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> You're ignoring what might be the most important part - energy input You're making the same mistake! Most of the energy that goes into cows is used to main
by civilitty 3y ago
> You're ignoring what might be the most important part - energy input
You're making the same mistake!
Most of the energy that goes into cows is used to maintain their homeostasis and move them around from one patch of grass to the next. Best case scenario, 20% of the energy makes it down the line - 5:1 calories consumed to calories provided. Compare to shrimp where the numbers are more like 2:1 and we've got a huge range of efficiencies just within the animal kingdom.
The problem isn't that the cow eats free from photosynthesizers, it's that they've had several hundred million years to evolve together. The dream is to eventually short circuit the process via engineering by feeding energy from solar inputs directly into producing edible muscle fiber.
It "just" that engineering something as efficient as evolution is really, really, REALLY hard.
- xorbax 3y agoYes! But you can't dismiss the techs require to culture meat, process the BSA, drive to work, buy pipette tips, clean the glasswear, etc. That's what replaces the cow's metabolism and the wasted energy of it flapping its tail. I understand the point of lab meat. I'm not convinced that the engineering required to produce it will thermodynamically be more efficient than a cow in a field. So, again: eat a goddamn bean.