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Sergey Brin invests in synthetic beef
- sidcool 13y agoHe doesn't seem to like bacon.
- Goronmon 13y agoDoes it taste like despair? Seriously though, that's always my first thought when I read a story about something like this. It's like my brain can't help but cringe of the thought of eating something made this way, even if it's irrational.
- aninteger 13y agoI assume you are talking about MorningStar or Boca products. They aren't that bad are they? I eat a lot of red meat. Probably for both lunch and sometimes dinner almost every single day. It's gotten to a point to where cooking a meal without meat is an extreme challenge.
- icebraining 13y agoWe eat things made this way every day. Almost every food product nowadays contains synthetic components. This is just a step further.
- sdoering 13y agoDoes this make anything any better? I don't know about a lot of others, but I cringe as well, when reading such a headline. There was once a nice Eureka-Episode, regarding this "just a step further". And I just wouldn't want to be a human guinea pig for that kind of "non clinical trial".
- div 13y agoDoes women being allowed to vote make anything better if you're a man ? If this could become a viable alternative to regular meat, it has the capability of reducing a massive amount of suffering.
- wikiburner 13y agoHere's some reviews from food critics on the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23576143 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23576143
- gpvos 13y agoI applaud the idea on general principle, but the last paragraph of this article spells that it is probably too late already: > The latest United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report on the future of agriculture[0] indicates that most of the predicted growth in demand for meat from China and Brazil has already happened and many Indians are wedded to their largely vegetarian diets for cultural and culinary reasons. While I think it would be a good idea because we should actually strive to reduce our production of greenhouse gases, the above paragraph indicates that it's unlikely to become economically viable. [0] http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/ap106e/ap106e.pdf http://www.fao.org/docrep/016/ap106e/ap106e.pdf
- theklub 13y agoThe prime rib potato chips are really bizarre to eat. Its scary.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- VMG 13y ago"Cruelty-Free" is a selling point today.
- VLM 13y agoAt both food stores I shop at, there are already freezer sections of fake meat. Mostly (entirely?) based on extremely heavily processed soy. I would imagine this different form of fake meat would sneak into that same section. I would bet you could sell more "real" fake meat to vegetarians sick of flavored tofu easier than selling "real" fake meat to omnivores used to the real stuff. Back when I used to eat soy, I occasionally would eat "steaklets" which seem to have disappeared from the market. They were basically soy bean hashbrown "pucks" with meat flavoring. They were strangely good, but by no means could you confuse them with "meat". I would expect it to be much easier to adulterate "real" steaklets with fake "real" meat than to adulterate a genuine steak with fake meat.
- steveklabnik 13y agoThere are also fake meats made out of a hell of a lot of gluten. There is some pretty good stuff that is actually confusable with meat; Veggie Grill on the west coast has chicken sandwiches that are damn good.
- asciimo 13y agoFirst off, many vegetarians don't eat junk food out of the freezer; there are many wholesome and delicious alternatives to "flavored tofu." Second, many celebrate lab meat for its potential reduction of animal exploitation, but that doesn't mean that they will eat it. The preference for it is often lost early on.
- mistercow 13y agoDo factory farms not give you the chills?
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- rorrr2 13y agoI'm the opposite, I love meat, but hate the animal suffering. Even if it tastes half as good and costs around the same, I will switch.
- prawn 13y ago"I love mean, but hate the animal suffering." Awkward typo!
- sdoering 13y agoMaybe, just maybe buying animal-products, where the animals didn't suffer, where they were raised species-appropriate, would help, as it would be a ecological signal as well. If more people would do that, a lot more incentives would be there, to not let animals suffer just for human consumption. Since I switched to only eating animal products, where I know, how the animals lived, I do eat a lot less meat. i do pay a lot more (and I do that consciously). And I have the benefit, that it also does taste so much better, that I really enjoy this in more then one way, when I eat it (sometimes pork-steak, sometimes ham, sometimes goat-salami). We buy at a local farm, that raise, slaughter and process the meat all by themselves, and produce at least 50% of the food that is needed for raising the animals on the farm itself. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioland#Certification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioland#Certification) So for me this was a viable alternative - but I could understand, if this is not possible in other circumstances of life.
- paganel 13y ago> Maybe, just maybe buying animal-products, where the animals didn't suffer, where they were raised species-appropriate, would help, as it would be a ecological signal as well. This is very hard to do in most of the "first world" places because agriculture or raising animals doesn't scale that well unless you do it on an industrial scale. Now, you and me and a couple of others maybe can afford to pay extra for meat products, but for the vast majority of people who expect a shawarma not to cost more than 2-3 euros the reality is bleaker.
- wprl 13y ago
- VMG 13y agowait until you find out about Castoreum..
- rattray 13y agoTo you, yes, it would probably take like despair the first several times you were to eat it. To me, and to other vegetarians, it would probably just taste better than the weaker meat substitutes we're used to.
- eddieroger 13y agoWow, not every day you get a Better Off Ted reference, especially when I'm rewatching that show on Netflix right now.
- Shivetya 13y agoWhy do I think I am the only person who connected your first sentence with Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy? An Ameglian Cow? Still trying to determine why they must replicate it exactly, taste and texture should be sufficient
- MattGrommes 13y agoWell, once they get the technology for proper fat inclusion in the meat, they can make it taste however they want. But your (and by extension, the public's) mental "cringe" is probably going to be a much bigger hurdle for them to jump over than the technology was.
- hmsimha 13y agoI think it's been demonstrated time and time again that with enough monetary interest, the public will happily gulp down whatever slop is thrown their way. If this can be supplied cheaper than real beef, I think the fast food corporations will switch to it. Sergey Brin throwing his support behind the synthetic meat movement has really given me a new hope for the viability of a readily available consumer synthetic meat product in the near future.
- mayanksinghal 13y ago> Does it taste like despair? Synthetic meat doesn't, at least, taste like screams.
- peterjaap 13y agoHasn't Veridian Dynamics done this before? Edit; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_bPobs8T5w http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_bPobs8T5w
- lechevalierd3on 13y agoThis video is scary.
- spodek 13y agoWe have a lot of entrepreneurs here. Why don't we start with an easier lab-grown animal product than something we ingest? How about lab-grown fur coats (EDIT from evilduck's comment: or lab-grown leather for clothing, furniture, shoes, etc)? Who wouldn't want to wear a "mink" coat created with no animal pain? Develop the technology on something we don't have to eat, along with the associated health risks and sensitivity of our palates, but still useful. Then transfer the technology to the harder areas. I wrote about in-vitro fur before -- http://joshuaspodek.com/vegetarian-entrepreneurs-test http://joshuaspodek.com/vegetarian-entrepreneurs-test. I'd love to see it but haven't heard of anyone working on it. Is anyone doing it? Another application easier than in-vitro meat for humans -- in-vitro meat pet food.
- ginko 13y agoLab grown fur seems a lot harder to do than lab grown meat. Skin is an incredibly complex organ. Especially if you want to grow hair on it.
- freehunter 13y agoMaybe the first step would be developing the ability to grow hair on existing skin. That would be a very popular breakthrough, curing baldness and patching up scar tissue that cannot grow hair anymore. Then it's a matter of getting that to grow on synthetic skin.
- LaGrange 13y agoJust wait. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294205/Billionaire-Bill-Gates-blasts-capitalism-saying-reason-research-male-baldness-gets-funding-malaria.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2294205/Billionaire-...
- nsns 13y agoWhy don't we start with an easier lab-grown animal product than something we ingest? Because it's a prestige product, Where "authenticity" counts? (e.g., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_diamond http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_diamond) Or perhaps because millions of animals are slaughtered each day to be consumed as food?
- jlebrech 13y agowe could also use that muscle to create clean energy, we could make it pedal on bicycles.
- mapleoin 13y agothat's a great idea, I bet we could feed it corn syrup; we certainly have a lot of corn fields!
- scld 13y agoI think the synthetic food market is going to be the biggest emerging market by 2020, coming out of relatively nowhere. I know that there is development around it but with all the talk about energy, privatized space, mobile computing, clean environment, etc., I think synthetic meat will be the dark horse for next big business.
- prawn 13y agoI've wondered about insects too. I'm aware of at least one contemporary restaurant in Australia serving crickets, mealworms, ants, etc. I suspect more will follow. UN seems keen too. Apparently there are prototype factories growing insects to be crushed and used in a powdered form, and/or used as feed for livestock.
- tomjen3 13y agoI believe the market for that will grow, certainly for life stock but I personally can't see myself eat insects and frankly I don't believe I am alone in that. Besides it is mostly whitemeat and red meat is better.
- chris_wot 13y agoWhile it's more ethical for the animal, I must question the carbon footprint and efficient and effective use of resources to make synthetic beef. Firstly, to make it scale you'll need a lot of machinery. Then you'll need the right nutrients. It will need a lot of technology, because to make beef grow it will need to have everything maintained and provided for it. In nature, beef cattle can be run on reasonably unproductive land (feed lots notwithstanding). Cattle, as it turns out, are very effective and efficient factories of meat production all by themselves.
- pdelgallego 13y agoAccording to another BBC article the environmental impact is significantly smaller. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23576143 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23576143
- jere 13y ago>An independent study found that lab-grown beef uses 45% less energy than the average global representative figure for farming cattle. It also produces 96% fewer greenhouse gas emissions and requires 99% less land. I'd really like to know how something that is 200,000 times more expensive could currently have less of an environmental impact. I just don't see how you move that much money and don't make an impact.
- chris_wot 13y agoI suppose you'll need to see the published findings... Oh wait. There aren't any.
- tomjen3 13y agoIt is currently far more expensive. Currently. Look at the prize to synthesise DNA, which has crashed like there is no tomorrow. If these prizes follow that then in a decade or two this will be cheaper than real meat.
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- lukashed 13y agoNext up: Google beef. If they know our ad/browsing preferences, they also know our food/taste preferences.
- pavs 13y agoThey will also know your shopping habits more precisely once "Google Shopping Express" gains widespread usage. I don't think ad/browsing habits can gain that much precision. I am not sure thats actually a bad thing. They are trying to get the same data thats widely available to Amazon like services.
- keiferski 13y agoThe biggest challenge for synthetic beef will not be technology. It will be marketing. I'm glad Brin is investing, but I'd really like to see a marketing master like Richard Branson take the field on.
- bowlofpetunias 13y agoI don't think marketing will be a problem if you consider the industry has no problem selling crap that is made from far more distasteful things than synthetic meat. It initially won't be sold as "synthetic meat". It will be sold as "sausage", "hamburger" and countless other products of which the labeling isn't protected and which are basically "mystery meat" anyway. It has been done before, just look at the wide range of fake dairy products which we now consider perfectly normal. Getting it through regulation will be the biggest challenge.
- kleiba 13y agoWell, as long as they make it clear on the label that their "hamburger" or "sausage" product is made from lab-meat, not real meat, I'm all for it.
- freehunter 13y agoWhy? That's the same as labeling food made with GMOs. If there's no provable difference between the two, putting it on the label is just spreading FUD about the product.
- philwelch 13y agoI'm pretty sure you could taste the provable difference were you unfortunate enough to buy it.
- freehunter 13y agoThat all depends on how it tastes when it comes to market.
- mapleoin 13y agoThis is awesome, but I'd really hate to be a beta-customer for synthetic beef. It might cause a lot of really bad side-effects while the whole industry matures, figures out what standards it should set and implements them.
- mistercow 13y agoI'm pretty sure they will have to test it by feeding it to animals for a long time before they can even think about selling it to humans.
- psuter 13y agoYou gotta love the irony in that approach :)
- mistercow 13y agoYes, but as a consequentialist, I don't really have any choice but to be for it. Even if trying to change the system so that we didn't test on animals were viable, it would take so long that the delay would surely cause more net animal suffering than just doing the animal testing.
- hawkharris 13y agoDo British newspapers not capitalize the word Internet? I know all American papers capitalize it because it's a proper noun. I'm wondering if that's just a recurring typo in this article or if British journalists follow a different convention.
- wikiburner 13y agoTo be honest, I'm American and I sometimes feel weird capitalizing it in emails or documents because a lot of Americans don't capitalize it in common usage. Also, I've seen conflicting U.S. style guides on it.
- colinm 13y agoMaybe back in the 90's.
- hawkharris 13y agoI'm not sure I understand your comment. Will you elaborate on it?
- codev 13y agoThe Guardian is pretty progressive in style terms. I think there's an increasing tendency to write it as internet and they're closer to the cutting edge than a more conservative (style-wise) newspaper like the NYT. Here are their capitalisation rules: http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/c#id-3043710 http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/c#id-3043710
- hawkharris 13y agoThanks for taking the time to find and share this interesting guide. I think that The Guardian is a very progressive paper in general, but I'm not sure that lowercasing "the Internet" is a progressive move. The Internet is capitalized because it's a proper noun: not just any general network, but a specific global network of computers. [1] There is only one Internet. If an author is referring to a subset of the Internet, he or she should be specific and elaborate. E.g. Is the author talking about an intranet? In other words, it seems that NOT treating the Internet as a proper noun perpetuates a misunderstanding about what it is and how it operates. It implicitly gives writers a license to be more vague in their description of computer networks. But I'm curious to hear your take on this. What do you see as the advantages of lowercasing the word? [1] http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/capitalizing-proper-nouns?page=all http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/capitaliz...
- Nux 13y agoNice of mr. Brin to do this. It should set an example. I'm all for anything that will reduce/stop the mad slaughtering that's taking place now.
- aaronmarks 13y agoBiz Stone also just got into the meat-substitute space, with Beyond Meat - http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680007/biz-stone-explains-why-twitters-co-founders-are-betting-big-on-a-vegan-meat-startup http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680007/biz-stone-explains-why-tw... - which I can report is vegan, gluten free and delicious.
- gavinpc 13y ago> a history of backing projects that sound as though they belong in science fiction movies.... mining asteroids... trips to the moon... driverless cars and... green energy projects. So green energy is on par with trips to the moon?
- Thrymr 13y ago> So green energy is on par with trips to the moon? Providing renewable energy on the same scale as fossil fuels is at least as hard a problem as the Apollo program. We've got a long way to go. Graph for the US: http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec1_6.pdf http://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/annual/pdf/sec1_6.pdf
- akiselev 13y agoWhat the...? Going to the moon is science fiction? I guess the 20th century didn't exist.
- amirhirsch 13y agoBest quote from Sergey: "If what you're doing is not seen by some people as science fiction, it's probably not transformative enough"
- enraged_camel 13y agoPerhaps ironically, by this criteria the iPad was transformative, since it appeared in Star Trek. :)
- akiselev 13y agoNo, the first tablet was transformative. Here the quote means achieving something, not necessarily making it widespread.
- TeMPOraL 13y agoA => B doesn't mean B => A. "If it's considered sci-fi, it's probably transformative enough" does not follow from his words.
- enraged_camel 13y agoI think in this case it does. Can you think of anything sci-fi that would NOT be transformative enough?
- eddieplan9 13y ago
- wprl 13y agoHow about a return to traditional agriculture, which would provide more jobs, cleaner food, and decentralization and localization of food infrastructure? Why the relentless pursuit of industrialization and homogeneity at any cost?
- philwelch 13y agoBecause it doesn't scale to feeding 7 billion people for one. Because most people in industrialized countries don't want to be farm labor for two.
- wprl 13y agoPerhaps it's true that you can't feed the whole world without industrialized food, but you could feed the vast majority of people who live in cooperative climates. It's debatable whether the rest couldn't be fed as well. Also, it wouldn't take "most people" to support small-farm agriculture. Many would gladly raise organic produce and livestock, and sell locally if the food economy were not stacked against them. It also provides more financial independence than minimum wage jobs, and many full-time jobs. Not to mention it would create many jobs.
- philwelch 13y agoCreating jobs that people don't want and won't show up for, more like. With unemployment where it is now, you'd think Americans would sign up to pick fruit. But they don't, and we're dependent on migrant labor. More labor also means more expensive food. In the whole spectrum of human existence, farming sucks. It sucked so much that people remained hunter-gatherers as long as they could to avoid it, and it sucks so much that people leapt at the chance to become industrial wage slaves to avoid it. Turning more people into farmers out of some crazy left wing ideology sounds like a bad idea to me. I think Cambodia tried it once.
- wprl 13y agoUnfortunately, your opinion just isn't based in fact.
- brianbreslin 13y agoI've been following this topic for a while, and the interesting thing is that synthetic beef still has to be "fed". What its fed is stem cells and cow fetal materials. So its not "vegan" per-se. One of the synthetic meat companies switched to leather products as they found out no one wants to eat bio-engineered lab grown steak (also it didn't taste very good)
- ignostic 13y agoYou may be right in this case (I couldn't find their methodology online yet), but it's just a MVP. They could easily make it without touching a cow beyond the initial cell sample. It's possible to feed the cells a synthetic culture medium, or something that doesn't come from the cow. I don't know what was done in this case. We also don't need to continually re-harvest stem cells from the cow. Depending on when they differentiate, there would no doubt be a bunch of growing pluripotent cells, including enough backup cells to start over if batches are somehow contaminated. I'm no expert in growing meat, but I'm sure the vision is beef without reliance on cows, and the vision seems scientifically possible. I know about a dozen vegans, and none would complain about small samples being taken from a cow somewhere - potentially thousands of burgers - down the line. Those vegans who have a problem with ANY sample are an unattainable and insignificant target group.
- api 13y agoI can't wait to see the cognitive dissonance from the "natural" people. On one hand, it could quite possibly replace factory farming and eliminate a huge amount of waste, pollution, and animal cruelty. On the other hand, it's GMO. I love seeing True Believers in Movementarianism squirm. I'm equal opportunity here. I like pointing out the philosophical inconsistencies of dogmatic positivism to your typical Reddit /r/atheist type, or pointing out the failures and corruption of the pharmaceutical industry to the rabidly anti-alt-med people you find in skeptic circles... Ideology: n.: from the root words "idiot" and "ology," the science and art of becoming an idiot by confusing a model of reality with reality itself.
- ignostic 13y agoYou wouldn't really call lab-grown meat "genetically modified." We're not actually altering the genomic information at all (yet). You would certainly not call the process "natural" though. It really would be great to see a split between nautreopaths and vegitarians. I don't understand how the communities have grown so close together.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- eksith 13y agoI love me some dead cow once in a while and have a problem with waste, pollution cruelty etc... and I have concerns about GMO. But this ain't "not cow". It's still the genetically identical counterpart to the pasture-raised variety without the pasture so how is it "dissonance"?
- msvan 13y agoYou can also dislike both Big Pharma and alternative medicine. That removes the philosophical inconsistencies and just leaves you bitter and disappointed.
- 3am 13y agoYour eagerness for schadenfreude seems poorly thought out, since this is not GMO, it's cell cloning. Maybe people will object because lab-grown meat is 'gross'. Maybe they will object because it removes such substantial barriers to GMO (the introduced traits don't have to result in a viable individual). Hopefully you'll get achieve some gratification for being an iconoclast when they bring up those objections, though. PSA: no need to spend the second half you post explaining your contrarianism, it was implicit from the first half.
- wahsd 13y agoMostly carnivorous guy here; I have started playing around with the use of tofu and mushrooms in stead of meat and have come to the realization that it is actually a lot easier to substitute them for meat. Another, even bigger realization I have come to is that it seems that my addiction, yes, addiction, to meat and meat having to be a minimum requirement for having any interest in a dish, is that it is really a psychologically conditioned addiction. I don't think that the meat alternative market is really addressing the real problem, people's habitualized addiction to meat by industry, special interests, and marketeers manipulating a vulnerability in humans. I am not advocating universal vegetarianism, but the fact that Americans eat insane amounts of meat is proof in and of itself that something is not right. There is a healthy level of meat intake and we far exceed it. Just think of how many meals have some form of meat in it. It's probably approaching 100% for most Americans that are not vegetarians.
- moskie 13y agoRight. In the long run, the "chicken in every pot" political slogan got us to this point, and now we're dealing the consequences. And are desperately seeking alternatives.
- ImprovedSilence 13y ago>> Just think of how many meals have some form of meat in it. It's probably approaching 100% for most Americans that are not vegetarians. Really? Neither myself, nor 99% of the people I associate with are vegetarians, but I'd say I AT MOST 50% of my lunches and 25% of my dinners actually contain meat (and maybe 7% for breakfast). Granted, I do consider myself a heath conscious eater, and thus eat lots of veggies and beans and veggies. But still, I'm nowhere near having meat in 100% of my meals. (Although I did enjoy a delicious flank steak with mango salsa last night.) In my travels though, I have found that specific diets tent to be geographically dependent as well. Ie, I find rural areas in the US to be heavy on the meat and potatoes, with an almost irrational/religious fear of vegetables and anything spicy/with a little different flavor/texture, whereas in cities it's easy to get lost just trying all sorts of the different cuisines available. People who must have meat in their meals also miss out on lots of the fantastic flavors of non-carnivorous main courses available to them.
- esalman 13y agoWhat's with Google Glass? Why Google employees have to where it when appearing on camera? Or do they use it all the time? Just wondering.
- Dewie 13y ago> "Cows are very inefficient, they require 100g of vegetable protein to produce only 15g of edible animal protein," Dr Post told the Guardian before the event. "So we need to feed the cows a lot so that we can feed ourselves. We lose a lot of food that way. Yes, if most of what you feed the cows are human-edible.
- mistercow 13y agoEven if its not, you can still use the resources used to produce that feed to produce human food instead. And feeding cows waste has its own environmental problems, as it tends to play hob with their digestive systems and make them release considerably more greenhouse gasses.
- Dewie 13y ago> Even if its not, you can still use the resources used to produce that feed to produce human food instead. If the resources required to produce (or harvest) the cow-food is more than producing synthetic meat: sure. > And feeding cows waste has its own environmental problems, as it tends to play hob with their digestive systems and make them release considerably more greenhouse gasses. Waste? How about plain grass? Or growing crops that are not human edible, since the conditions of the farm or land does not allow you to produce human edible crops? Of course those crops would still have to be easily digestible for the cows.
- mistercow 13y agoSure, but those same arguments apply to synthetic meat. If you're processing inputs in a lab, you can likely be far more flexible than how a specific animal's digestive system happened to evolve, and you don't have the overhead of running a cow for 1-3 years¹ before slaughter. From what I can tell, about 75% of a non-lactating cow's energy input goes into body gain. So that's 25% off the top before you even consider what goes into skin, blood, bones, and the less palatable organs. Apparently, beef yield makes up about 40% of a cow's total mass, so assuming uniform energy usage for all body parts (which could be wildly wrong), only around 30% of the calories actually processed by a cow will turn into beef. ¹And having searched for that statistic and read the necessary surrounding material, I need to lie down for a while. Jesus Christ.
- antitrust 13y agoI like the idea of being able to be a carnivore without being a killer. However, there is a trap in this. Right now, there are cows and pigs wherever there are humans. Fast forward 200 years when we can grow our own meat in the lab. Who's going to keep around livestock? For what reason? Pigs and cows would exist in a wild state in a small fraction of their former "territory." If at all.
- skoob 13y ago> However, there is a trap in this. [...] Pigs and cows would exist in a wild state in a small fraction of their former "territory." If at all. Why would that be a problem?
- paulnechifor 13y ago>Who's going to keep around livestock? The people who want to eat actual animals. >For what reason? I wouldn't be so quick to assume that cloning muscle cells is the same as meat and it will replace all animal products. What about (almost) raw pig skin [1]? It's delicious and people in this post say skin isn't so easily synthesized. Pasteurization was invented a long time ago yet people still make natural milk products. If I'm not mistaken these are illegal in the USA. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=șorici https://www.google.com/search?q=șorici
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- zjgreen 13y agoGoogle Beef. Is that what he calls it? 0_o
- pdenya 13y agoGood on him for investing in stuff like this. Good for animals, good for the planet, and good for me. I can't wait until this is universally available, I'll never eat another boca burger again.
- dreamdu5t 13y agoEven with fully-developed technology, I have a hard time believing it will require less energy to manufacture a pound of synthetic beef than it will to simply grow it naturally. Am I wrong?
- shabble 13y agoOne of the efficiency issues is the relatively large percentage of cow that isn't edible if you're using it solely for meat. Of course, there are uses for the other bits - pet food, bonemeal, leather, and gelatin are all things you can do with it, and no doubt more. But there are huge costs (monetary and energy) in scaling "breed, fatten & slaughter a lot of cows", and in intensive operations, they're largely fed on pre-prepared feed from corn or whatever. Things like feedlot construction/maintenance, feed delivery, waste disposal, transport to slaughter/butchering all contribute above the feed costs. I'm not sure how the artificial alternative would stack up, but most of those other factors can be eliminated or reduced, and (depending on feedstocks to the clone growing) bypassing the energy costs of growing, harvesting and processing of the vegetable feed.
- crpatino 13y agoBeef is not very energy efficient anyways, around 10% conversion rate from pasture calories to animal tissue. Pork and chicken are much more efficient though. From the very narrow perspective of energy efficient, the problem I see is that we are ditching a true and tested method of doing things with (up to a point) renewable resources and trying to create a substitute most likely based on petrochemicals, just at the same time as we're dragging our feet on finding and deploying a viable alternative to petrol based energy systems.
- MikeCapone 13y agoWhat makes you think that petrochemicals would be involved in growing synthetic meat? They could use all kinds of natural feedstocks (starches).
- crpatino 13y ago
- total__C 13y agoSomething I've always wondered about regarding synthetic meat: for say synthetic pork, would it be necessary to mechanically 'exercise' the muscle fibers in order for them to taste the same as pork from a pig?
- penguindev 13y agoSorry but this is just bullshit. More science will continue making overpopulation WORSE and EVEN LESS HEALTHY. The last great example of this, the Rockefeller foundation making the 'green revolution' of cheap, unhealthy, and unsustainable mass carbohydrate production[1]. Read 'Wheat Belly'. Why can't these billionaires ever use some right brain thinking? Stop _fucking_ with our food. The more 'efficient' you have to be, the more vulnerable the entire system is to shocks. You want to end animal cruelty, stop having more than two kids. Period. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug
- snappy173 13y agoB(eef)-Trees?
- wvl 13y ago> A commonly cited statistic is that cows produce more greenhouse gases than all the world’s transportation combined, or 18% of all greenhouse gases. ... [snip] ... A more accurate analysis of the data resulted in a much more respectable estimate: that cattle contribute less than 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions. http://chriskresser.com/the-real-environmental-impact-of-red-meat-part-1 http://chriskresser.com/the-real-environmental-impact-of-red...
- pearjuice 13y agoHe doesn't seem to understand that everything on this planet has its purpose and that of animals is, that it is to be consumed by us. I do not condone the current ways of killing animals en masse but certainly artificial meat isn't the answer either? We are dealing with a lot of unnatural food these days and no matter what the motivations are, it is hurting humanity.
- leoh 13y agoYou have got to be trolling. You just said that the purpose of animals are to be eaten. Okay, maybe some animals and maybe our society condones meat-eating. But you cannot possibly allow this as absolute reality. Some very productive, peaceful, societies (pre-Modern China) were almost completely vegetarian. Vegatarianism is a possibility. Now, regarding artificial meat. It's weird. But people will not hangs their habits right now. It is possible, but it won't happen right now. Maybe the best startup or business idea that could ever exist is helping people to change. But the thing is, it is hard to change. And as many teachers and successful people say, you can only lead people to a door, you can't make them open it. But with this artificial meat. So we can't make people change. We can't fight highly unethical current practice by charging the same or lower than them. We maybe can change legislation, but that is also very hard because these industries are very powerful. So we can't change what people eat, can't convince them based on price, and can't change the way animals are treated. But we can change the way the product is produced that we are already eating en-masse. And it might be weird. But who knows, it's a gamble. But artificial meat could work.
- pearjuice 13y agoI would rather have vegatarianism as an absolute reality than one where artificial meat is the standard. In fact, I will become a vegetarian if the latter applies.
- hmsimha 13y agoIf everyone had switched to vegetarianism at the same time, we probably wouldn't be in a situation where scientists are trying to develop artificial meat. In fact, I would suggest that if you want to do your part to prevent this from becoming a reality you should go ahead and switch to vegetarianism right now :D If everyone does it, it might not be viewed as cost-effective to continue this research.
- deegles 13y agoFully automated, mass production of synthetic beef would be an amazing feat and would definitely change nutrition for millions, if not billions of people. That being said, I don't think we'll be there in less than 50 years. In the short term, there's already a method of producing high quality protein and fats at around 90% efficiency: insects! Now if only the Western world would get over the stigma attached to bugs...
- magoon 13y agoGross.
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