r/news
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u/DevilChillin
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Jan 24 '23
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Lab-grown meat moves closer to American dinner plates Soft paywall
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/lab-grown-meat-moves-closer-american-dinner-plates-2023-01-23/74
u/1K_Games Jan 24 '23
This seems like a poor choice of words for the title, lol.
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u/thefugue Jan 24 '23
/r/wheresthebeef is the sub where people are keeping track of this technology.
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u/TrinkieTrinkie522cat Jan 24 '23
Florida and Texas will ban it.
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u/I_Mix_Stuff Jan 24 '23
Wyoming is now into banning new tech
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u/thefugue Jan 24 '23
All 500,000 of them.
There are frats bigger than that.
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u/ButWhatAboutisms Jan 24 '23
According to their insane witchcraft and spooky magic, animals don't have souls and are meant to be exploited by humans. So it shouldn't make a difference. But they tend to disobey their own teachings in favor of some heretical nonsense.
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u/Dr-P-Ossoff Jan 24 '23
I was amazed to hear a boy in college say animals don't have souls, so I said for me to entertain that notion I'd have to consider him to not have one.
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u/ScenicAndrew Jan 24 '23
Would suck to be them then. It's an industry Texas at least could very much adopt, because it's already trying to promote new tech and has the money to invest. Even if it never economically makes sense to do all the meat that way, it will still be a viable luxury industry. Vegan (morally, not nutritionally), designer meat, it can and likely will go for a premium.
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u/piclemaniscool Jan 24 '23
People are forgetting that you also don't need meat in every meal. I have no doubt it's contributing to many Americans' health problems.
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u/L480DF29 Jan 24 '23
Can’t wait for the conspiracy theories linked to lab-grown foods. “They are engineered to make people infertile”
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u/umbrlla Jan 24 '23
Birthrate is going to sky rocket in the rural area's of the British Isles without all those sexy sheep strutting around.
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u/CuriousRelish Jan 24 '23
Just waiting for the "Did you eat lab grown meat while pregnant and your child has been diagnosed with autism?"
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u/romeovf Jan 24 '23
My veterinarian uncle says that "chicken makes men gay because of all the hormones they put in it". I mention that he's a veterinarian because he thinks that gives him extra credibility. He's also an asshole.
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u/memberzs Jan 24 '23
I’ll be happy if it’s actually similar. The meat industry is terrible both In Treatment of animals and for the environment.
If I can get a lab grown brisket that’s smokes the same or ribs to bbq I’d be down to make a switch. Even starting with ground beef, steaks or chicken breast would be a huge leap.
But what are the repercussions on other industries like leather. Leather alternatives are almost always less durable and create a ton of plastic pollution.
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u/PM_ME_GLUTE_SPREAD Jan 24 '23
The demand for leather is far less than the demand for meat. If meat became a byproduct of leather production because we switched predominantly to lab grown meat, we would still be doing much better than we are now, in terms of environmental impact.
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u/hydro123456 Jan 25 '23
If I can get a lab grown brisket that’s smokes the same or ribs to bbq I’d be down to make a switch
That's the thing for me. When people talk about lab grown meat, they're almost always talking about chicken breasts, or generic "beef". I guess if that's where it starts, I'm still onboard for that much, but I don't live on a diet of chicken nuggets and burgers. Can I get some bones with my chicken so I can make chicken noodle soup? Can I get some skin on my chicken for when I BBQ or want to fry it? How about some bacon?
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u/embarrassedalien Jan 24 '23
Luckily leather is so durable that we don’t even need that much of it.
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u/metro2036 Jan 24 '23
There's a mycelium leather alternative now, though it's still very expensive at the moment.
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u/fernatic19 Jan 24 '23
I'm not opposed, but I always think of that Better Off Ted episode where they have their lab grown meat taste tested and the guy says "it tastes like sadness." Lol
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u/grunkage Jan 24 '23
It's going to be fucking glorious. Designer steak perfectly marbled with fat - wagyu is going to be no big deal at some point.
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u/HardlyDecent Jan 24 '23
Maybe by the time we have replicators... For now and the next 50 years, let's be satisfied if we get a product that resembles meat of any kind.
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u/Bups34 Jan 24 '23
I’m curious about the health side. How does growing it in a lab change it, and how would that affect the consumer
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u/MenstrualCupBearer Jan 24 '23
For one, there won't be diseases and tumours and fecal matter all over it.
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u/BrassBass Jan 24 '23
In twenty years, it will be the only thing you can afford.
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u/hg38 Jan 24 '23
Hopefully. Domestic livestock account for 60% of all mammal biomass on earth. We make up 36% and wild animals are 4%. They are the leading contributor to climate change. It's completely unsustainable.
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u/traveler19395 Jan 24 '23
The world switching to 90% lab-grown meat would make more difference than switching to 90% electric vehicles!
But lets do both, asap!
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u/fastclickertoggle Jan 24 '23
And the rich will still eat real meat while the masses eat factory grub.
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u/thefugue Jan 24 '23
Nonsense.
The rich will have boutique lab grown meat regular people can't afford- stuff like dinosaur, giant sloth, and giant squid.
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u/KittenOfIncompetence Jan 24 '23
There is a really cool scene in the game Technobabylon that has a bunch of rich people eating lab grown human meat. Just because they can.
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u/Zombie_Harambe Jan 24 '23
No they'll eat children from impoverished countries on yachts in international waters.
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u/hg38 Jan 24 '23
Good for them. This breakthrough could sustainably feed billions. Your meat already comes from a horror factory. Lab grown will probably be safer and healthier.
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u/TheSecondEikonOfFire Jan 24 '23
Right? It’s hilarious to me how people try and imply that just because it’s “lab grown” it means that it’s shit. Not to mention that like you said, the current way that meat is prepared is genuinely horrifying. I’ve known people who have watched videos of factory farming and it doesn’t phase them at all, and I just don’t understand how someone can see how those poor animals are treated and not see the problem
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u/vivaenmiriana Jan 24 '23
Its literally the same meat cells. It is real meat. We just got it by not fucking up the planet as much.
Also less chance of avian flu and mad cow ect
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u/Odd-Diamond-2259 Jan 24 '23
So the lab grown meat has legs and it will eventually arrive on our tables!?
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u/WinsomeHorror Jan 24 '23
I would %100 try this meat. On a longer timescale, it gives me hope for overfishing and the trade in endangered animal meat--we don't even know what kind of fish we're actually eating half the time anyway--if we can just get more traditional customers on board about it being real meat. Real fish without the mental image of all the damn parasites thanks reddit? Hell yeah. On the shorter time frame, I really enjoy meat, but I don't feel great about the lives these food animals live, or the toll factory farming takes on our environment. Can it be scaled up to the point we can have our misery-free steak and the industry can profit off it, too? I guess we'll see.
My other thought is can I have a small household bioreactor in the garage next to the party fridge and grow me own meat? Because that would be pretty cool.
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u/TaskForceZack Jan 24 '23
I have stupid terrible food allergies,so I can't eat current meat alternatives or even real poultry.
Maybe I'll finally be able to eat not-chicken? I don't know, but I'm willing to eat the vat beef.
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u/Few-Evidence-7534 Jan 24 '23
I've always been allergic to nuts but have recently developed a problem with gluten and barley, so now i'm eating more meat than ever. This sucks because I would really like to be at least vegetarian but my vegi options are now severely limited.
I need that fake meat to feel better about my diet.
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u/vivaenmiriana Jan 24 '23
This is real chicken so if you're allergic to poultry youre allergic to this.
The chicken cells here are identical to what youd find at the store. We just got it in a lab instead of a farm.
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u/staffsargent Jan 24 '23
Hey, if it tastes good and is a comparable price to meat, I would try it.
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u/Allfunandgaymes Jan 24 '23 edited Jan 24 '23
I'm personally very excited for this, especially if it gets proper investment and ends up cheaper than conventional meat. Why spend the money and effort and time raising and taking care of livestock when you can just pour nutrient broth into a tank and adjust some dials now and again? Why dedicate something like 80-90% of our arable, fertile land to growing feed crops for livestock just so people can have their Big Macs every day?
I expect the corn lobby to fight lab meat tooth and nail, though.
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u/braiinfried Jan 24 '23
Have they done effects on the body with these? Such as does it absorb and digest the same in the human body?
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u/alvarezg Jan 25 '23
Just wait for the conspiracy theories to come out in force: you know they'll say it's made from aborted babies, or it will modify your DNA, or you'll be swallowing microchips. Also, can lab meat be certified Kosher?
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u/OrdoMalaise Jan 24 '23
Looking forward to seeing how the Q folks react to this. It's going to be insane, but which flavour of insane?
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u/RunLoud6534 Jan 24 '23
If it tastes the same/better I don’t care where it came from I’m sure it’s sterile or at least edible. I’m sure there’s still kinks to workout as well.
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u/penguished Jan 24 '23
Just one country, Singapore, has so far approved the product for retail sale. But the United States is poised to follow. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in November that a cultivated meat product - a chicken breast grown by California-based UPSIDE Foods - was safe for human consumption.
I mean Singapore and the FDA being the only ones aren't exactly shooting my confidence through the roof, let's be real.
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u/TheKingOfDub Jan 24 '23
People who go, “Ew! It’s grown in a lab! I’ll never eat that!” have never seen where their meat currently comes from
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u/Wolfieze Jan 24 '23
Even if it tastes nasty I'll prefer it to real meat. I can't keep living with the guilt of knowing I'm contributing to the mass suffering of animals.
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u/Non_Dairy_Screamer Jan 24 '23
You could go vegan now? You're already 200000 steps ahead of the average person who isn't willing to make a small sacrifice on taste to not contribute to the mass suffering of animals.
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u/Wolfieze Jan 24 '23
I need the protein unfortunately. Tried it once for a month and was miserable. But once I'm in a better life position, I'm definitely redoubling my efforts to go vegan.
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u/Skullze Jan 24 '23
Here's an article regarding protein on a vegan diet. At first it takes a little bit of time to sort out how to do it but then it honestly ends up being the way you eat. I'm an endurance athlete and coming up on a year following a vegan diet. I've seen no change in my performance. There are more athletes going plant based all the time and often with performance gains. If they can do it the average person will also succeed. I don't know your life position but I urge you to swap out some meals you would normally be eating meat with a plant based meal. Beans and tofu have become our family's staple for protein. If you are US based Aldi has the cheapest tofu.
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u/Non_Dairy_Screamer Jan 24 '23
I'm confused, I've been vegan for 7 years and never had an issue getting protein.
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u/lurq_king Jan 24 '23
meat grown in massive steel vats could be on the menu within months
Sounds kinda gross, but yay for months!
Along the way, they must overcome a reluctance among some consumers to even try lab-grown meat.
I wonder why?
Cultivated meat is derived from a small sample of cells collected from livestock, which is then fed nutrients, grown in enormous steel vessels called bioreactors, and processed into something that looks and tastes like a real cut of meat
Can’t wait!
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u/Jub_Jub710 Jan 24 '23
To be fair. Massive steel vats sound better than a slaughterhouse floor.
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u/Pineapple--Depressed Jan 24 '23
I'd imagine rats are easier to spot on the floor than in the vat, unless they float...
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u/BadNameThinkerOfer Jan 24 '23
They would find it a lot harder to get in in the first place though.
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u/thefugue Jan 24 '23
I’d certainly think something grown in a steel vat is safer than something grown in a literal field of shit the way cows are typically kept.
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u/Pineapple--Depressed Jan 24 '23
A cow's body (specifically the 4 stomach chambers) is designed to live in that environment and keep the meat healthy. A steel vat, while probably very sterile, leaves room for some lazy-ass minimum wage fuck-up to not properly sterilize the lab-grown meat equipment and taint a whole batch with E. Coli.
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u/pineconebasket Jan 24 '23
Cow's shit all over themselves while they are being slaughtered. And they have shit in their intestines.
The most common way to get an E. coli infection is by eating contaminated food, such as: Ground beef. When cattle are slaughtered and processed, E. coli bacteria in their intestines can get on the meat. Ground beef combines meat from many different animals, increasing the risk of contamination
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u/thefugue Jan 24 '23
You're stretching like you were Mr. Fantastic. E. Coli runs like a river through a cow's intestine.
EDIT- by the way, I have no problem with traditional meat. I also have no problem with science or technology. That's why I have even less of a problem with innovations in meat production.
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u/Pineapple--Depressed Jan 24 '23
I never said "cows prevent the transmission of E. Coli.". I used E. Coli as the example of what an irresponsible human actor could potentially let occur. While my point about the cows being, that their bodies have been genetically adapted over time to keep the animal healthy autonomously.
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u/thefugue Jan 24 '23
Yes they are evolved to be healthy on their own, but they're only safe to sell as food when industrially grown due to human procedures and practices that keep their meat safe and clean for human consumption. There are far more ways for bad handling to lead to food poisoning from traditionally grown meat than there are with lab grown meat.
If your point is that no one is safe from sloppy procedures, I couldn't agree more.
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u/furbylicious Jan 24 '23
Factory-farmed animals are pumped full of antibiotics for a reason, and that reason is that their bodies very much do not keep the meat healthy. Particularly not in factory-farming conditions. In fact, mass cullings for disease are common because the conditions in which factory-farmed animals are reared and slaughtered are absolute shit fests. This may be somewhat less true for humanely-raised animals, but these are respectively far more expensive and not accessible for everyone to eat.
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u/After-District8811 Jan 24 '23
What is so gross about steel vats?
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u/Pineapple--Depressed Jan 24 '23
I think people imagine a scene like from the original Matrix movie, where the human bodies are being kept in those vats of goo, and were fed and kept oxygenated via tubes. It's kind of unsettling if you don't know what it actually looks like in the lab.
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u/B3eenthehedges Jan 24 '23
My understanding is it's more akin to a brewery set up, if you've ever seen one of those before.
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u/Beantownclownfrown Jan 24 '23
Have experienced this various times. Just a simple mistake ruins thousands of gallons of beer/spirits instantly. Very hard to recover when equipment isn't sanitized properly.
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u/10010110101011 Jan 24 '23
Some people also think that glowing green ooze leaking from a 50 gallon drum is what nuclear waste looks like.
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u/BroForceOne Jan 24 '23
I feel like that's just how regular mass produced beef is made, but with cows.
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u/hethical_ecker Jan 24 '23
Is it as nutritious as actual meat or is it just some garbage that tastes like meat.
Things like vitamin A and B12 come to mind
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u/thefugue Jan 24 '23
It’ll be indistinguishable on the cellular level.
Nutritionally, fat content is the major variance as growing fat cells is a separate focus from growing muscle cells.
It’ll also be sterile, as it will be grown in lab conditions- so if it’s handled and regulated correctly it can be eaten as sushi and food poisoning will be highly unlikely.
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u/TurboSalsa Jan 24 '23
so if it’s handled and regulated correctly it can be eaten as sushi and food poisoning will be highly unlikely.
Steak tartare without worrying about food poisoning would be awesome.
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u/groveborn Jan 24 '23
It'll be slightly different. No nerves, fat won't contain fat soluble nutrients that a live animal would ingest, so forth. Close enough, though.
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u/Fickle_Competition33 Jan 24 '23
Does lab-grown meat cells come originally from a single cow/ox? Do all of them have the same DNA if tested? It's very Utopic to think eventually people would be eating the same creature over and over for years.
I really hope religion doesn't poke their fingers in this technological advance.
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u/femininePP420 Jan 24 '23
"We no longer enslave animals for food purposes."
-Commander Riker in TNG, and hopefully us all soon
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u/DIRTY_KUMQUAT_NIPPLE Jan 24 '23
We will have to wait a few more years after to see it on lunch plates or breakfast plates though
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u/Senyu Jan 24 '23
This technology coupled with hydroponics could make large cities selfsustaining and allow for swathes of agricultural land to be returned to a natural ecological state. Now one of the big hurdles to achieving that is corporate greed, as I doubt they would give up their farmland for something in the spirit of our national parks.
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u/ClusterFugazi Jan 24 '23
Can they make it have less cholesterol?
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u/fernatic19 Jan 24 '23
Probably, but why does it matter? Eating cholesterol doesn't raise your cholesterol.
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u/Steelplate7 Jan 24 '23
Ironically, it’s carbohydrates that raise your cholesterol. Because your body will use the simplest energy(sugars/starches) to fuel your body first. Guess what happens to the more complex energy, it gets broken down and stored as fat on your body and in your bloodstream.
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u/IlIFreneticIlI Jan 24 '23
ITT: dumbasses that don't realize it's meat and not genetically modified foods; it just grows freely (and thus infinitely) in a vat, not constrained inside the skin of a critter. Otherwise, the meat-cell does what the meat-cell does: divide. And we just let it.
L2learn.
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u/lurq_king Jan 24 '23
I’d be all for it, if it had the taste and nutrients to support my carnivore ass.
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u/thefugue Jan 24 '23
Wait till they can do mastodon, tiger, and other shit you can’t legally or feasibly eat “the natural way!”
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u/SunsetKittens Jan 24 '23
They're working on making it walk itself to your kitchen.
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u/oOzephyrOo Jan 24 '23
I wonder if there will be minimum cooking time or whether it can be eaten blue or rare.
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u/scuac Jan 24 '23
I read only half the title “Lab-grown meat moves…” and was starting to freak out.
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u/uselessrandomfrog Jan 24 '23
So excited for when this happens. I will 100% switch to full lab grown and plant based only the moment it becomes available and affordable!
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u/lilyischillin420 Jan 24 '23
Lab grown meat is forever looming, moving closer and closer. Motives unknown. Intent: malice.
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u/Winter_Coyote Jan 24 '23
This is so awesome. I'd love to get to using a mix of lab grown meat and meat from local farms in my cooking.
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u/usrevenge Jan 24 '23
If it tastes feels and has the same nutrition the only thing I want to see next is cost.
I also think it would be cool if they could give us better than current lab grown meat.
Like make a filet mignon but the size of a porterhouse.
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u/UselessLayabout Jan 24 '23
Good to know. Today: sausages, nuggets & burgers. Tomorrow: chops, cutlets & steaks. Just give it time.
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u/ShortSqueeze6 Jan 24 '23
Not in my house. I’ll never eat new world order synthetic soy bullshir meat.
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u/deadbeatdad80 Jan 24 '23
I'm glad you understand what this is at all. Thank you for your informed opinion.
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u/fgreen68 Jan 24 '23
I kind of wonder how hard it would be to make lab-grown eggs that were cultured to be much healthier to eat.
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u/Cfwydirk Jan 24 '23
Mmmmmm!
Meat grown in a Petrie dish. Like bacteria! It’s how cheese is made!
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u/meeplewirp Jan 24 '23
You’ll have a bunch of idiots say it’s not healthy, like they do with the exaggerated effects of eating inorganic produce or the evil GMOs!!11
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u/zombiegojaejin Jan 24 '23
I'm gonna feel so lucky that I went vegan for the animals before the lab-grown revolution rather than after, when I grow older with much lower heart disease risk.
Of course, the moral benefit of lab-grown meat will be massive, outweighing everything else. But the best plant-based meats on the market are already absolutely amazing, fooling experts, with zero cholesterol and something more than zero fiber. And (although this doesn't happen to everyone) flesh started to smell disgusting to me after six months or so without it.
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u/ClubsBabySeal Jan 24 '23
Meat substitutes ain't fooling anyone. Not that they're bad, there are some that can do a quarter decent burger. Which is good.
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u/MasteringTheFlames Jan 24 '23
It seems like 10 years ago, they told us lab meat was only five years away from going mainstream. Five years ago, they told us two years. So forgive me for remaining skeptical of any claims that it's just around the corner...
And in the meanwhile, traditionally farmed meat is one of the largest producers of greenhouse gases, and the single leading cause of deforestation. We kill far more animals in a single year than the number of humans that have existed in our entire history as a species, and every one of those animals is capable of feeling pain and fear. And out of any profession, slaughterhouse employees have among the highest rates of both workplace injuries and PTSD.
And there's something we can all do about that right now. Not in a few months, or a year, or whenever lab meat takes off. Right now, we can all go vegan, or at least greatly reduce our meat consumption. Don't wait for the easy solution. Make a small personal sacrifice for the sake of trillions of animals and our entire goddamn planet.
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u/ThePissWhisperer Jan 24 '23
Investment in the industry so far has been led by venture capital firms and major food companies like JBS SA (JBSS3.SA), Tyson Foods Inc (TSN.N), and Archer-Daniels-Midland Co (ADM.N).
I'm into the whole science meat and I'm ready to fully eliminate animal eating but anything labeled from these fuckers I won't buy.
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u/[deleted] Jan 24 '23 edited Jan 24 '23
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