7 ms·

What'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 someon

• 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 ago
    You're moving the goal posts. The initial claim was that stainless steel tanks per se were the issue.
    • smashed 4y ago
      They 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.
      • Hedepig 4y ago
        While this technology is becoming mainstream, those of us that are okay with it should understand there is something fundamentally "icky" for some people. Which is difficult to debate rationally. This is partly the fault of Sci-fi, bio-engineering is rarely shown as a positive in TV and Film. This will be mostly solved with time, eventually it may become economically unviable to buy "field meat" (not sure what the term will be), and it will become a lot more accepted when they see the people around them enjoying it without severe consequences.
        • XorNot 4y ago
          I'd be extremely curious to see a lot of these people be presented with the bioreactor and the live cow, and pick which one they're going to eat. "Icky" is ignorance.
      • hombre_fatal 4y ago
        I wouldn’t be so sure that most of the population could relate to the horrors of factory farms and slaughter houses—where basically all meat they’re buying comes from no matter how many alleged free roam grass fed consumers claim to exist on social media. That’s why there are laws to keep them from seeing it. Which might be why so many HNers think animals grow up in sunshine and rainbows and it’s the sterile lab that's icky.
  • Hedepig 4y ago
    With the right equipment, if not now, soon you will be able to.
• lm28469 4y ago
  > Very weird thing to hear from someone who claims to be a vegetarian I'm vegetarian for environmental reasons, not ethical. Nothing wrong with eating a chicken or a pig who had a good life on an open field for me
  • rmorey 4y ago
    Within rounding error, no chicken or pigs are raised this way today
    • Gordonjcp 4y ago
      In your country.
      • rmorey 4y ago
        Sorry, good point - worldwide it's only ~90% that are factory farmed https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-estimates https://www.sentienceinstitute.org/global-animal-farming-est...
        • marcosdumay 4y ago
          > However, there is substantial uncertainty in these figures No kidding. They could start by using a single (and known) definition for "factory farmed". Unless you are in the business of refining that data, this study is useless.
          • rmorey 4y ago
            it’s not useless, it’s just not that conclusive. Im pretty confident in saying a significant majority of animals raised for slaughter worldwide are done so in conditions commonly described as “factory farms”. We can quibble about the definitions all we want, but this is the dominant mode of raising animals for slaughter, that is clear to me
            • 4y ago
• simmerup 4y ago
  What I find weird about lab grown meat is that it runs into all sorts of problems like how the cells have a lack of immune system so entire batches can be ruined by one errant germ. I think we’re going backwards by trying to replace the natural bio reactor of the body with steal and piping. It’s all too labour intensive. To make this work we’ll need to genetically engineer an animal that has only the parts we’re interested in. Including skin to replace the steel bio reactors. Cows due to generations of selective breeding are already remarkably close to this.
  • morsch 4y ago
    The milk most people drink is proceeded in facilities that look much the same, because whole batches of it are ruined by a single germ, since it has no immune system either. We also have to pasteurize it. Or we don't, and germs from cows are hundreds of times more likely to make us sick, despite generations of selective breeding.
    • simmerup 4y ago
      To make this analogy complete you’d have to compare current milk production to some fictional milk that would require far less human processing and facility investment. I understand you’re saying the challenges lab grown meat faces arent insurmountable, but short of some outside influence (statutory interference?) I don’t see how it can compete with traditional cattle on the cost perspective
      • candiodari 4y ago
        Cattle production, especially large scale for more efficient meat production (ie. chickens and pigs in very small spaces) is already somewhat outlawed.
        • simmerup 4y ago
          I could see it being further outlawed/discouraged as climate change starts to bite
• jbc1 4y ago
  As someone who has given a lot of tours through a brewery and wineries, a good amount of people are in fact disappointed by the abundance of stainless steel tanks.
  • chihuahua 4y ago
    This is fascinating and bizarre. Any idea what those people expect or would prefer to see? Ancient wooden tubs, and people in quaint medieval costumes stomping grapes with their bare feet?
    • Brendinooo 4y ago
      Gotta say, the Mount Vernon distillery had vibes like that and it was really cool.
  • Animats 4y ago
    Yes. Years ago I was involved with a controversy on Wikipedia over Skyy Vodka. Skyy had dumped a PR piece into Wikipedia, and that was flagged. So I did some cleanup. It turned out that Skyy Vodka was just a marketing company. Production was outsourced to Frank-Lin Distillers Products in San Jose. Frank-Lin makes most of the low-end booze on the West Coast. It's a big operation. Many stainless steel tanks. Their own railroad siding, where tank cars of industrial ethanol come in. The ethanol was from a company called MGP Ingredients, formerly Midwest Grain Products, formerly Midwest Solvents, in Illinois. MGP also supplied ethanol for fuel use. Frank-Lin takes industrial ethanol, city water, and flavoring, and makes a large number of alcohol-based products. They make over a thousand brands, but there are only a hundred or so different recipes, they admit. Each brand has its own label, and many have their own bottles. A few years back, they moved to Fairfield, CA, to be next to the bottle factory. The Skyy Vodka article was updated accordingly. Skyy marketing was not happy.
• golemotron 4y ago
  > Very weird thing to hear from someone who claims to be a vegetarian. A lot of vegetarianism is cloaked aesthetics.
  • LoveMortuus 4y ago
    Not a vegetarian, but "cloaked aesthetics" sounds very interesting, could you elaborate?
    • pookha 4y ago
      Seems like it's a cute way of saying that it's a material and superficial way of life (like religious ceremony). Which might be true for some people. I've been a vegitarian since I was YOUTH CREW (lol) but I've kept doing it for my own reasons. Most people have no idea... What I notice though is that people get attached to their diets and act offended when you don't eat something that they consider to be some core part of their life style(barbeque, steak, meaty burritos, sushi, vegan fake meat). Some people can and do get butt-hurt when they find out I don't eat meat and then want to play "gotcha" reindeer games.
• AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  They don't like "chemicals".
• fisherjeff 4y ago
  Other industrially processed foods don’t live in the uncanny valley of meat. I know garden burgers and the like are produced in basically a lab but I still enjoy them. Impossible burgers and Tofurky skeeve me out. Not a vegetarian FWIW.