8 ms·

I'm pleased to hear that something like this is being developed, anything that will help stop or reduce the unnecessary mistreatment of animals.

wannacboatmovie 2y ago
Eggs are extremely nutritious. We should not be excited to replace them with Soylent Green. Humans are omnivores. Without eating animal products society would collapse.
- wezdog1 2y ago
  Or... probably not
- ant6n 2y ago
  Wait, Onego eggs are people?!
- HelloMcFly 2y ago
  > Without eating animal products society would collapse. I'm not a vegetarian (I eat an egg every day!), but wow, what a confident assertion. I'm open to your evidence behind this, but it seems absolutely preposterous to me.
  - heyoni 2y ago
    I think the idea that there’s still so much about nutrition we don’t know is a very reasonable take and a good argument against removing animal products from our diet
    - HelloMcFly 2y ago
      Of course there is a conversation to be had, though I think there's pretty clear evidence individuals can function just fine without animal consumption. But the idea that "society would collapse"? That seems to be going just a tad bit beyond what I would consider a "very reasonable take". I think it would be easier to argue that our addiction to meat consumption is one culprit fueling society's collapse already given the environmental and ecological impact that meat production creates.
  - wannacboatmovie 2y ago
    Imagine going to a part of the world ravaged by starvation and explaining to them that we're throwing millions at growing egg whites in a lab because the chickens are sad. The amount of privilege needed for this is incomprehensible.
    - rsynnott 2y ago
      I mean, you realise that one of the major long-term goals of this sort of thing is a _cheaper product_? Theoretical efficiency for something like this is far higher than for a chicken, because, well, you don't need to sustain an actual _chicken_. The egg-laying chicken itself is largely a rather expensive byproduct in the egg production process.
      - infamouscow 2y ago
        This doesn't even touch the GP point. Further, "long-term" is a weasel word that is meaningless to people starving right now. The hungry want to hear food is coming, not some hifalutin agriculturally illiterate fantasy thought up by hung over trust fund kids. Short if giving a specific date and objective success criteria, long-term means never.
        rsynnott 2y ago
        I mean, long-term would want to be soon, or the company will go out of business. From the article, and I do realise that it is considered most improper to actually read them on this website: > Onego Bio plans to sell Bioalbumen to companies that would then create the food products. The processed food industry is very cost-sensitive and both industrial egg albumen and various substitutes are already available; if they're not price competitive they'll die quickly. It doesn't seem at all unlikely that they'lll get to being price competitive quickly. They're producing a single protein with a fungus. There's another well-known example of this; quorn. Quorn's actually a bit more complex in that, once they've produced their protein they need to add stuff to make it palatable, and their processed output still comes in at about the same cost as processed chicken, and generally a bit cheaper than other processed meat. These people seem to be literally just producing albumen, so it's close to an ideal case.
- 90d 2y ago
  I'm never eating the JUST EGG
  - thimkerbell 2y ago
    It tasted fine. There are recipes for egg-equivalent online, typically involving Kala namak aka black salt, if you want to try doing it yourself.
- slfnflctd 2y ago
  If everyone stopped drinking alcohol, society would also collapse. By monetary valuation, the global alcohol market is over 30x the size of the global meat market. Does this mean we should discourage people from replacing getting drunk with healthier alternatives?
  - shrubble 2y ago
    Do you have a source for this statement? Doesn't pass the smell test for me...
    - slfnflctd 2y ago
      Well, I had sources yesterday but I didn't save them. Today all I can find is that the alcohol industry is a little bigger, but not 30x (maybe closer to 20%). I'm not sure why there is so much disparity in these kinds of figures. Every source I can find today still seems to indicate the meat industry is at least somewhat smaller, though. Source for meat products market size estimated at 1660.64 billion in 2023: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/meat-products-market https://www.precedenceresearch.com/meat-products-market Source for alcoholic beverages market size estimated at 1949.2 billion in 2021: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/alcoholic-beverages-market-107439 https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/alcoholic-beverages-...
- rsynnott 2y ago
  > Without eating animal products society would collapse. ... Wait, how does that follow? Like, if everyone stopped tomorrow, sure, maybe; it would at the very least be a massive economic shock, and would likely lead to critical shortages as well. But phased out over time, it's not clear why this would be the case.
10u152 2y ago
I think more people should keep chickens in back yards. They’re good pets, they recycle scrap foods and they keep insects off your veggies. Nobody should be buying cage eggs in the shops.
- goda90 2y ago
  My 3 big hold-ups are not wanting to annoy my neighbors, since I live on a corner and behind my house would be next to their back yard. Then not being sure how my dogs would handle the chickens. One has a lot of herding instinct and the other has guardian instincts, but they both react to wild animals strongly. And finally the current bird flu going around bird populations worries me.
- ZekeSulastin 2y ago
  What back yard?
- eigenket 2y ago
  Theres still some kinda difficult ethical problems with those. People generally want female chickens, since that's where the eggs come from (and I think there are problems with having multiple males in a flock). Unfortunately naturally you get a 50:50 ratio of males and females in the eggs. The males are usually killed shortly after hatching. Its worth pointing out that there are methods for avoiding this, by detecting the male chicks when they're still essentially a foetus in the egg. These work so well that France, Germany and Italy banned culling chicks a few years back. Unfortunately they're more expensive than determining the chick's sex after they are hatched so other places don't do it.
  - nsvd 2y ago
    This isn't unique to keeping backyard chickens, it's an ethical issue with factory farming as well.
    - eigenket 2y ago
      Of course, I strongly agree.
anoncow 2y ago
The future utopian Food Synthesizer from Star Trek seems a very tiny % more achievable now.
Findecanor 2y ago
There exists quite a few of vegan egg replacement products already. I've found egg replacement based on lupinus seed flour to be perfectly adequate for baking sponge cake and frying crepes. The problem is that a replacement product that doesn't contain the identical substance can replace the original only in some recipes. With "vegan products" in general, you'd have to pay more attention when cooking because it will often not cook exactly the same way as the product it imitates.
- kevsamuel 2y ago
  Eggs are so versatile any replacement is bound to be very context specific. But nutritionally speaking, I don't think we can find anything that compare. It's quite an amazing food.
- rsynnott 2y ago
  Well, this is still just albumen, so you won't be making custard with it. Actual albumen would be a lot more versatile than existing substitutes, tho.

wannacboatmovie 2y ago

Eggs are extremely nutritious. We should not be excited to replace them with Soylent Green. Humans are omnivores. Without eating animal products society would collapse.

wezdog1 2y ago
Or... probably not
ant6n 2y ago
Wait, Onego eggs are people?!
HelloMcFly 2y ago
> Without eating animal products society would collapse. I'm not a vegetarian (I eat an egg every day!), but wow, what a confident assertion. I'm open to your evidence behind this, but it seems absolutely preposterous to me.
- heyoni 2y ago
  I think the idea that there’s still so much about nutrition we don’t know is a very reasonable take and a good argument against removing animal products from our diet
  - HelloMcFly 2y ago
    Of course there is a conversation to be had, though I think there's pretty clear evidence individuals can function just fine without animal consumption. But the idea that "society would collapse"? That seems to be going just a tad bit beyond what I would consider a "very reasonable take". I think it would be easier to argue that our addiction to meat consumption is one culprit fueling society's collapse already given the environmental and ecological impact that meat production creates.
- wannacboatmovie 2y ago
  Imagine going to a part of the world ravaged by starvation and explaining to them that we're throwing millions at growing egg whites in a lab because the chickens are sad. The amount of privilege needed for this is incomprehensible.
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    I mean, you realise that one of the major long-term goals of this sort of thing is a _cheaper product_? Theoretical efficiency for something like this is far higher than for a chicken, because, well, you don't need to sustain an actual _chicken_. The egg-laying chicken itself is largely a rather expensive byproduct in the egg production process.
    - infamouscow 2y ago
      This doesn't even touch the GP point. Further, "long-term" is a weasel word that is meaningless to people starving right now. The hungry want to hear food is coming, not some hifalutin agriculturally illiterate fantasy thought up by hung over trust fund kids. Short if giving a specific date and objective success criteria, long-term means never.
      - rsynnott 2y ago
        I mean, long-term would want to be soon, or the company will go out of business. From the article, and I do realise that it is considered most improper to actually read them on this website: > Onego Bio plans to sell Bioalbumen to companies that would then create the food products. The processed food industry is very cost-sensitive and both industrial egg albumen and various substitutes are already available; if they're not price competitive they'll die quickly. It doesn't seem at all unlikely that they'lll get to being price competitive quickly. They're producing a single protein with a fungus. There's another well-known example of this; quorn. Quorn's actually a bit more complex in that, once they've produced their protein they need to add stuff to make it palatable, and their processed output still comes in at about the same cost as processed chicken, and generally a bit cheaper than other processed meat. These people seem to be literally just producing albumen, so it's close to an ideal case.
90d 2y ago
I'm never eating the JUST EGG
- thimkerbell 2y ago
  It tasted fine. There are recipes for egg-equivalent online, typically involving Kala namak aka black salt, if you want to try doing it yourself.
slfnflctd 2y ago
If everyone stopped drinking alcohol, society would also collapse. By monetary valuation, the global alcohol market is over 30x the size of the global meat market. Does this mean we should discourage people from replacing getting drunk with healthier alternatives?
- shrubble 2y ago
  Do you have a source for this statement? Doesn't pass the smell test for me...
  - slfnflctd 2y ago
    Well, I had sources yesterday but I didn't save them. Today all I can find is that the alcohol industry is a little bigger, but not 30x (maybe closer to 20%). I'm not sure why there is so much disparity in these kinds of figures. Every source I can find today still seems to indicate the meat industry is at least somewhat smaller, though. Source for meat products market size estimated at 1660.64 billion in 2023: https://www.precedenceresearch.com/meat-products-market https://www.precedenceresearch.com/meat-products-market Source for alcoholic beverages market size estimated at 1949.2 billion in 2021: https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/alcoholic-beverages-market-107439 https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/alcoholic-beverages-...
rsynnott 2y ago
> Without eating animal products society would collapse. ... Wait, how does that follow? Like, if everyone stopped tomorrow, sure, maybe; it would at the very least be a massive economic shock, and would likely lead to critical shortages as well. But phased out over time, it's not clear why this would be the case.

10u152 2y ago

I think more people should keep chickens in back yards. They’re good pets, they recycle scrap foods and they keep insects off your veggies. Nobody should be buying cage eggs in the shops.

goda90 2y ago
My 3 big hold-ups are not wanting to annoy my neighbors, since I live on a corner and behind my house would be next to their back yard. Then not being sure how my dogs would handle the chickens. One has a lot of herding instinct and the other has guardian instincts, but they both react to wild animals strongly. And finally the current bird flu going around bird populations worries me.
ZekeSulastin 2y ago
What back yard?
eigenket 2y ago
Theres still some kinda difficult ethical problems with those. People generally want female chickens, since that's where the eggs come from (and I think there are problems with having multiple males in a flock). Unfortunately naturally you get a 50:50 ratio of males and females in the eggs. The males are usually killed shortly after hatching. Its worth pointing out that there are methods for avoiding this, by detecting the male chicks when they're still essentially a foetus in the egg. These work so well that France, Germany and Italy banned culling chicks a few years back. Unfortunately they're more expensive than determining the chick's sex after they are hatched so other places don't do it.
- nsvd 2y ago
  This isn't unique to keeping backyard chickens, it's an ethical issue with factory farming as well.
  - eigenket 2y ago
    Of course, I strongly agree.

anoncow 2y ago

The future utopian Food Synthesizer from Star Trek seems a very tiny % more achievable now.

Findecanor 2y ago

There exists quite a few of vegan egg replacement products already. I've found egg replacement based on lupinus seed flour to be perfectly adequate for baking sponge cake and frying crepes. The problem is that a replacement product that doesn't contain the identical substance can replace the original only in some recipes. With "vegan products" in general, you'd have to pay more attention when cooking because it will often not cook exactly the same way as the product it imitates.

kevsamuel 2y ago
Eggs are so versatile any replacement is bound to be very context specific. But nutritionally speaking, I don't think we can find anything that compare. It's quite an amazing food.
rsynnott 2y ago
Well, this is still just albumen, so you won't be making custard with it. Actual albumen would be a lot more versatile than existing substitutes, tho.