4 ms·

This scares me to death. There is no way that humanity has figured out all the complexity that billions of years of evolution has created when it comes to anim

This scares me to death. There is no way that humanity has figured out all the complexity that billions of years of evolution has created when it comes to animals eating each other. Corporations are now coming up with new types of 'food' that they can sell for much more profit than the things our species have been surviving on for thousands of years. Take margarine for example - no cows to raise and milk, therefore a much bigger profit margin than butter. They also tell us it's much healthier too. But then studies like this come along http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/05/us/study-links-heart-disease-to-margarine.html http://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/05/us/study-links-heart-disea... , and the whole french paradox, which indicate the opposite may be true. "When In-Vitro Meat (IVM) is cheaper than meat-on-the-hoof-or-claw, no one will buy the undercut opponent." I seriously doubt it. Even though a grass fed, dry aged steak is quite expensive, many people splurge because they are delicious. Has the author heard of the organic movement growing 20% a year over the past decade? People buying more expensive food because it's healthier and tastes better, that defies logic. The article claims that this IVM is also healthier for the planet, but it neglects to mention where all the raw ingredients for the IVM will come from. Mother nature already created the perfect way to stay healthy - plants get energy from the sun to grow, animals eat plants, and excrete fertilizer to grow new plants. This happened for millions of years before humans came along. Unfortunately, our farms are no longer run using this perfect natural solution (another issue entirely), but I don't see how IVM would solve this. My favorite quote from the article: "We won't even choke to death because IVM contains no malicious bones or gristle." It's amazing our species has survived so long with so many malicious bones and evil gristle after us. Malicious bones - I cant stop picturing zombies, haha.

riffic 17y ago
real grass fed cows will still be raised and sold, but expect it to get a lot more expensive in the future.
- wisty 17y ago
  It might get less expensive, as there will be more room for pasture and a low cost competitor.
  - rizzn 17y ago
    I really don't think that's how supply and demand works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
    - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
      He's right "it might" if my marginal cost is lower and I'm making a living I don't have to price gouge. There are other motivators than profit.
Dove 17y ago
Meh. Human beings haven't been eating domesticated cattle for all that long, either. I mean, geologically speaking. If you're going to put some faith in evolution, put it in our ability to adapt to available food sources. If we were as brittle as needing to consciously micromanage nutrient input, I doubt we'd have made it nearly this far. Anyway, I don't see any particular reason to expect 'natural' food to be more healthy. Most of nature, given its druthers, would like to kill you.
- jacquesm 17y ago
  That's actually a really good point, our bodies have some fairly advanced defenses, but still I'd play it safe and avoid this stuff like the plague until a solid amount of time has gone by. In the old court days they used to have a person that would taste the food (I don't know the English word for such a person, sorry) and if that person wouldn't keel over within half an hour of tasting the food the food would be considered safe. I fully intend to use that part of humanity that doesn't care about issues like this for exactly that purpose, but I'll set the time quite a bit longer than half an hour. (silly old timers, never heard of slow acting or cumulative poisons...)
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    [...] they used to have a person that would taste the food [...] "The surnames of the Maltese Islands: an etymological dictionary" by Mario Cassar (http://bit.ly/assayer http://bit.ly/assayer) confirms what I'd read elsewhere, it's called an "assayer". "food taster" is most commonly used though.
- rsheridan6 17y ago
  >If you're going to put some faith in evolution, put it in our ability to adapt to available food sources. If we were as brittle as needing to consciously micromanage nutrient input, I doubt we'd have made it nearly this far. It depends on your definition of "need." You can obviously live to be old enough to reproduce on extra value meals from McDonald's - people do - but that doesn't mean its good for you. >Anyway, I don't see any particular reason to expect 'natural' food to be more healthy. Most of nature, given its druthers, would like to kill you. Because we're adapted to it and we're messing with systems that are not well understood. Some of this is obvious and well-known - for example, the link between sugar consumption and diabetes.
kingkongreveng_ 17y ago
The meat we have now is rather unhealthy and unnatural. Cows are built to eat grass and chickens are built to eat mostly bugs. Instead we stuff them all with corn and soy. This makes the omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratios very wrong. This imbalance is strongly implicated in many human diseases, heart disease in particular. The only truly healthy meat is grass fed. I'm very skeptical, but it seems at least possible to me that test tube meat could be formulated to better approximate "natural" grass fed meat than the mass produced feedlot stuff we have now. They could fix the fatty acid ratios by "feeding" the meat with algae secretions. The only way to find out will be with experimentation. Of course this brings us back to the question of what our food market would look like if all grain subsidies were removed. It's quite likely the vast corn fields would be converted to pasture and healthy meat would get cheap. And it's quite likely that proper pastured meat production is more efficient than all the test tube processes.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
  chickens are built to eat mostly bugs Not to be too nitpicky, but chickens are omnivores. They will happily eat worms, leaves, bugs, grass, flowers, seeds, flies, small frogs, other chickens, and I've seen them try to attack small snakes. And trust me when I say they don't have to be forced to eat corn. Next to worms, it's probably their favorite food.

riffic 17y ago

real grass fed cows will still be raised and sold, but expect it to get a lot more expensive in the future.

wisty 17y ago
It might get less expensive, as there will be more room for pasture and a low cost competitor.
- rizzn 17y ago
  I really don't think that's how supply and demand works. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand
  - pbhjpbhj 17y ago
    He's right "it might" if my marginal cost is lower and I'm making a living I don't have to price gouge. There are other motivators than profit.

Dove 17y ago

Meh. Human beings haven't been eating domesticated cattle for all that long, either. I mean, geologically speaking. If you're going to put some faith in evolution, put it in our ability to adapt to available food sources. If we were as brittle as needing to consciously micromanage nutrient input, I doubt we'd have made it nearly this far. Anyway, I don't see any particular reason to expect 'natural' food to be more healthy. Most of nature, given its druthers, would like to kill you.

jacquesm 17y ago
That's actually a really good point, our bodies have some fairly advanced defenses, but still I'd play it safe and avoid this stuff like the plague until a solid amount of time has gone by. In the old court days they used to have a person that would taste the food (I don't know the English word for such a person, sorry) and if that person wouldn't keel over within half an hour of tasting the food the food would be considered safe. I fully intend to use that part of humanity that doesn't care about issues like this for exactly that purpose, but I'll set the time quite a bit longer than half an hour. (silly old timers, never heard of slow acting or cumulative poisons...)
- pbhjpbhj 17y ago
  [...] they used to have a person that would taste the food [...] "The surnames of the Maltese Islands: an etymological dictionary" by Mario Cassar (http://bit.ly/assayer http://bit.ly/assayer) confirms what I'd read elsewhere, it's called an "assayer". "food taster" is most commonly used though.
rsheridan6 17y ago
>If you're going to put some faith in evolution, put it in our ability to adapt to available food sources. If we were as brittle as needing to consciously micromanage nutrient input, I doubt we'd have made it nearly this far. It depends on your definition of "need." You can obviously live to be old enough to reproduce on extra value meals from McDonald's - people do - but that doesn't mean its good for you. >Anyway, I don't see any particular reason to expect 'natural' food to be more healthy. Most of nature, given its druthers, would like to kill you. Because we're adapted to it and we're messing with systems that are not well understood. Some of this is obvious and well-known - for example, the link between sugar consumption and diabetes.

kingkongreveng_ 17y ago

The meat we have now is rather unhealthy and unnatural. Cows are built to eat grass and chickens are built to eat mostly bugs. Instead we stuff them all with corn and soy. This makes the omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratios very wrong. This imbalance is strongly implicated in many human diseases, heart disease in particular. The only truly healthy meat is grass fed. I'm very skeptical, but it seems at least possible to me that test tube meat could be formulated to better approximate "natural" grass fed meat than the mass produced feedlot stuff we have now. They could fix the fatty acid ratios by "feeding" the meat with algae secretions. The only way to find out will be with experimentation. Of course this brings us back to the question of what our food market would look like if all grain subsidies were removed. It's quite likely the vast corn fields would be converted to pasture and healthy meat would get cheap. And it's quite likely that proper pastured meat production is more efficient than all the test tube processes.

HeyLaughingBoy 17y ago
chickens are built to eat mostly bugs Not to be too nitpicky, but chickens are omnivores. They will happily eat worms, leaves, bugs, grass, flowers, seeds, flies, small frogs, other chickens, and I've seen them try to attack small snakes. And trust me when I say they don't have to be forced to eat corn. Next to worms, it's probably their favorite food.