesting crops, and all the rest of it. Even if you grow silage crops specifically for feeding livestock it's not nearly so much faff and you use a relatively small amount of fertiliser and fuel.
- MagnumOpus 4y agoIt definitely uses more energy per calorie produced by a factor of 3 to 10. (Otherwise meat and cheese would cost roughly as much as rice or maize or bread or pasta.)
- Pxtl 4y agoFood that eats food isn't ever going to be efficient.
- Gordonjcp 4y agoLet me know when you figure out how to eat grass.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoAll of your problems with growing crops apply more to animals because most crops are grown to feed animals. 77% of soy worldwide is grown just to feed animals, for example. (7% is fed to humans) I don't know how you square the facts with what you want to believe on this issue, though I am curious.
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- lm28469 4y agoSeeing all these sterile rooms, inox pipings, reactors, tanks make me feel weird. I'm vegetarian but I'd eat a local farm animal over this if I had to chose. edit: to clarify, food for me is equal to traditions, know-hows, local, &c. not three dudes in hazmat suits populating a 60000 gallon tank of chicken soup. If you want cheap as fuck meat and have the choice between modern animal farming and that then by all means go for that. It just doesn't sit right with me. It's so disconnected to everything I associate with good food, there already are alternatives, as nutritious, getting cheaper by the day, made from real thing we can grow with minimal post processing.
- myshpa 4y agoWhat's so weird about sterile rooms and stainless steel tanks? Do you think breweries (for example) are so much different? Very weird thing to hear from someone who claims to be a vegetarian. https://www.google.com/search?q=brewery&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=brewery&tbm=isch
- ihatepython 4y ago> What's so weird about sterile rooms and stainless steel tanks? Do you think breweries (for example) are so much different? I can brew my own beer in my own home. Can I make lab-grown meat in my own home?
- freddie_mercury 4y agoYou're moving the goal posts. The initial claim was that stainless steel tanks per se were the issue.
- smashed 4y agoThey feel unnatural and unconventional and is something a large part of the population will be unable to relate to. Food is a very cultural thing. We've also been educated to buy and prepare our own meals from the most natural/unprocessed ingredients as possible and avoid heavily industrialized/preprocess ingredients for health reasons. Lab grown meat is the opposite of both of that. I am just playing Devil's advocate here. I understand the appeal and potential environmental benefits as well.
- Pxtl 4y ago> They expect hybrid products, often made with animal cells and other ingredients such as plant-based protein, to have a quicker, less costly path to market. This is what I've always expected. Synthetic meat slurry added to conventional fakemeat vegetarian products, basically taking Impossible Burger's "synthetic heme" concept to the next level. > Upside said in 2021 that it found a way to produce some meat without using animal components. But its first chicken filets won’t be made with that process, the company said, noting that it intends to phase out the use of animal components. Wait, what does this mean? Like, the process needs constant refreshing with new animal meat? So it's not really cruelty-free? > “If alternative proteins are not successful, the Paris climate agreement goals are probably impossible” to meet, said Bruce Friedrich, president of the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for alternative proteins. Beef and dairy cattle, along with other farm animals, are a major source of methane, a greenhouse gas. This isn't super relevant to the conversation here since there are very many alternative proteins that don't require inventing synthetic meat.
- aendruk 4y ago> Wait, what does this mean? Maybe they’re referring to FBS in media. Much of cell biology research has used cow blood as an easy way to nurture cells, and early lab grown meat continued to use that as a starting point. The switch to a more ethical alternative is underway.
- hnboredhn 4y agoI'm curious what the legal restrictions are here. I would imagine if a hamburger from a fast food restaurant could replace half of its meat with plant protein that I may not really notice if no one tells me. At the same time, the price differential is probably going to be very small that I would absolutely go for the pure meat option every time if its just within a dollar difference. I can't find for the US but I know there are strict rules on what can be called juice, for instance. It looks like Europe is more lenient than the US: https://www.npr.org/2020/10/23/927278172/veggie-burgers-can-be-called-burgers-european-parliament-says https://www.npr.org/2020/10/23/927278172/veggie-burgers-can-...
- wongarsu 4y ago
- benzible 4y agoAlso see https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/ https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-sca... > Humbird likened the process of researching the report to encountering an impenetrable “Wall of No”—his term for the barriers in thermodynamics, cell metabolism, bioreactor design, ingredient costs, facility construction, and other factors that will need to be overcome before cultivated protein can be produced cheaply enough to displace traditional meat. > “And it’s a fractal no,” he told me. “You see the big no, but every big no is made up of a hundred little nos.”
- AlbertCory 4y agoI like that phrase: the Wall of No. And the fact that it's no's all the way down.
- 64operator 4y agoIt's also tough because nobody really wants this. I've asked around and none of the vegans, vegetarians, or meat eaters I know are even vaguely interested in this. Reactions range from "huh" to "I'll never eat fake meat." I wont eat it either, it's dehumanizing.
- gamerDude 4y agoTo add the other side. Every single one of my friends are excited for lab grown meat. The potential for a cleaner and more ethical meat plus the potential for new and better/different tasting meat is a plus for everyone in my circle.
- 64operator 4y agoThe energy inputs alone preclude any thought of it being ethical.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hombre_fatal 4y agoWhat are the energy inputs and how do they compare with meat?
- 64operator 4y agoWhat aren't they, really? That's what I'd like to know.
- hombre_fatal 4y agoMeat is resource intensive and certainly more resource intensive than eating vegetables directly. Meat is so inefficient that we grow most of our crops to feed meat, for example. Why is this difference presumably not an ethical concern for you, but it is with lab-grown meat? Differentiating on energy intensiveness sounds like an empirical claim, so I'm going to ask about the empirics.
- bioemerl 4y agoI've been watching a YouTuber try to create animal cells in a pitri dish and it just gave me such an appreciation for how amazing multicellular life is. And just how mean our immune systems are. You have to go through so much trouble to keep things totally sterile. Control the oxygen contact of the medium. Maintain these crazy exact temperatures, all for a thin smear of cells that couldn't do anything functional at all. And here we are, millions of these helpless cells, ruining around ruling the would. To the world of life we are these supermassive towering beings that are ecosystems to their own that emerged from the birthplace of life eons ago and cover the planet. The universe is such a strange and wonderous place, and yet we're some of the most wonderous things in it.
- mptest 4y agoBeautiful thought friend. May I ask what the youtube channel is? Sounds fascinating
- bioemerl 4y ago"The thought emporium" Dudes nuts. Engineered/Infected himself with a virus that changed his intestines to make them produce lactose for a few months. Is working up to build a bunch of neurons trained to perform a task.
- mkaic 4y agoNot GP but I wonder if maybe they're referring to The Thought Emporium[0]? [0]https://www.youtube.com/@thethoughtemporium https://www.youtube.com/@thethoughtemporium
- 64operator 4y ago[flagged]
- feoren 4y ago"Nothing humans are doing already is gross" "Anything gross is not worth doing" "Humans should not try to make staple goods cheaper to produce, because millionaires" - You, apparently?
- 64operator 4y ago[flagged]
- ihatepython 4y ago> Another question I've had for a while - is there any way to combine lab-grown meat, cockroach milk, and vertical farming? I think it makes more sense to use 'plankton' as a food source, for making nutritious green wafers. They can be called 'Soylent Green'. This could also help to solve the over-population problem.
- 64operator 4y ago[flagged]
- tivert 4y agoThe whole "lab-grown meat" thing always seemed like nonsense to me, at least techniques using cell cultures. Life is a no-rules arms race, which is why immune systems are a basic requirement, not an unnecessary luxury. Trying to build an organism out of tubes and pipes with industrial techniques seems utterly foolish to create such a low value/mass quantity product as food. IMHO, any kind of successful and practical "lab grown meat" would probably look like some kind of engineered "minimal viable animal" (e.g. a chicken without the brain, and maybe missing a few other things, but recognizable as an animal with functioning organ systems).
- Metacelsus 4y agoLike this: https://asteriskmag.com/issues/1/they-may-as-well-grow-on-trees-the-future-of-genetically-engineered-livestock https://asteriskmag.com/issues/1/they-may-as-well-grow-on-tr...
- bobwaycott 4y agoWow. That chicken may be one of the most horrifying illustrations I’ve seen in a while.
- AstralStorm 4y agoMeatBeast (TM) from Imperium Galactica. Way better than engineered fungus that predated it. :)
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago>(e.g. a chicken without the brain, and maybe missing a few other things, but recognizable as an animal with functioning organ systems). Or a tumor
- Retric 4y agoWe already use several processes that are similar to lab grown meat. Ie beer and cheese are a bunch of cells dumped into a growth medium. Hell bread rises because of yeasts in a growth medium. So the “minimal organism” here is probably some kind of fast growing meat cell in a relatively sterile environment, alcohol production optional.
- _chu1 4y agoWhat's worse for the environment > Massive factories to make fake meat that tastes like nothing > Some dead cow
- RC_ITR 4y agohttps://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-26-storey-pig-skyscraper-ready-to-produce-1-million-pigs-a-year https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/25/chinas-2... I think your underestimating the scale of animal agriculture.
- _chu1 4y agoExpected Chinese hellscape. If eating animals is so bad for the environment shouldn't the Earth be a dry gray smoggy ball at this point?
- monetus 4y agoA lake of shit overflowing and poisoning the water table won't make the skies foggy. Granted, I am talking about rural things, that 26 story building probably has its own unique issues.
- _chu1 4y agoShit dude last I heard the water out of my sink was clean
- RC_ITR 4y ago>If eating animals is so bad for the environment shouldn't the Earth be a dry gray smoggy ball at this point? No. Things happen sequentially and compound. It's like saying in 2005, "if Amazon is such an important company, why isn't it already worth $1tn."
- rootusrootus 4y agoAlong the same lines, people here are underestimating the scale of lab grown meat production. IIRC it'd have to be something like 40,000 factories costing close to $2T to build, and even then it would take decades to build them all. And the meat would be very expensive.
- dekhn 4y agoI'd rather be vegetarian than eat lab grown meat.
- ihatepython 4y agoI'd rather be a cannibal than eat lab grown meat.
- DantesKite 4y agoI've always wanted lab-grown meat. Not the kind that looks like sludge, but the kind that would be indistinguishable from a beef patty you buy at the store, not least because it would be a more efficient way of producing food at scale. But also because some of that technology would also eventually be applied to the creation of human organs. And I'd like to live in a world where the waiting list for an organ transplant is just a few hours for everybody.
- pcthrowaway 4y ago> But also because some of that technology would also eventually be applied to the creation of human organs. I'm not sure that this is true. I mean, it might be in the sense that the technology for cultivating yeast could be applied to human organs. But to my knowledge there's not much going on in lab-grown meat that could be applied to producing functioning organ tissue, let alone building the full organ in all its parts and making it compatible with the host.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoThat’s not true. A lot of it is applicable, and a lot of lab grown meat comes from lab grown organ growing (an active area of research). From the process of initiating stem cell differentiation and growth to the creation of the scaffolding matrices, the difference between growing lab meat and growing, say, a heart, isn’t wildly divergent. The heart has more precision in its structure and function, but the material and processes are very similar. Other organs are more complex for certain. I’d note that people with injuries or burns also benefit from being able to grow muscles (aka meat) as well as skin.
- gnicholas 4y ago> In a 2019 incident, an analysis of a line of cultivated chicken revealed that it had been contaminated with a small amount of rodent DNA, former employees said, which Upside executives confirmed for this story. Ms. Chen said the DNA stemmed from a common medical-research technique that used treated rodent cells to help support the meat cells’ growth early in the cultivation process. The company immediately stopped using that technique, she said. Can someone explain what this "common medical-research technique" would be? I'm having a hard time understanding how this is passed off as "contamination" when it sounds like the rodent cells were deliberately put in contact with the food being created.
- fnordpiglet 4y agoMs. Chen is likely referring to the use of feeder cells or feeder layers, which are often used in cell culture to support the growth and differentiation of the target cells. Feeder cells are typically derived from rodents like mice or rats and provide essential growth factors, cell-to-cell signaling, and a supportive environment for the target cells. In the case mentioned, rodent feeder cells were likely used to support the growth of chicken cells during the early stages of the cultivation process. The contamination with rodent DNA could have occurred due to the close proximity of the rodent feeder cells to the chicken cells being cultured. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25659081/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25659081/ That said, having some rodent dna isn’t the same thing as eating rodents or allowing rodents to roll around in the meat or whatever. As long as it’s fit for human consumption, and you’re down with eating scientifically produced animal matter (SPAM), I don’t see an issue tbh.
- mcbits 4y agoI'd think something like "lab-grown maple syrup" would be easier both to sell and (knowing nothing about how it would be produced) to produce. I love real maple syrup but can't justify paying $15 for a little vial of it. A 10-story building filled with layer upon layer of sap seeping from living wood cells is less disturbing of a vision than layers of pulsating flesh.
- ethanbond 4y agoBut the upside, financially and environmentally, is not nearly as substantial.
- stasmo 4y agoGood point. Environmentally it would probably be net negative to stop using trees and move the production to a lab that consumes electricity.
- mcbits 4y agoWe can keep using trees, but this particular use of trees is already energy-intensive, materially intensive (thousands of miles of plastic tubes), sensitive to the weather each year, and geographically limited.
- softwaredoug 4y agoWould it be easier to breed some kind of brainless chicken with just the right organs and whatnot to sustain tissue growth? Sounds gruesome, but maybe more realistic than lab grown meat?
- etrautmann 4y agoI seem to remember that this was done for producing eggs, and consumers were horrified?
- rebolek 4y agoNature already solved this problem.
- nuancebydefault 4y agoI'm not very knowledgeable about the subject so I ask myself... Why make things so difficult and try to produce meat? Why not just proteins or any nutrients in bulk in reactors? Is original structure and taste so important in these days where we can produce flavours and build structures afterwards rather easily?
- DonsDiscountGas 4y ago>Is original structure and taste so important Short answer: yes. If it weren't way more people would be vegetarians (or at least have way lower meat consumption). At this point I think it's the structure that's the hard part, it's important to people and we have a hard time reproducing it. Plus even if it's not the original structure it has to be something; nobody wants to drink meat slurry. Personally I'm a fan of Impossible but I still have never tasted a good chicken-substitute.
- mvdl 4y ago"They come to snuff the rooster. You know he ain't gonna die" - Alice in Chains
- chaxor 4y agoI still fully support progress and research towards improving the world, which is precisely what lab grown meat is - but alternatives such as 'impossible' are still quite excellent substitutes as well. Honestly, I think impossible meat is far, faaar better than pretty much any real meat - and I say that including a 'good steak' or (even better) home cooked steak in the southern US from a local butcher shop. Of course, that can still be good - but impossible meat is way better due to actually being uniformly smooth and much easier to marinate (if that's what you're going for). Real meat has an enormous number of issues that make it sub par, such as health risks (unique disease sets, as well as the chronic-use red meat effects on health), random other tissues that affect quality (gristle, other tendons, etc), of course extremely inhumane processes for which it comes from, and the pretty insane costs associated with it (much of the writeups on this are very disingenuous and favor 'real' meat, despite the glaring amount of capital it takes to sustain these farms). Ultimately I am really ready to move on from the past of eating real meat and I would love to see all facets of the world switch away from it.
- sourcecodeplz 4y agoPeople just eat too much meat. There's no problem with eating meat, just not every day/meal. What's the problem of eating a cow or hen that was nearing its natural death?