Would you eat "cloned" (in-vitro) meat?

[Ignis]

In-Vitro Meat -- aka tank steak, sci fi sausage, petri pork, beaker bacon, Frankenburger, vat-grown veal, laboratory lamb, synthetic shmeat, trans-ham, factory filet, test tube tuna, cultured chicken, or any other moniker that can seduce the shopper's stomach -- will appear in 3-10 years as a cheaper, healthier, "greener" protein that's easily manufactured in a metropolis. Its entree will be enormous; not just food-huge like curry rippling through London in the 1970's or colonized tomatoes teaming up with pasta in early 1800's Italy. No. Bigger. In-Vitro Meat will be socially transformative, like automobiles, cinema, vaccines. <snip> ...I optimistically envision Eight Ways In-Vitro Meat Will Change Our Lives.

1. Bye-Bye Ranches.
When In-Vitro Meat (IVM) is cheaper than meat-on-the-hoof-or-claw, no one will buy the undercut opponent. Slow-grown red meat & poultry will vanish from the marketplace, similar to whale oil's flame out when kerosene outshone it in the 1870's. Predictors believe that IVM will sell for half the cost of its murdered rivals. This will grind the $2 trillion global live-meat industry to a halt (500 billion pounds of meat are gobbled annually; this is expected to double by 2050). Bloody sentimentality will keep the slaughterhouses briefly busy as ranchers quick-kill their inventory before it becomes worthless, but soon Wall Street will be awash in unwanted pork bellies.

Special Note: IVM sales will be aided by continued outbreaks of filthy over-crowded farm animal diseases like swine flu, Mad Cow, avian flu, tuberculosis, brucellosis, and other animal-to-human plagues. Public hysteria will demand pre-emptive annihilation of the enormous herds and flocks where deadly pathogens form, after safe IVM protein is available. <snip>

4. Healthier Planet.
Today's meat industry is a brutal fart in the face of Gaia. A recent Worldwatch Institute report ("Livestock and Climate Change") accuses the world's 1.5 billion livestock of responsibility for 51% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. Statistics are truly shitty: cattle crap 130 times more volume than a human, creating 64 million tons of sewage in the United States that's often flushed down the Mississippi River to kill fish and coral in the Gulf of Mexico. Pigs are equally putrid. There's a hog farm in Utah that oozes a bigger turd total than the entire city of Los Angeles. Livestock burps and farts are equally odious and ozone-destroying. 68% of the ammonia in the world is caused by livestock (creating acid rain), 65% of the nitrous oxide, 37% of the methane, 9% of the CO2, plus 100 other polluting gases. Big meat animals waste valuable land -- 80% of Amazon deforestation is for beef ranching, clear-cutting a Belgium-sized patch every year. Water is prodigiously gulped -- 15,000 liters of H20 produces just one kilogram of beef. 40% of the world's cereals are devoured by livestock. This scenario is clearly unsustainable, and In-Vitro Meat is the sensible alternative. (Although skeptics warn that IVM factories will produce their own emissions, research indicates that pollution will be reduced by at least 80%.) Once we get over the fact that IVM is oddly disembodied, we'll be thankful that it doesn't shit, burp, fart, eat, over graze, drink, bleed, or scream in pain.

- Source: http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/bio/eight-ways-vitro-meat-will-change-our-lives

This isn't Science Fiction, folks. This is less than a decade from the consumer level.

...And yet I still don't have a flying car or a jet-pack! x(

[supernova]

1. I vote maybe

if they can truely make it organic protein only. No hormones or antibotics (shouldn't need them if it's a sterile environment to begin with).

[Occam Bandage]

2. Yes. Protein is protein. I don't particularly care whether it was once attached to a sentient. nt

[name not needed]

3. Can't be any worse than the shit they make hot dogs out of

[Ignis]

8. Corner the market now on test-tube-shaped hot dogs!

;)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. Would you eat hydroponic or hot-house grown vegetables?

Well I know I wouldn't put that synthetic artificial stuff in my body. That stuff's made by the agra companies and invented by scientists who also gave us nucular bombs.

[Ignis]

5. What do you think of the source article?

I thought it was pretty decent for a web glossy, but it's still a bit breezy for my tastes.

I say, if you're writing on the IntarWebs, you should least provide links for readers to drill-down into the nuts and bolts of the story.

[Maru Kitteh]

31. Yeah! Plus, scientists put Flouride in our water and that's what the Nazi's killed the Jews with ..

True story - some little future-trophy-wife twiglet said that in my environmental biology class on Monday. You could hear IQ points falling to the floor and shattering like $2K of Waterford crystal in a room full of 5 year-olds.

[Ignis]

32. "OMG, I think my dentist is a Nazi!"

:dunce:

If I hadn't heard too many similar things to count at the university level, I'd be tempted to disbelieve. Sadly, I cannot.

But in a biology class? Ugh. :banghead:

[cliffordu]

53. Urge that one to run for office.

[Hippo_Tron]

61. You becha!

[1]

6. never met a meat i didn't like. except those kabobs the other day. ERRRPPP!!!

[Ignis]

7. As a vegan, I'll fess up to "It's Complicated."

My reasons for going vegetarian were three-fold: Ethics, environment, and health. In-vitro meat dramatically reduces the environmental impact, and at least puts an interesting twist on the ethical argument. But I'm not convinced that my health would improve by eating in-vitro meat.

After almost 20 years on a vegetarian diet, I don't have a meat-shaped hole in my diet that I feel the need to fill. I feel great, I'm in great health (for a lazy cube-rat), and all of my medical tests come back with great results, year after year. (Knock wood. :P)

So would I, personally, eat in-vitro meat? Probably not.
But would I keep it in the fridge, cook it, and serve it to guests? Hmmmmmm. :dilemma:

[krispos42]

42. A sci-fi author wrote a short story a few years ago...

Basically, this genetic-engineering company makes a "superpig", a pig that crews its cud like a cow for increased utilization of food resources, targeted towards people raising pigs in harsher environments where fodder is scarce.

A reporter raises his hand towards the end of the press conference and asks "Is it kosher?"

The lead scientist was taken aback by the question and asks a rabbi. The rest of the short story is the rabbi trying to figure out if it's kosher or not.

Short answer... yes, but they still wouldn't eat it voluntarily.

:-)

[Ignis]

45. That's funny; that was one of my first questions here.

How will the various religious dietary restrictions fare against in-vitro meat?

- Will Indians (especially Hindus) eat in-vitro beef, for example?
- Would in-vitro meat be considered halal or haram for Muslims?
- Is in-vitro meat kosher? Will Jews who keep kosher be able to have a cheeseburger for the first time, or must in-vitro meat be kept separate from dairy?

:shrug:

PS: I'm a SciFi fanatic, so if you remember the name/author of that story, please let me know. :)

[krispos42]

52. Harry Turtledove in his short story collection "Departures"

Excellent reading all around, especially the story about the career of a schoolteacher.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. I spent 20 years in the Navy, a lot of it eating on Aircraft Carriers...

Mystery meat was our specialty.

I was in Med after Chernobyl blew. The US military brought all this produce rally cheap...from an area where fallout reached.

I've eating from street vendors in Olongopo, PI.

Protein is protein.

[Ignis]

13. What a glowing endorsement!

Or maybe it's just the radioactive produce. ;)

[rucky]

10. Probably, but you first, please.

[Ignis]

11. Let's try Mikey!

I hear that little bastard eats anything.

[comrade snarky]

12. Sure

Cant be worse than the stuff I've eaten off street carts and one hell of a lot less cruel than factory farming.

I'd welcome it.

[Codeine]

14. Yep, and I'm vegan.

And I'd still consider myself vegan after eating vat-veal.

[Ignis]

18. So you'd be a vitro-tarian?

;)

You just know there will be in-fighting over this. But I'm hoping that a few of the "big names" in veggie-land will step up and endorse it, as with the BK veggie burger.

[Codeine]

21. Once you take the actual animal out of the equation

this is really little more than a fairly advanced form of plant processing. Plant-based nutrients built up into meat, but nothing killed.

Vatitarian? Laboratian? :rofl:

[Ignis]

24. Frankentarian? Beakertarian? Tankitarian?

Mr. Natural would not approve!

[Iggo]

15. How would I know it if I was eating some?

[Ignis]

20. That does raise an interesting set of side questions:

Do people want in-vitro meat labeled as such at the time of purchase?
What about on a restaurant menu?

And speaking of restaurants, do you think they can get away with paying 1/2 the cost for in-vitro meat and charging customers the same price?

Or will we see this price difference on menus?
- Vat Cheeseburger $2.50
- "Real Meat" Cheeseburger $5.00

[ddeclue]

16. I use a food replicator personally.

[Gold Metal Flake]

17. Massive slabs of muscle mass, limp, shapeless, errant hairs here and there...

...the odd spot of skin-like tissue here and there looking like sunspots. Weeping fluids and squirming with shivers and spasms, giving off an unusual and sickly odor. Sometimes a structure appears, mimicking ears, eyes or nostrils.

Salt, pepper, two minutes per side. Worry about it later.

[comrade snarky]

26. Muscle doesn't grow hair

So unless you grow it a skin there wont be any hair or noses to worry about. As for smell I doubt it would be worse than your average barnyard.

Ever seen someone helping a cow give birth? Now that's nasty.

[TroglodyteScholar]

28. You've got a funny imagination, but...

...what you've described is the slaughter house that the meat currently in your diet originates from.

[Silent3]

19. This is something I've been thinking about for many years now.

I never knew how possible it would be to make meat this way, or how well people would react to it. With global warming a big concern now, however, all of the stories about the horror of factory farming, and the potential for energy savings, I can see this catching on if the technology works well, after people have a little while to get used to the idea.

[Canuckistanian]

22. I eat meat for the taste

Not simply because it comes from dead animals.

I'm not a savage who needs to "triumph" over my meal just because it was killed.

[flvegan]

23. Hell no. Don't care where it comes from, I'm not putting that shit into my body.

It won't be any healthier than the garbage people cram into their faces today.

[proteus_lives]

25. I eat tofu, I'd eat clones.

Sounds like where we're heading anyway because of the population.

Either this or Soylent Green.

[bertman]

27. I'd have to make the switch to "long pig" before I'd eat that shit.

[Ignis]

29. Any "Maybe" responders want to clarify why/when/how?

For example, are you waiting to see the price difference, the taste, etc., before you decide?

[Odin2005]

30. Sure would, it's a brilliant, enviromentally-friendly idea!

[DU GrovelBot]

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[Feron]

34. Depends.

If it's safe and tastes the same, then I'll eat it.

[Maru Kitteh]

35. Yes. I most likely would.

[Duer 157099]

36. I dunno, I can't really envision it being the same

Since meat derives it's flavor mainly from fat, will they have to co-culture adipose cells with the muscle? and how thick can it really grow when it's devoid of any vascular system? The texture certainly won't be the same. It'll probably be similar to the vegetarian burgers that are already on the market.

Also, I believe that such cultures require at least some sort of serum as growth medium, usually fetal bovine serum or similar. So animals would have to be used in the process anyway.

It's a good theory on paper, but I'm skeptical about it translating into the real world very well.

[Ignis]

47. That's a good question. Did you see this part of the article?

3. Healthier Humans.
In-Vitro Meat will be 100% muscle. It will eliminate the artery-clogging saturated fat that kills us. Instead, heart-healthy Omega-3 (salmon oil) will be added. IVM will also contain no hormones, salmonella, e. coli, campylobacter, mercury, dioxin, or antibiotics that infect primitive meat.

It certainly sounds healthier, but that doesn't necessarily translate into tastier.

And your point regarding the vascular system is one I hadn't considered. I wonder if they'll grow lengths of muscle around a sort of web of artificial input/output systems.

[1]

37. echoing the thoughts of others... growing up, i was told hot dogs were made from...

beaks and talons. lips and *unmentionable parts*.

ok. hot dogs were tasty then.

ummm...

so. you want to make my hot dogs now from *cloned* beaks and talons. lips and *unmentionable parts*.

and you want me to *wretch* at this revelation?

hummm...

are they still tasty and cheap? ahh, i thought so.

then i say OK!

[Ignis]

38. No, don't want anyone to "wretch," retch, or be wretched.

I can't see how this could do anything but improve the quality of meat hot dogs. I doubt there will be much market for cloned lips and assholes.

...In the food sector, at any rate.

[1]

39. well then, there you go. no matter how you spell it, we are OK with this new development...

the hot dog eaters are OK with this new development.

yum...

[Xithras]

40. At the end of the day, it comes down to taste.

If the tank steak I pull off my grill tastes just as good as the tri tip I cooked up last weekend, I have no problem with it. If it ends up tasting like those soyburgers that my vegetarian mother in law keeps trying to push on me (which taste NOTHING like meat, no matter what the veggies like to claim), then I'll pass and continue to eat the same locally grown organic meat that I eat today.

[krispos42]

41. Ha!

I mentioned this to my boss about 3 years ago. I said at some point in the future they'd simply clone and grow in a petri dish (or whatever... probably some kind of protective bag) cuts of meat rather than raise animals for slaughter.


You simply have a "catalogue" of a couple of hundred of the best of the types of livestock that you clone repeatedly as needed. The best cows, the best chickens, the best swine, etc. For example, there might be a dozen cows that give the "best" Angus beef... so you have 12 animal DNA strands that's cloned a billion times year to make steaks. And another few cows are the best for, say, roasts, so you clone the part of the DNA that makes the roast muscle.



Corollary question: would you eat human flesh if it was grown in a petri dish? If, say somebody grew a couple of nice human rump roasts, wrapped them in cellophane, and was selling them in your local supermarket?

[Ignis]

50. Cannibalism or haute cuisine?

6: Exotic & Kinky Cuisine.
In-Vitro Meat will be fashioned from any creature, not just domestics that were affordable to farm. Yes, ANY ANIMAL, even rare beasts like snow leopard, or Komodo Dragon. We will want to taste them all. Some researchers believe we will also be able to create IVM using the DNA of extinct beasts -- obviously, "DinoBurgers" will be served at every six-year-old boy's birthday party.

Humans are animals, so every hipster will try Cannibalism. Perhaps we'll just eat people we don't like, as author Iain M. Banks predicted in his short story, "The State of the Art" with diners feasting on "Stewed Idi Amin." But I imagine passionate lovers literally eating each other, growing sausages from their co-mingled tissues overnight in tabletop appliances similar to bread-making machines. And of course, masturbatory gourmands will simply gobble their own meat.

Personally, I'm holding out for unicorn steak. ;)

[krispos42]

51. I had thought of extinct animals...

...but not eating, say, Edgar Allen Poe jerky.

Oh god, what are we unleashing????

[Ignis]

57. Rand roast? Hitler hocks? Gandhi gravy?

I suppose it's really only limited by whose DNA we have available, and what sort of property laws govern the DNA of the deceased.

It does add an interesting twist to the Donor check-mark on my driver's license, though. :scared:

[RebelOne]

43. I am a vegetarian, but I must admit that I get a craving

for a pork chop or rare, juicy steak. Yes, I would certainly eat cloned meat occasionally when I get the urge for a steak.

[MineralMan]

44. It's Chicken Little™

The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl (w/CM Kornbluth)

[closeupready]

46. Ick - gross, barf! No fucking way.

Shudder. :puke:

[Throd]

48. Throw a little garlic and butter in that vitro and call me for dinner!

[The2ndWheel]

49. And further alienation from reality continues

You can have it all! You can even eat yourself!

"But I imagine passionate lovers literally eating each other, growing sausages from their co-mingled tissues overnight in tabletop appliances similar to bread-making machines. And of course, masturbatory gourmands will simply gobble their own meat."

Finally! I can gobble my own growing sausage meat.

[cliffordu]

54. Meh. Ain't nothing.

I did a survival course once where maggots, insects, worms and grubs were on the menu.

You can eat anything if you have enough tabasco.

[smalll]

55. If it ends up costing less than "regular" meat, sure.

If it's more expensive, no.

[Ignis]

56. Current projections say 1/2 the cost of "real" meat.

But presumably there will be a journey to get to that price point.

[Posteritatis]

64. I'd be willing to pay (somewhat) more for the same thing + a reduced environmental hit, too

Not double more or something like that, and I don't know what my precise margin would be, but it's there.

In the long run we're gonna pay for the latter one way or another anyway, so if there's less harm done in that department then that benefits us too.

[Ignis]

65. That leads me to wonder about the initial marketing:

Will it be a specialty/gourmet product that attempts to tap into the market for ethical alternatives to meat, or will it be sold in bulk to large organizations for industrial use?

[Posteritatis]

66. I'd imagine 'yes' is the answer if it was relatively easy to produce. (nt)

[Phoonzang]

58. Hell YES. It's cleaner than what you get at the supermarket.

Or even from some fancy organic, grass-fed, cow that gets daily back massages.

More importantly, maybe, just maybe this will get veggies to stop whining about people eating meat. Nothing gets hurt in the process, the environment isn't damaged, and it's pretty damn healthy (especially if you add Omega-3s to the meat).

[Ignis]

59. Some people "whine" about torture, poverty, equality, etc.

So I guess it's just a matter of different strokes for different folks.

[Phoonzang]

60. All of which I consider more noble pursuits than worrying about

someone eating a steak. :shrug:

[Ignis]

62. Hey, good for you. Still doesn't make it whining. (nt)

[galledgoblin]

63. maybe... I'd have to research it when it happens.

if no animal is harmed, then that takes a lot out of my reasoning for becoming a vegetarian. if it's also eco-friendly, then that takes out even more.

[Raine]

67. I'm a vegetarian

I can't stand the taste of meat ... so no.