In-vitro meat - in favour or not?

[katie1997]

So I keep reading about this in the news lately and the motivation seems to be partly animal welfare/partly environmental impact.

I'm sure 'test-tube' burgers will become reality to address the needs of a growing population and that animals use up a lot of water/grain/grass that we likely won't have in the future but ... I am not sure.

What do you reckon?

[El Pibe]

It can't be much worse than mechanically Seperated Meat can it?

I don't suppose it'll ever please gourmets (unless there's a kobe style test tube full of mozart and lavender oils) but in terms of feeding the world its got to be worth pursuing as an option at least hasn't it?

[katie1997]

I guess you're right, El P, there are plenty of people who don't think twice about how their meat is produced so growing it in a lab is not much different.

Taste-wise I am imagining something similar to quorn? Perhaps it will become so common-place that we'll wonder how we ever managed without it.

[HAL9000]

Even if the technology has no other practical use, it would probably be useful for long-duration manned space missions.

Manned missions to Mars, a large asteroid and a manned base on the Moon - all are in various stages of planning.

[katie1997]

hal but the point is that no-one is going to invest in this just to send people to Mars, are they? from what I gather from the article its been hugely expensive to produce synthetic meat and unless it goes mainstream and on the shelves, it won't be developed further.

I think it was also about addressing growing problems of feeding the people on THIS planet, not for space missions which I thought were increasingly becoming 'unmanned' anyway.

[El Pibe]

Unless Newt Ginrich gets his way; it'll be Moonbase Alpha standard fare up there!!

[HAL9000]

I thought you summed it up beautifully when you wrote, "I'm sure ... but ... I am not sure."

I could not have said it better :)

[maxxi]

"...looks like, and hopefully taste like, meat,"

That'll be the key.

That and some unforseen cellular catastrophe that this unnatural product will cause when/if eaten in large amounts (think a nastier version of BSE or CJD) and, of course, the creeping realisation that human meat grown this way is.. well... tastier...

[Thomas Micklewright]

certainly think it will be the future of meat production (current meat production is unsustainable) but what do they create the meat from, what does it 'grow' from?

There was also a mentioned of 'Support Your Butcher' - did people not bother to do this? people seemed so keen at the time.

Tom

[Loz]

Thomas Micklewright Wrote:

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> certainly think it will be the future of meat

> production (current meat production is

> unsustainable) but what do they create the meat

> from, what does it 'grow' from?

Bovine stem cells. Who'd have thought that all that research into stem cells would lead to a new form of hamburger?

[woodrot]

soylent green

[RosieH]

Thomas Micklewright Wrote:

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> There was also a mentioned of 'Support Your

> Butcher' - did people not bother to do this?

> people seemed so keen at the time.

What???

[Thomas Micklewright]

no i menat what do they 'feed' it on, where do they get the ingredients to grow it?

hey rosieH

yep there was talk of a support your butcher? did that not happen?

[maxxi]

My Butcher doesn't need my support on any special day - he has my money every week.

[Huguenot]

There isn't one particular growth medium that has been settled on yet Thomas.

One of the prime motivations for the creation of in-vitro meat is to satisfy people with personality disorders that prompt them to 'control' their food and 'control' other people, hence the majority are plant based.

There are media that use bovine fetal serum though, and in order to get this people have to torture lovely baby cows and probably call them names whilst they're doing it.

They only do this to satisfy the needs of those people who feed their own highly demanding self-worth issues by finding someone else to hate. It's really very generous.