#lab grown meat

[probablyasocialecologist]

Lab-grown or “cultivated” meat is made by growing animal stem cells around a scaffold in a nutrient-rich broth. It has been proposed as a kinder and greener alternative to traditional meat because it uses less land, feed, water and antibiotics than animal farming and removes the need to farm and slaughter livestock, which are a major source of greenhouse gases.

However, Derrick Risner at the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues found that the global warming potential of cultivated meat, defined as the carbon dioxide equivalents emitted for each kilogram of meat produced, is 4 to 25 times higher than for regular beef.

The researchers conducted a life-cycle assessment of cultivated meat that estimated the energy used in each step in current production methods. They predict that this will be similar regardless of which animal’s cells are being cultivated.

They found that the nutrient broth used to culture the animal cells has a large carbon footprint because it contains components like sugars, growth factors, salts, amino acids and vitamins that each come with energy costs.

For example, energy is required to grow crops for sugars and to run laboratories that extract growth factors from cells. Each component must also be carefully purified using energy-intensive techniques like ultrafiltration and chromatography before they can be mixed into the broth.

[acti-veg]

Lab grown meat is not vegan. The animal cannot consent to donating its tissue. Further, it normalizes eating animals. Finally, how the fuck do you think its safe? What processed food of the last several decades hasn't bee n found to fuck up our guts and cause cancer?

Normally love your stuff just bummed you're into lab grown animal protein as a vegan.

A transition away from animal agriculture and towards lab grown meat or fermented proteins would result in the suffering and deaths of billions fewer animals, as well as significantly less water and land use, and far lower GHG. As animal advocates, are we really going to oppose a technology that involves far fewer animal inputs on the basis that it still involves some?

Lab grown meat obviously is not vegan, at least not yet, but it isn’t for vegans. It is for the vast majority of people who do eat meat and have no intention of stopping. If we can offer an alternative that is chemically identical but harms far fewer animals, why wouldn’t we do that? Everyone going vegan is just not going to happen anytime soon, do we consign animals to the slaughterhouse in the meantime for the sake of ideological purity?

Eating animals is already normalised, in every society on earth. What this normalises is the consumption of alternative proteins, which absolutely must be part of any sensible transition towards sustainable agriculture. The problem with meat isn’t that it is animal flesh and there is something intrinsically evil about that, it is that obtaining it requires exploitation and harm.

Besides, it’s not like I’m cheering on lab grown meat here. That article is not even in favour of lab grown meat, and neither is the author. Monbiot is concerned about how the anti-cultured meat legislation will apply in broad strokes to any alternative protein, especially fermented proteins, which he believes offers the best alternative to animal proteins. That is a very legitimate concern.

As for safety, again, lab grown meat is biologically and chemically identical to organic meat. Meat is not the healthiest of foods, but this particular meat being cultured rather than slaughtered doesn’t mean it is somehow dangerous. In fact, there is nothing inherently unsafe about processed foods in general. Hummus is processed, so are baked beans, so is wholemeal bread. ‘Processed’ as a byword for ‘unsafe’ is pure pseudoscience, popularised by social media influencers and so-called ‘health gurus.’

I know you mean well, but this insistence that it is either full blown veganism for the entire population or nothing, is completely unhelpful. The reality is that we have to consider viable alternatives that are significantly more sustainable and more humane, we cannot be boycotting everything that doesn’t represent a perfect solution. It won’t get us anywhere.

Like you, I have no intention of ever eating lab grown meat. That said, I’m certainly not going to oppose the advent of a technology that has the potential to save billions of lives, feed the world using far fewer resources, and may help to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

[reality-detective]

Be sure to listen to the video at the end of the article by Dr. Jane Ruby. She gets into the meat of this topic(no pun intended). 🤔

[barbarian15]

[nick-nonya]

this radical bioengeneer is trying to REPLACE our natural corn-fed Gamers

[catversary]

aughh also this is just me but hydroponics gives me super "body horror but for plants" vibes. I realize I'm adverse to a lot of technological futurism on the grounds that it doesn't resemble how organisms are "meant to/evolved to function", which I know is a knee-jerk naturalist argument, so instead I try to be objective.

But this idea that you can grow anything in a nutrient solution (like lab-grown meat cultures for "vegan meat!", hydroponics, and even feeding ourselves nutrient solutions like soylent) seems incredibly reductive to me. Growing anything in isolation seems more cost-prohibitive than integrating it within an environment where water and nutrients can be found from sources that play a part in growing not just the crop, but other essential species like trees for canopy, mycorrhizal systems that work with root systems to provide movement of nutrients, decomposers such as insects that naturally turn and enrich soil, animals that provide the nutrients for that enrichment.

I apply this same argument to growing lab meat and feeding ourselves nutrient-dense slop (not to mention the constipation), although those don't have as much of an environmental concern as it is spiritual for me. Removing ourselves from the cycle of life and our part as predators (and eventual decomposing food for other organisms) seems like it will only exacerbate our problems of over-consumption (After all, if we can make enough lab meat to meet demand, why not? It is cruelty free after all). There would be no appreciation for where meat comes from and what it takes to obtain meat. Meat grown in a lab further masks the resources it took to create it. We would be further from knowing where our food comes from.

I think people creating lab-grown meat and indoor greenhouses have the best intentions in mind, and these are fantastic technological advances that would help dense urban areas meet their food goals, *but* I do not think this is the future of all farming because in isolating our food sources, we also isolate ourselves from the rest of the world when I believe we should be integrating ourselves better with our environments.

[faerywitchmomma13]

Cultivated Meat

They aren't banning lab grown meat or cultivated meat because it's bad for you. Get real, we have lots of poison on the shelves at supermarkets. They're banning it because of Big Ag, and factory farms, they don't want to lose business. Cultivated meat is made of animal cells and amino acids from plants. That's it. No Frankenstein conspiracy theory bullcrap. It will save several animals, and lots of land by eliminating industrial farms. You conservative conspiracy theorists, are so afraid of it, and rather animals perish and land be used up for industrial factory farming which is a breeding ground for disease FYI.

I hope lab grown meat becomes popular and that these low life farmers lose their jobs after years of animal abuse :D

[applestand]

Okay I had a discussion about this the other day and I want to know if I stand alone in this (I'll explain my logic when the poll ends)

[constantly-deactivated]

I was scrolling through my news feed and stumbled across this article.

You're going to want to read this👇

And please read on👇

Feel free to do more research on what may be in your supermarket. 🤔

You better be Paying Attention⁉️

[acti-veg]

Research suggests the pet food industry has a climate impact similar to that of the Philippines, the 13th most populous country in the world. A study by the University of Winchester found that 50% of surveyed pet owners would feed their pets cultivated meat, while 32% would eat it themselves.

The Meatly product is cultivated chicken. It is made by taking a small sample from a chicken egg, cultivating it with vitamins and amino acids in a lab, then growing cells in a container similar to those in which beer is fermented. The result is a paté-like paste.

[leviathangourmet]

Reminder that new "eco-friendly" food fads are entirely about cutting corners to serve you low quality slop while the rich and powerful eat whatever the hell they want.

[plethoraworldatlas]

The Fatwa Committee of the Majlis Ugama Islam Singapura (MUIS) has announced that the consumption of cultivated meat is permissible as halal under certain conditions. The decision opens up a market of over two billion halal consumers worldwide, representing about 25% of the world’s population.

The fatwa comes at the heels of the approval of cultivated chicken meat sales by the Singapore Food Agency (SFA), which led to the MUIS reviewing the permissibility of cultivated meat for Muslim consumption.

“This [decision] will be essential for any future plans for the halal certification of cultivated meat, to facilitate Muslim consumers making their own informed choice whether to consume such products, based on their dietary preferences,” says the MUIS.

[burritosandpeppermint]

One of my wife's cousins has always been more like a sister to her than a cousin.

My wife's cousin got married last year to a wonderful man who writes for Inverse.

So please read this article written by my pseudo brother in law and also watch him eat some lab-grown "chicken."

[mouth-almighty]

It's funny how people will find the idea of meat grown in a lab as being gross or unnatural but a living, breathing, sentient, animal pumped with hormones and antibiotics and living out an artificially shortened life in its own shit and piss before being sent to slaughtered while still partially conscious is perfectly normal.