[The Guardian] Laboratory-grown beef: meat without the murder, but would you eat it?

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I would eat it.

I would not eat any lab grown meat of an animal I don't already eat however. I'll stick to beef, mutton, lamb and poultry.
 
Raist said:
I'm gonna guess that for now, they use fetal calf serum to grow it, so technically it isn't that much different.
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I remember them talking about this last year, the fetal calf serum is a stop gap, but they've already started working on producing their own serum derived from their cloning process.
 
frankie_baby said:
People will always eat meat from animals, lab meat will just be a budget option
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At first it will be a budget option but then as the artificial meat gets tastier, more nutritious and cheaper the animal meat will become rare. And then it'll be when the governments will start banning slaughtering animals for food. I'm glad this is happening, not only industrialization of producing meat is cruel but it contributes greatly to climate change, not to mention the ridiculous amount of crops being used to feed the the animals.

I don't believe in the vegetarian myths, my body makes it painfully obvious that we as humans need meat, so I'm very glad there finally will be a more humane solution.
 
Another really interesting thing about this is considering it's greater effect on technology.

What's viable changes with tech once it's mass produceable. If they can bring down the cost of mass producing meat, those techniques might potentially be folded into our health care. Which would be the foundation for cheap and ubiquitous organ replacement.

When they get the veins working, that knowledge could then be used in getting veins printed into a replacement liver or pancreas. When they can make isolated living tissue for steaks, we could potentially make isolated living tissue for drug discovery. It's very powerful stuff.
 
Also don't forget that artificial meat is not limited by the organism's natural physiology and could potentially be tastier than natural meat.
 
This isn't the meat that Japanese scientists were making out of shit is it? If it is, then the answer is certainly no, I will not eat that.

People find it hard to think about these terms in the absence of any real alternative. I think [lab-grown meat] will change our attitude to animal welfare. Those issues are there today but we ignore them because we don't have an alternative. If we had an alternative, we could no longer ignore them. It will change our whole attitude towards meat, I think.
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Also, that's wishful. Museums thought being able to print reproductions of paintings and injection mold copies of sculptures would kill art. Theaters thought movies would kill plays, movie studios thought TV would kill movies (and later VHS as well,) publishing houses thought TV advertising would kill magazines, TV studios thought DVRs would kill TV. All those things made desire for their predecessor stronger, not weaker.

We don't have the technology for fake meat to really, truly taste like it came from a single cell and lived life. All the countless interactions with the world create unique, subtle changes in an animal's chemistry. If such a thing happens, it's probably not going to happen in our lifetimes. Fake meat will taste like fake meat, however that tastes, and no matter how similar it is to the real thing, people will know the difference and want the real thing.

Will ranching look the same as it does now if this becomes popular? Probably not, but we don't really know how this product will change the industry and the market, if it even can.
 
Rest said:
This isn't the meat that Japanese scientists were making out of shit is it? If it is, then the answer is certainly no, I will not eat that.


Also, that's wishful. Museums thought being able to print reproductions of paintings and injection mold copies of sculptures would kill art. Theaters thought movies would kill plays, movie studios thought TV would kill movies (and later VHS as well,) publishing houses thought TV advertising would kill magazines, TV studios thought DVRs would kill TV. All those things made desire for their predecessor stronger, not weaker.

We don't have the technology for fake meat to really, truly taste like it came from a single cell and lived life. All the countless interactions with the world create unique, subtle changes in an animal's chemistry. If such a thing happens, it's probably not going to happen in our lifetimes. Fake meat will taste like fake meat, however that tastes, and no matter how similar it is to the real thing, people will know the difference and want the real thing.

Will ranching look the same as it does now if this becomes popular? Probably not, but we don't really know how this product will change the industry and the market, if it even can.
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This technology is not poop meat. There was a ground beef burger eaten last year made of this, and it seems like it's coming along nicely - they are going to marble in fat and add in veins for the next iteration. From what I've heard from people who've eaten it, it tastes like meat, just plain and lean - things that can be overcome.

Why do you think we won't have the technology in our lifetime to make meat that tastes like... well meat, if we already have the technology to make the meat taste like meat basically right now? I mean, it's not even a guess - they've made and cooked the meat and eaten it, and it works. They also are starting to scale the technology so said meat can be mass produced.

While what you feed an animal can affect it's taste, that's because the chemistry of the meat changes - and altering the chemistry of the meat will eventually be trivial to do in a lab, they already do it now in fact.

regarding it 'replacing' things. Your examples are good examples of technologies that haven't hurt entrenched industries... but there are examples of entrenched industries that have been destroyed or are being destroyed by new technologies. The newspaper and radio are great examples.
 
I will eat just about anything once. Sure.

and as they said ground beef is a lot easier to make than steak. Probably always be some sort of market for "real" meat (bacon and Steak mainly).

The ramifications for space travel are huge, as growing protein that actually tastes as intended would solve a lot of the "long term" problems (difficult enough sending a human that huge distance, let alone live chickens and cows)
 
Kinitari said:
This technology is not poop meat. There was a ground beef burger eaten last year made of this, and it seems like it's coming along nicely - they are going to marble in fat and add in veins for the next iteration. From what I've heard from people who've eaten it, it tastes like meat, just plain and lean - things that can be overcome.

Why do you think we won't have the technology in our lifetime to make meat that tastes like... well meat, if we already have the technology to make the meat taste like meat basically right now? I mean, it's not even a guess - they've made and cooked the meat and eaten it, and it works. They also are starting to scale the technology so said meat can be mass produced.

While what you feed an animal can affect it's taste, that's because the chemistry of the meat changes - and altering the chemistry of the meat will eventually be trivial to do in a lab, they already do it now in fact.

regarding it 'replacing' things. Your examples are good examples of technologies that haven't hurt entrenched industries... but there are examples of entrenched industries that have been destroyed or are being destroyed by new technologies. The newspaper and radio are great examples.
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I'll go back to the reproduction art example: It doesn't matter how close they look to the original, even if they look exactly the same, some people feel that there is something special about an original piece of art. With food, there's something more tangible than it being and original or not an original, there's and actual sensation of flavor. It won't matter how close this product tastes to real meat until it tasted exactly the same. If it doesn't taste the way an animal tastes people will desire real animal meat.

I'll give this example as well: all red wines taste about the same to me, but there are people that compare wines based not only what variety of grape they are made out of, but what field they were grown in and what year they were produced. With a population that is already familiar with real meat, will there be an opportunity for the society to forget minuscule differences in flavor? Maybe people that can't really tell the difference will still desire the real thing as a status symbol, or out of vain principle; so you have to remember the effects of culture and society as well, not just any practical difference or similarity.

Maybe artificial meat will become the standard and natural meat will become something for special occasions, or even a delicacy. But if the world population continues to grow, will the market for real meat shrink? We don't know that yet.
 
I'm willing to give it a try. Whether I continue to eat it depends on how it tastes, price, and any potential health concerns.
 
Expect this to get fought hard. Big Agra does not take kindly to people who try to fuck with their cash cow (no pun intended).
 
No.

Actually, fuck no.

Dougald said:
At some point in the future everyone will eat this, and the idea of eating meat from animals will become archaic and strange. Assuming they can get the taste right, of course.

And yes, I would eat it.
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Fuck that future.
 
Tastes relatively the same, reasonably priced, and is as nutritional: absolutely.

I'll be waiting, Then I can say I'm a vegetarian, hehe.
 
I wouldn't until there was *extensive* long-term testing done on humans...

So, not in my lifetime!
 
Kinitari said:
Great piece, and it really highlights to me how even people who are in the field can underestimate how fast some technologies can creep up on us.
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So very true.

This is inevitable, and it'll end up tasting better and being healthier ta boot. Its only a matter of time.
 
If I called it a cow steak without knowing it's actually a lab steak, same texture, taste, nutrition - I'll be sold.
 
Of course. If it tastes the same, has the same nutrients, and is just as affordable the only reason that anyone would have to not eat it is because they're creeped out by it, or because it isn't natural or some bullshit, which is just plain silly.

EDIT: And there will be people that will think there's a difference in taste even when there isn't.
 
I would eat it 5-10 years after its mass market introduction. I love the idea but I want to be sure that there is no health risk.
 
Zefah said:
I wouldn't until there was *extensive* long-term testing done on humans...

So, not in my lifetime!
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Eh I'll risk it, afterall we're all lab rats this generation. I have no problem with GMOs or lab meat as long as they're not being handled by evil corporations like Monsanto.
 
Daedalos42 said:
Of course. If it tastes the same, has the same nutrients, and is just as affordable the only reason that anyone would have to not eat it is because they're creeped out by it, or because it isn't natural or some bullshit, which is just plain silly.

EDIT: And there will be people that will think there's a difference in taste even when there isn't.
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My feelings are similar, except I'd gladly pay a premium for it. Meat weighs heavy on my mind in terms of both ethics and environmental impact, so I'd be willing to spend some extra money to actually sidestep those issues instead of just ignoring them.
 
If it's vegetarian, sure. 'Course, I'm worried if it ever got in shops it'd be like 'cooked in beef fat for flavour cus hey it's meat anyway' or something so I couldn't have it :P
 
Let me have some of that delicious Soylent Green.
Now with 120% more people.

It's only a matter of time till we're lab grown foodstuffs regularly imo. And I don't mean the average processed goods we do now.
The resources we have can only be stretched so far. Produce and livestock consume a ton of natural resources.
 
Trax said:
How can meat be vegetarian?
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To clarify, by vegetarian I mean acceptable to eat under a diet where you don't eat food that was obtained through an animal's death. So if it's grown in a lab and no cows were harmed to make it then I'd be cool with eating it.
 
Laboratory-grown meat?

That's pretty awesome, but it seems like it would be pretty expensive. I'll stick to our glorious future of dining on insects.
 
In order for me to eat the lab meat it would have to accomplish two things. Be cheaper than normal meat and be as tasty if not tastier. I don't particularly care were it comes from as long as it's economical. This sounds like a good option for vegetarians.
 
Kinitari said:
The person who tried it last year, the fake burger was like "Uhm, it tastes like beef. Really really lean beef".

So yeah, it tastes like you'd expect it to. They've been making progress in adding in fat and 'blood vessels' (to allow for larger slabs of meat) and are working on a steak. But they're at the same time working to improve their ground-beef meat, and hope to commercialize it in under a decade. If they can start replicating larger cuts of meat, like steaks, I think that would be even more huge - but JUST ground beef would me absolutely amazing.
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For me, the flavor is in the fat. No fat, I might as well be eating cardboard. In addition to texture and flavor of the meat, if they can also replicate the intramuscular fat you find in a strip steak or a ribeye then I'm all for it.
 
Trax said:
At first it will be a budget option but then as the artificial meat gets tastier, more nutritious and cheaper the animal meat will become rare. And then it'll be when the governments will start banning slaughtering animals for food. I'm glad this is happening, not only industrialization of producing meat is cruel but it contributes greatly to climate change, not to mention the ridiculous amount of crops being used to feed the the animals.

I don't believe in the vegetarian myths, my body makes it painfully obvious that we as humans need meat, so I'm very glad there finally will be a more humane solution.
Click to expand...
McD's will lead the way. They will start using this, and people will eat it and eventually get a taste for it. A few decades later, regular meat will be considered weird and/or a luxury.

But, to answer the thread's question: yes, I would totally try it.
 
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Artificial meat is genocide.
 
PartlyCloudlike said:
I've never eaten insects. But when I watch Andrew Zimmern on Bizarre Foods eating those chili-pepper stir fried grass hoppers or wormzels (worm pretzels), my mouth waters. Prepared right I'm sure they taste very good! He says the taste of tarantula reminds him of eating crab!
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I've eaten cooked insects in Thailand and they were delicious.

OT though. If you can convince me that this "laburger" has all the micro-nutrients of real meat (which I don't think it does), then I'll certainly try it.
 
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