Comments on: Lab-grown meat gets closer to reality

By: travtastic

travtastic — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 04:29:00 +0000

We can ballroom dance with semantics, or we can go on and discuss exactly how we can ‘kill’ without being ‘cruel and heartless’.

By: wrecksdart

wrecksdart — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:25:00 +0000

Does this mean we can look forward to a new and doubly obnoxious Chik-Fil-A commercial?

By: Sapa

Sapa — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 18:03:00 +0000

I looked at your link and Gates later on said “What’s really necessary? Geometry? No, probably not” Yes!!! give him plastic burger number one let him learn Pi the hard way.

By: daneyul

daneyul — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:54:00 +0000

>> great cuz people don’t eat enough processed shit to begin with…

Yeah, meat from animals laced up with hormones and anti-biotics is MUCH better than meat grown in a controlled, disease free environment.

Both are “processed”. One just involves a lot less interaction with feces, bacteria and blood.

By: daneyul

daneyul — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 17:13:00 +0000

Eventually the hope is to avoid FBS completely.

From an article in Discover (http://discovermagazine.com/2008/oct/22-i.ll-have-my-burger-petri-dish-bred)

“For cells to mature, they must soak in a nutrient-rich soup. The current soup—costly “fetal bovine serum,” or calf’s blood—may soon be replaced by an inexpensive, plant-based substitute that offers a major advantage: It avoids using any animal-based products, satisfying the ethical concerns of some vegetarians.”

By: Geeka

Geeka — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:35:00 +0000

I know that this is rather a nit-picky thing: but the thing pictured isn’t a petri dish, it’s the right most 2 wells of a 6 well tissue culture dish. Petri dishes have media in them for growing bacteria. To grow tissue (even in similarly shaped dishes, which are usually 10cm in diameter), the dishes or plates are coated with something.

Also, I’m curious if there are any animal products being used in this. What’s the sense of growing lab based meat if you need to have FBS (fetal bovine serum) in the media anyhow.

By: jackie31337

jackie31337 — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:19:00 +0000

In terms of calories, the beef wins over the uneaten potatoes and wheat.

Well, you have to have french fries and a bun to go with your hamburger, right?

By: jackie31337

jackie31337 — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 11:13:00 +0000

Imagine having lengths of bacon growing in your kitchen like vines!

Yesterday evening my 8-year-old was saying she wished we had a bacon tree. She likes some meat, but is conflicted about the idea of killing animals to get it. Ethically, I’m OK with the idea of vat-grown meat. Nutritionally and aesthetically, I’m not so sure how I feel about it.

By: mariess

mariess — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 09:33:00 +0000

great cuz people don’t eat enough processed shit to begin with…

By: Rah El

Rah El — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 07:58:00 +0000

Buddy, I’m not so naive to think I could have a steak without killing animals
As a start we could try to kill them on site, not hauling them hundreds or even thousand of miles. We could make sure they’re really dead before we process them, and of course that they die fast and without much stress and pain. If you’ve ever seen a cow that hasn’t properly been killed and twitches in pain and terror before it gets cut in two halves, you’ll know what i mean.

By: daneyul

daneyul — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:29:00 +0000

Since a switch to vat meat will happen over night–surprising everyone– the farm animals will starve en masse of course. Or they’ll have to be released–millions of them–to ravage the cities!

Or…just maybe…it would be a naturally-phased reduction of their numbers as slowly decreasing costs/increasing acceptance of the new tech bring about reduced demand for factory farmed animals over time.

By: Sean McKibbon

Sean McKibbon — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:17:00 +0000

Not if you farm the way people used to. Leaving fields fallow, rotating crops and moving animals through pastures. Maybe it’s not the farming that’s the problem, but the demand we’re placing on it.

By: daneyul

daneyul — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:14:00 +0000

It’s Sunday morning and after mowing the lawn Bob deposits a few scoops of clippings from the mower bag into the detachable bin he placed beside the door.

As he enters the kitchen Bob hands the bin to Sally along with a quick peck on the cheek. Then, the man-work done, it’s off to his Sunday paper!

Sally places the bin on top of the Mr. Meat(tm) Deluxe and taps a button on its face. The grinder is so quiet she presses her ear close to be sure it’s on!

Next, up lifts the plastic reservoir lid and in goes a quart of ambio-tech fluid(tm) followed by a pouch of flavor-stemcells(tm) (Lamb tonight, dear?) from the box in the cabinet above the modern stove.

Closing the lid Sally sets the timer for 6 hours. That should leave plenty of time to drain, scrape, shape and cook. Now for a well deserved cup of tea and the latest fashion magazine. Who says a woman’s work is never done!

As she takes a final look through the sidewall Sally may not be able to see the 14 aggregation rails in the cloudy liquid but she knows they’re there–and so do we! Expanding and contracting as the first film of cells begin to attach. Just like the ever expanding, contracting pulse of technology as it marches ahead in this wonderful, brave new world!

Good job, Sally and Bob! Good job indeed!

By: Sean McKibbon

Sean McKibbon — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 05:14:00 +0000

What happens to all the farm animals when we don’t need them anymore?

By: ffij

ffij — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:24:00 +0000

I think you left out the part where with proper crop rotation (possibly including an animal rotation to fertilize/till (or to glean and eat what would otherwise be carted off for silage anyway)) you can draw three crops a year if the weather cooperates. Your figures are too low, even for a “sustainable” “organic” farm (apply other widely misinterpreted buzz words here).

By: daneyul

daneyul — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:11:00 +0000

No e coli? No mad cow disease? No animals raised in quarters so tight they can’t turn around?

No urine and blood soaked slaughter-house floors?

Gross!!!

By: Adela Doiron

Adela Doiron — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:02:00 +0000

And if it was the prairies they would indeed be growing wheat like everyone else despite the need for buying seed every spring, fertilizers, pesticides, equipment and so forth. But no one in their region grows wheat for a reason. Less than 100 days growing season on average. First frost is the first week of September(snowed on our wedding weekend) last frost mid May.
Cows just let them roam the fields, eat and breed. You can actually increase the yield of meat if you take more active interventions like artificial insemination, growth hormones, feed supplement, antibiotics, shooting of wildlife as others do. Plant crops are only efficient in a narrow range of climates and land types and even then we resource subsidize them so to speak to get those modern yields.

By: CHilke

CHilke — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:59:00 +0000

This and vertical farming are exemplary of our obsession with technical fixes instead of common sense. It’s been well established that the only sustainable methods of agriculture integrate animals into crop raising, particularly in perennial polycultures. Agriculture without animals is not sustainable and not healthy. Animals are required to build topsoil and provide fertilizer. Note that only after chemical farming was introduced were animals removed from the landscape (and herded into execrable CAFO’s). But don’t take my word for it, please see the work of Joel Salatin in the U.S. and Allan Savory in Africa, or read books by Colin Tudge or Lierre Keith. So, instead of reforming our agricultural system, which in its pressent incarnation is destroying our environment, we will spend $350,000 on growing meat in a vat. This is insane. We need to spend money first on foremost on reforming our methods of farming, including wresting control from agribusiness. I’m not against this research, but let’s get our priorities straight. We don’t need more technology, we need to implement what pioneers like the ones I listed above already know how to do. That means real reform of our systems. I’ve made this point with energy too – we already know how to produce the energy we need more sustainably, the economics are what is preventing it. Without reform, new technology will change nothing.

By: ffij

ffij — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:41:00 +0000

About those areas where the only thing that grows is grass, let’s put the suburbs out there. I’ve never understood why we encourage people to congregate and settle in the fertile river valleys and deltas when they’re just going to spend 22 hours a day inside their houses/cars/workplaces anyway.

Really, though, if you want to talk about efficiency, put goats (or a hardier breed of sheep) on the scrub land. More meat per unit grass consumed, anyway (and if you don’t like them, you’re cooking them wrong!). Any place that can grow proper “grasses” can handle many of our hardier crops that you use all the time but don’t think about. You can dry-land sunflowers for their oil anywhere that “grass” will grow. Alfalfa? That’s a pretty valuable grass. Aren’t wheat & rye & all the other cereal grains just “grasses” with peculiar habits?

By: vonbobo

vonbobo — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 02:00:00 +0000

next: Mark cooks test tube meat in a toxic plastic bag by simmering it in 80 degree water for 3 days.

By: jason gilbert

jason gilbert — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:36:00 +0000

Soylent green is a good idea. Processing ex-humans for their meat is much more ethical than killing living animals to feed our desire for steak (Steak is so yummy though. If God didn’t want us to eat cows, he wouldn’t have made them so delicious, slow and stupid.)

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:30:00 +0000

“God damn a potato.”
— Chief Washakie of the Shoshone

By: J

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:23:00 +0000

There are acres in which the only thing that will grow decently are grasses. Cows turn that inedible grass into food.

By: dexitroboper

dexitroboper — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 01:11:00 +0000

Unfortunately “Evolution is cleverer than you are”

By: Spinkter

Spinkter — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:54:00 +0000

No arguing with your analysis. But you’re leaving out the fact that your plan requires the consumption of potatoes or wheat. Bleah. In terms of calories, the beef wins over the uneaten potatoes and wheat.

By: lecti

lecti — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:51:00 +0000

Can’t we just breed livestocks that don’t suffer from pain and fear?

By: cbwallday

cbwallday — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:40:00 +0000

They’re Made Out of Meat:

http://www.studio360.org/2011/nov/04/theyre-made-out-of-meat/

Terry Bisson’s story, originally published in Omni in 1991, as rendered by NPR/Studio 360′s earlier this month. Yum.

By: bcsizemo

bcsizemo — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:28:00 +0000

Alright fine:

1/4 section = 160 acres

assuming 8 steers per year at 200lbs per side (so x2) = 3200lbs of beef at 4.25/lb = $13,600

If the same 160 acres was planted in potatoes and farmed organically you would have roughly: 130 cwt/acre yield, so 20,800 cwt. With an average going price around $7/cwt would give you $145,600

Or you could plant 160 acres of wheat. Around 50 bushels/acre = 8000 bushels and at $6 per bushel would give you $48,000

Now neither of those take in to account the machinery, supplies, or help needed to plant and harvest the fields. So I will give you that raising cows would require much less overhead.

Now in terms of food produced and calories: That 3200lbs of beef would yield roughly 4.25 million calories. One acre of potatoes alone would give you 5.4 million calories/acre. Obviously a potato lacks protein, but in terms of being able to feed people as colinaut implied, plants win over animals.

By: dagfooyo

dagfooyo — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:20:00 +0000

Obviously you’re not familiar with the process for creating lab meat. The nutritional equations are very complex and involve imaginary numbers.

By: dumbeast

dumbeast — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 00:17:00 +0000

Stem steak.