Deathless Meat

[Candyvan Stan]

Would you eat lab-grown meat? (http://thetyee.ca/Life/2006/07/18/LabMeat/)

[The Divine Comedy]

If it tasted good and was as nutritious as regular meat, yes, definitely.

[delen]

Sure I'd eat it, why not?

But how is this any less gross than eating regular meat (for veggies, not for me; I love my meats)?

[setrict]

Probably. I find the idea more than a little creepy though.

[Kwiz]

I would, although I'd never understand how people could be too put off by the idea to eat it.

[PiccoloNamek]

Sure, why not?

[crow-kun]

If it hasn't been brutally killed it'd be hard for me to enjoy it.

[El_CJ]

If it's cut and shaped like a familiar meat, I'd eat it.

If it's in a disgusting, clearly grown in a petrie dish lump form? Oh hell's no.

I'm picky, and eat things based solely on appearance.

After RTFAing, I saw "Meatless Mondays." Are there really places where people can't go a whole day without eating meat? That's terrifying, and I'm as carnivorious as people come!

[Kwiz]

If it's cut and shaped like a familiar meat, I'd eat it.

That would have to be done for the sake of marketing. Not many people would be willing to eat a circular slab of gray protein matter.

[/|/@/|/@し]

I'd be hessitant. It would have to have been marketed for several years, after passing the reguations, so I know it wouldn't do god knows what to me. .....And it would have to taste/look like normal meat. Although the more I think about it I guess it wouldn't be too much different than the soy meat I eat all the time. But I actually don't eat meat much because I don't like the texture and taste more than anything.

[Trump]

I couldn't taste the same.

[smokingmonkee]

Without the fear of the slaughter it won't taste nearly as good.

[delen]

I couldn't taste the same.

No, I'm pretty sure you still taste the same. I can take a bite out of you to confirm if you like.

[Trinadad]

Being a vegetarian, I dislike meat in general, but if this works, then I would most likely try it.

[Masa the Masta]

If it tastes the same, I'd eat it.

Edit: What's to say that technically someday in the future we take a slice of muscle from a person and we are able to grow human meat? O_O

Well, it make for a nice way to build your own muscles, but an ugly way to put them down the throat..

[Jetsetlemming]

That would have to be done for the sake of marketing. Not many people would be willing to eat a circular slab of gray protein matter.
Don't eat fast food burgers, Kwizard? :D

[MSquared]

Don't eat fast food burgers, Kwizard? :D

Who do you think are gonna be the first people using this stuff? :D

[Jon885]

uhh..no. something about that just weirds me out. I have no logical reason not to eat it.

[Citizen]

I'd only eat it if regular meat was taken off of the market. I honestly don't care that a cow and some grass had to die to make my cheeseburger.

[Kwiz]

Don't eat fast food burgers, Kwizard? :D

Nah. And on a sidenote, they do mention that electrical charges have to be put through the meat periodically to give it "exercise." The thought of many many racks of meat twitching all at the same time makes me giggle.

[TLab3000]

Rather than Soylent Green.
But still, no, I think I wouldn't eat it... at first. Maybe once it's been around for a couple of years... but somehow I don't trust that stuff. I have many ideas about how something like that might harm you, tho most of them are irrational.

[seiji]

I enjoy hotdogs, and nobody has any idea what goes into them. I would eat a lab-meat hotdog if it looked and tasted pretty close to a regular hotdog.
Of course, this is all assuming I can still get my occasional all-natural filet mignon at an attainable price. I would never cut out real meat in favor of manmade.

[I Like Shinny!]

If it looks like real meat, taste like real meat, smells like real meat, and doesn't give you the runs. Sure I'll eat it.

[smokingmonkee]

I enjoy hotdogs, and nobody has any idea what goes into them. I would eat a lab-meat hotdog if it looked and tasted pretty close to a regular hotdog.



Hotdogs consist of lips and assholes.

[Beer Pope]

doesn't give you the runs

CRITICAL DETAIL!

[h2orowe]

Hotdogs consist of lips and assholes.
Angelina Jolee and Brad Pitt?
Ba-ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!

[haterllnation]

If it looks like real meat, taste like real meat, smells like real meat, and doesn't give you the runs. Sure I'll eat it.

CRITICAL DETAIL!


Tell that to White Castle burger chain!

[O-Matic]

I would not! That's sick. I love the animals but we have to accept that the human is a preadator. We eat meat! We hunt our meat. or at least this is how it should be. I'm against certain fast food restaurants, I'd never eat at McDonald's simply because their mead is UNNATURAL. The animals are born in their meat-concentration-camps live there a cruel life, never even see the sunlight in their life, and die as fast without leaving children or the like. And to ensure they don't become emo these human freaks give them drugs. this is what pisses me.
I'm not a vegetarian, I accept it that humans eat meat but I demand a natural life for my meat. I want them to live outside, I want them to get children, all of them not just the fattest in order to create fat children who sell better...nonono...
Just think about how cruel it would be if you were not allwed to have sex because "the government" gives "sex licenses" only to the strongest of our kind.
GAH! Death to McD.!
We fabricate our meat in concentration camps and stick it in every meal, but nobody now where the meat is coming from...this sux.
ok...I'd eat the labmeat if this does not stop.
But how about nukin' certain fast food chains first? :)

[Lea]

If it's safe, I'd try it I suppose.... especially if they can make it more healthy than regular meat.

[PopCulturePooka]

I don't see the point.

[Trump]

How much real meat do you suppose is in a fast food hamburger? You'd be surprised how much soy is in there.

[Nebosuke]

RE: O-matic

My father is one of the very last 'real' cowboys[1], so I've been familiarized with the cattle industry from a very young age. It really doesn't matter if you don't eat McDonald's meat. About 99% (probably more like 99.9%) of the beef consumed in the US is grown exactly the same way. The USDA prime filet mignon you eat at Ruth's Chris Steakhouse is grown the same way as the slab on a Big Mac. While RCS probably only uses USDA prime meat, and McD's probably uses USDA canner, USDA grades only apply to the quality of the meat, and have nothing to do with how the cattle were raised.

Even if you buy only range-fed beef, they are still subjected to selective reproduction. Almost all of the males are castrated, as steers (or bullocks, depending on where you're from) have far higher quality meat than bulls, which are basically only good for hamburger.

Getting back to the original topic of the thread, while my father's colleagues[2] would probably denounce it as blasphemy, I think I'd give artificially grown meat a fair try before making any judgements. If they nail the taste and texture down right, I wouldn't mind eating it on a regular basis. If not, it'd probably do just fine in hotdogs, sausages, or spam.

If the process is made efficient enough that it can be mass-produced at market price, it'd probably be a good thing for it to replace 'real' beef in at least as many low-grade products, such as hamburger, as possible. Raising a pound of beef the natural way is very taxing on natural resources. There are probably much more agriculturally productive (as in nutritional calories/acre) uses for almost all pastureland.

[1] By 'real' I mean that branding drives are done on horseback in rough terrain that is entirely inaccessible by vehicle (forests with dense underbrush, sides of mountains, etc.) rather than ATV's/helicopters on open pastureland. Instead of using chutes and a burdizzo, elastrator, or emasculator, two guys on horses rope a calf, one dude wrestles it to the ground and pins it, another guy brands, and the last guy castrates it the oldschool way with a knife. Apparently they'll never give up the knife method because all of the cowboys at that ranch love eating mountain oyster :P.

[2] My father himself would probably try it. He's fairly strange as far as cowboys go, having once been a vegetarian/vegan who practiced Yoga and studied Hinduism. How you make the transition from Hinduism (cows = sacred) to cowboy (cows = yummy) is beyond me.

[O-Matic]

Hahaha! I like your father, I like him a lot!
I know that the meat I eat, was probably produced the bad way, can't do much against it, mother's choice >_<. But once I get my own money and buy my own food I'll switch to the expensive and good stuff. Over here in europe it's not that rare...actually not rare at all. Even each egg here is marked with a number that tells you if the chicken lives in a chage or freedom.
I hast to suck to have no other choice. Even now, you know your meat was produced by greedy evil people and you can't switch to another producer ;_;

I tell ya, we have to kill these people....where's Osama when you need him? ^^

[Xuande]

Hey, if it's safe and tasty, I'm all for it. The established food industry will fight it tooth and nail, though, if it even threatened to become as cheap as meat produced the traditional way.

[Oblivious]

If it doesn't glow strange colours, gurgle, or rear up and eat me first... sure, why not?

[Horatio]

Err, using stem cells is deathless and more ethical?
and noone has yet commented on this?

Im scared.

If you believe that animals have an interest in avoiding suffering and thus dont want to kill them for food, why are stem cells void of interest, or an ethically viable alternative? Either you accord both of them a moral status, or just the stem cells even. Or are cows more sentient or valuable or higher than stem cells/ potential human lives? Yuck factor and cannibalism aside, why dont we just eat aborted foetuses?

[Nebosuke]

Not all stem cells are human stem cells.

[Horatio]

yeah good point, i did neglect that detail. Still, its not entirely ethically sound, is it?

[Xuande]

Err, using stem cells is deathless and more ethical?
and noone has yet commented on this?

Im scared.

If you believe that animals have an interest in avoiding suffering and thus dont want to kill them for food, why are stem cells void of interest, or an ethically viable alternative? Either you accord both of them a moral status, or just the stem cells even. Or are cows more sentient or valuable or higher than stem cells/ potential human lives? Yuck factor and cannibalism aside, why dont we just eat aborted foetuses?

Cows are definitely more sentient than stem cells. They have functioning brains and, presumably, minds of a primitive type. They feel pain and distress, or at least act like it. Embryonic stem cells just float in petri dishes and mindlessly divide. There may be some doubt in the case of cows, but there's none in the cases of embryos and the stem cells derived from them.

Some people do eat aborted fetuses. They're used in traditional Chinese medicine to make tonics and powders. But largely it's the yuck factor that keeps people away.

[Random]

..on a sidenote, they do mention that electrical charges have to be put through the meat periodically to give it "exercise." The thought of many many racks of meat twitching all at the same time makes me giggle.
I know how you feel XD

I'd eat it, sure, since I imagine it would be pretty much identical to current meat, and what with mass production and supply+demand it'll probably end up cheaper.
Realistically, I'm willing to bet they could just package it like "normal" meat, sell it off as such and you'd all buy it and never know the difference.


Of course, all this is fairly theoretical right now - we still don't know if it's even edible, let alone mass produceable.

[Kwiz]

yeah good point, i did neglect that detail. Still, its not entirely ethically sound, is it?

Are you understanding how the researchers grow this meat? They take adult stem cells from existing livestock, culture them, and then use the cells to grow the meat. It would be far more immoral for you to brush your teeth.

[Zslash]

fear makes meat taste better

[Psychochink]

Actually, fear releases a whole bunch of crap into the bloodstream that degrades the quality of the meat.

Having said that, I really don't care that something dies to provide my dinner. However, it's all about the taste. If it tastes good, I'll eat it.

[Trump]

Well, since the taste of meat is directly related to the fat content (and other make up of the meat), and that content is determined by the lifestyle of the animal, I just don't see how lab grown meat could taste the same. I'm not saying it would taste bad, but different to be sure.

[Tungtvann]

If I couldn't tell it apart from 'real' meat, and it was healthy and all that, then sure, why not?

But you know each cut of beef for example has a different taste to it, so I don't see how they could replicate fake meat in this way.

[Hatsumomo]

Stem cells are just undifferentiated cells (aka, haven't been given an "assignment" yet, like become muscle or organ cells), hence their high scientific value.

Frankly, I would rather stem cells go toward creating more organs to get rid of people on the organ donor list or research for diseases.

Plus, I don't trust anything that PETA backs. What a batshit crazy hypocritical organization that is. Against animal research, but their VP enjoys the insulin that keeps her alive.

And no, I wouldn't try stem cell meat. There is no logic behind it. I just want my slab of dead cow on my plate, cooked slightly more than rare and covered in brown butter sauce and horseradish. Mmmmm....

Oh, Mother....

[Xuande]

Against animal research, but their VP enjoys the insulin that keeps her alive.

I'm no huge fan of PETA, but FWIW a lot of insulin available nowadays is produced by genetically-modified bacteria or yeast. I don't think PETA opposes experimentation on such organisms.

[Nebosuke]

The genes to produce human-compatible insulin come from animals and/or humans. Insulin produced by GMOs is a direct result of experimentation on animals.

[SlickWilly440]

I would eat meat grown in a lab if it's cheaper than regular meat and tasted the same. I bet all those tree huggers and anime activist would love this idea because it doesn't kill any animals.

[D-pad]

Err, using stem cells is deathless and more ethical?
and noone has yet commented on this?

Im scared.

If you believe that animals have an interest in avoiding suffering and thus dont want to kill them for food, why are stem cells void of interest, or an ethically viable alternative? Either you accord both of them a moral status, or just the stem cells even. Or are cows more sentient or valuable or higher than stem cells/ potential human lives? Yuck factor and cannibalism aside, why dont we just eat aborted foetuses?
That's a good...STFU!

*would eat a fetus*

[4letterwords]

Ah jesus... as much as I hate PETA and basically anything they support, I have to say that this is not a bad idea. Health wise it could be wonderful, especially with the United States of Fatties... I dont really care about the killing aspect... sorry, but give me a cow, Ill kill it... but there still is an ew factor when I think about meat grown in a lab - and thats pretty stupid considering how real meat is harvested.

Humans are weird.

[Kwiz]

Stem cells are just undifferentiated cells (aka, haven't been given an "assignment" yet, like become muscle or organ cells), hence their high scientific value.

Frankly, I would rather stem cells go toward creating more organs to get rid of people on the organ donor list or research for diseases.

Plus, I don't trust anything that PETA backs. What a batshit crazy hypocritical organization that is. Against animal research, but their VP enjoys the insulin that keeps her alive.

And no, I wouldn't try stem cell meat. There is no logic behind it. I just want my slab of dead cow on my plate, cooked slightly more than rare and covered in brown butter sauce and horseradish. Mmmmm....

Oh, Mother....

Adult stem cells, o wise one. There are too many adult stem cells in mature, living cows to count, and taking them out to culture lab-grown meat is probably the best use they have. Unless you're up for giving liver transplants to sick cattle. Learn your biology before freaking out over a political buzz word.

[Hatsumomo]

I was talking about stem cells in general, not just the particular ones they are planning to use for the "meat." Stem cells are undifferentiated cells, like I said.

And there was no freaking out involved.

Reading comprehension, ftw.