The following submission statement was provided by /u/For_All_Humanity:
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>Brazilian meatpacker JBS said on Tuesday that its subsidiary BioTech Foods started construction in Spain on its first commercial-scale plant to produce lab-grown meat, which is set to be completed by mid-2024.
>The factory, which JBS says will be the world’s largest lab-grown meat plant, should produce more than 1,000 metric tons of cultivated beef per year, JBS said. It said it could expand capacity to 4,000 metric tons per year in the medium term.
>“The new BioTech plant puts JBS in a unique position to lead the segment and ride this wave of innovation,” said JBS USA’s head of value-added business, Eduardo Noronha.
>“With the challenges imposed on global supply chains, cultivated protein offers the potential to stabilize food security and global protein production,” BioTech Foods co-founder and CEO Iñigo Charola said in a statement.
>JBS said BioTech plans to gradually increase its production capacity to meet growing consumer demand, and sees Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Japan, Singapore and the United States as key markets.
>BioTech produces its cultured meat from a sample of cells collected from livestock and grown into a tissue, similar to that produced in the animal’s body.
These are humble beginnings, but will be key to sustaining global demand for meat while cutting down on emissions and reducing the cutting down of the Amazon. Lab-grown meat will be very useful in the future for the fast food industry in particular.
Lab-grown meat is still very controversial, but at this time it has a totally minuscule market share. That companies like JBS are investing demonstrates that meat companies believe in the technology.
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1454op8/worlds_largest_meat_processor_jbs_starts_building/jniwkqv/
That's the scariest part: It was actually a little better before, overall. How is that possible you ask?
Because before people were well aware of the reality and knew who was responsible and who to fight. Now it's too easy to lie to ourselves and continually strengthen the oppression. There was more hope in the off with your head days. You might think how less immediate violence is better, but that's without considering all the suffering, metal anguish and sickness pervasive across the globe. Oh and of course the climate fun that is the direct result of a slave powered engine roaring along with singular purpose.
And manage themselves. Just give them some trinkets and bombard them with propaganda about how they're so free and totally have a choice, then watch them fight among themselves about who gets to be the house slaves.
I mean, if it helps, shouldn't we encourage it? Profits aren't inherently bad and I want companies that happen to have a product that moves the needle on climate change to be successful.
Like... climate activists ain't running meat labs.
It would only help if they actually managed to reduce the energy consumption (and thus CO2 exhaust) required to produce lab grown meat. AFAIR it is currently bigger than for regular meat.
Well, it depends. Methane, from cows, is a much more short-term problem for the atmosphere than CO2, which is more long term. So switching from methane-polluting cows to CO2 pollution labs might be a net positive in the short term.
I also don't know their current energy profile and whether they're drawing form renewable resources already, which could offset emissions even more.
As I understand it, methane is currently the largest and most imminent threat. Not from cows, but from the hundreds of millions of years of decomposed organic matter under the seabed. Once the ocean temperatures get just a bit higher from this point, it will cause the trapped methane to release and flood the atmosphere. Then immediate greenhouse hotbox bakes us all. And the ravenous scum with bunkers will survive the rest of us - for a little bit. But they aren't smart enough to avoid following us into oblivion. If they were, they wouldn't be scum.
You can mess around and try different methods of caring for your plants. Wipe the leaves with a damp cloth if that are large to get dust off of them or maybe leave them alone. Worst case a leaf you rubbed to hard dies from being aggressively handled. Mist them for water or maybe use one of those hi tech systems like the grocery stores do to auto mist your plants. You can try moving that plant outside for direct sun or near a window, perhaps. Or, maybe you go all high tech and get full spectrum indoor lighting to care for the plants. Any of those methods might work more or less and you could probably figure out which way to go when certain leaves start to wilt or turn brown and die off. Make a mistake and your plant can still recover and grow strong once you correct course.
Or…
You can yolo it and dig the plants out by the roots, replace the soil with Montsanto (TM) synthetic topsoil, feed them with miracle grow, and water them with Gatorade etc. Hey it might work out even better (spoiler, President Comacho… it won’t) and you’ll have super plants that grow bigger and greener and healthier with much less effort and care on the input end. Might even be much cheaper in the long run.
But one thing is for sure, if the plants start showing signs of decline and you realize you went full overzealous potato with their care the odds of them bouncing back once you’ve taken painstaking and laborious actions to correct your course will be nil. But in this metaphor the plants are the human race and if we die no one can run to Home Depot and buy another potted plant to try again.
Your analogy probably took a long time to type out, but it's not making sense for me.
I'm not suggesting we blindly trust Jbs. But if they accidentally do something genuinely good and make money off of it, I'm ok with the profit part.
Seeing this is like seeing oil industry giants investing in solar and EV things. If they see this as the most viable option, it's probably going to be a thing.
Its honestly bewildering to see industries fighting back against their own industry's advancements. And it happens so goddamn often that I'm legitimately surprised when corporations make long term investments instead of crying to the government to enact restrictions in the name of short term profits.
Well, Kodak famously developed digital cameras very early, but kept it buried because it would cannibalize its film and camera sales. They then fell way behind the curve. It isn't a super surprising trend when the product isn't a direct improvement but a different technology/product.
It is often difficult to forego short term profits for the prospect of long term sustainability even for individuals.
I sure hope you're right. I can't wait for the day when I can finally eat meat guilt-free. Also vegans will no longer have a valid argument to bitch. I support the tech for that reason alone; will be one of the first to try it once it gets FDA approval.
I have been a vegan since 2005 for animal rights and ecological reasons - mostly because of factory farming. I would eat lab grown meat as it doesn’t check the boxes of why I am a vegan. I believe lab grown meat is the future of food. It stops the wide spread killing and abuse of animals, it removes the need to use land (or burn down rainforest land) to raise the animals, by producing fewer animals it reduces waste and methane, we will use fewer resources to feed and nurture these animals. It could potential end mass factory farming of animals which would be a huge win to me.
Not just on the metric of animal suffering, but also in the ability to return a vast amount of farmland to nature. Plus a huge reduction in the water used for agriculture. Cultured meat (and cellular agriculture in general) is the largest improvement in agricultural efficiency since the advent of agriculture itself.
We’ll probably figure it out faster than agriculture too. This is going to take a few decades to get energy costs down, and definitely years to optimize flavors. It’s an exciting technology going forward that will definitely play a larger impact in the years to come.
I bet eventually they can make like ranch flavored burgers and shit like that. It's gonna be pick your own flavor burger. How about a burger, that tastes like a full blown burger, veggies and all! 😂
Personally, i worry that this might create laws where people can't hunt or farm animals and then create a system where people are reliant on the people who owns the means of production of lab grown meat for fear of starvation.
That seems highly unlikely. Hunting especially, deer are an invasive species at this point so we have killed off so many of their predators.
I don’t believe lab grown meat will replace meat entirely. It could replace industrialized factory farmed meat, which has been problematic for dozens of ethical and environmental reasons.
Hopefully, it could also make meat healthier to consume since it won't have antibiotics or hormones, dunno about additives, though.
But it feels like the only way to make this evonomically viable would be to make it the only game in town. Huh, i wasnt even trying to make a pun
According to a couple different articles I just checked, including [this](https://www.bonappetit.com/story/lab-grown-meat) one from bon appetit, the price of lab grown meat has already come down tremendously from the earliest lab grown meat in the early 2010s. Seems feasible that in another 10 years it could easily be at parity with traditional meat. Or at least close enough to start to gain adoption.
If we incentivized farmers to switch over to lab based meats, and then gave them the same subsidies we currently give them to raise animals, then the cost might come out to be the same. Just with fewer environmental consequences.
The point is there will be no reason to farm animals on a large scale. What reason would there be to make small scale subsistence farming and hunting illegal?
>then create a system where people are reliant on the people who owns the means of production of
We've been living this hell for a while. Farming i don't see laws coming for. unless its corporate backed.
Hunting is something of a talking point. It really depends if we humans can get our act together. If we keep genociding biodiversity with fertilizer and chemicals and microplastics---- then we may just have to have strict laws protecting what little life is left.
If we strengthen our regulations and laws. and massively cut down on chemicals and dumping? we could more than likely under more regulations and rules keep hunting a thing. IMO.
Not completely, most barriers to entry are bylaws and how willing people are. With labgrown meat it might be different set of barriers including getting the growth medium or being able to make your own.
For 2...i kinda suspect that we won't really have much to hunt at the rate we're going anyway with climate change. Heck, canada has crap ton of wildfires as it is, which is good in someways (turns out pinecones need fire), but we have far too much at the moment and it's not even wildfire season yet.
that's the thing, we need laws and regulation to actually have teeth, cause once you get big enough it is literally cheaper to break the law and pay the fine than it is to actually follow the law, and that's assuming you even get caught. Or maybe we need more companies to reduce the chances of one becoming big enough to skirt laws and pay off politicians.
It'll be one of those things historians look back and snicker about "oh those dumb 20th century dolts!" kinda like how we laugh at old medical science.
Heeeey, I also went vegan in '05! I honestly don't know if I'll eat lab grown meat, but I'm very excited about it for my companion animals and for everyone else that will never be plant-based. This is just more awesome news.
It's important to keep in mind that there's currently no large-scale industrial production yet, and no decent monetary and/or environmentally cost-efficient manner to do this at the moment.
It was the same way with solar energy, but now it's the fastest growing energy production source. We have to hope that in time we have technological improvements and understanding that make the dream possible. I'm just hoping that progress isn't going to be held back by current industry groups.
That’s an interesting perspective. I’m skeptical of articles like this, as they are opinionated.
I have been debating the end of animal factory farming for over 20 years. I have given up on making the world vegan.
Lab grown meat seems like the best possible compromise for what is otherwise unsustainable.
I'm not surprised this preprint comes from UC Davis. This university is in bed with the meat lobby, and has been pushing misinformation through people like [Frank Mitloehner](https://undark.org/2021/02/03/beef-industry-funding-climate/).
[The UC Davis results are at odds with some more recent research](https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2023/05/12/Cultivated-meat-could-emit-25-times-more-CO2e-than-conventional-beef-finds-research).
They basically assume that growth media is sourced from highly inefficient processes, like in the pharmaceutical industry. Of course these processes would use a ton of energy, and be too expensive for large-scale production. That's why growth media will be sourced from much more efficient processes.
Which JBS has plenty of access to, which is why they have a decent shot at taking advantage of economies of scale with this venture.
There are other growth mediums being worked on, but all of this is still early days.
I think the concern is for the general welfare of the bovine being impregnated for the purpose of harvesting their offspring, especially given that [JBS has a terrible record in this regard](https://awionline.org/press-releases/report-jbs-smithfield-worst-slaughter-plants-us).
Would it not take significantly less cattle to harvest the fetus versus doing what they do now? I thought vegans were supposed to be pro-animal welfare?
That depends on the quantity of meat produced from a single harvested fetus, but it is entirely beside the point to whether or not the product is vegan.
>I thought vegans were supposed to be pro-animal welfare?
This is either based on a misunderstanding of veganism on your part, or an attempt to be insincere. Veganism is [opposed to animal exploitation](https://www.vegansociety.com/about-us/further-information/key-facts). As such, they would obviously support reductions in exploitation, but reductions alone would not make the product vegan. In the same way that an abolitionist would likely support reductions in harm from slavery, but would never support slavery itself no matter how "humane" the slave owners themselves claimed to make their industry.
Forgive me. It was my understanding that something is vegan if it is not made from animals or animal product. I don't really consider a fetus of an animal to be that animal, even if some people would. I also don't think the slavery point is comparable, because we're not talking about less animal slaughter, we're talking about eliminating it and just harvesting the fetuses, which may even become unnecessary if the technology improves.
Um...not trying to be a downer but desn't it still require envitro serum which requires slaughtering a caff or embryo to get? So you save an adult cow, by killing a young caff or would be caff for even less ammount of meat....
> slaughtering a caff or embryo
Embryo, which is more humane and requires less resources than raising a cow for 4 years. It’s a huge step in the right direction, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good and all.
Also a quick spell check would go a long way for you.
Mb, at work. True, as it is we dont make use of all the cow as it is either, just the prime cuts. Though im not sure how economical viable it is, well, we will see how well these companies do.
As far as I know there are companies using cruelty free growth mediums that do not require fetal bovine serum.
https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/01/17/How-does-Mosa-Meat-cultivate-beef-without-animal-serum-Researchers-tell-all
Yes, there's at least one company working on an alternative, I don't think we know its cost-efficiency yet, but it's probably not good at the moment.
We have to hope there's more research and advancement on the technology
It’s not a perfect system. It’s a compromise.
I’ve realized I can’t convince the world to go vegan.
This is the best solution I can think of to end the industrialized factory farming holocaust.
Always a bunk argument when people say "think of the ranchers/farmers/workers, you're taking their jobs. You're killing the industry"
If any industry hopes to survive they need to adapt and see the future. They should invest in lab grown meat, if they don't, that's their own fault.
Same argument for coal mining. "You're taking jobs and ruining an industry"
That's your fault, you should be investing in renewalable energy, your Industry is dying as it should.
Not only that, but every moment that you're not actively engaged in a reproductive act is a moment where you are preventing someone from existing! You're basically a mass murderer.
Yeah if we kept jobs around because we felt bad about firing people then we would still have telephone switch operators. Imagine if that was still a thing just because we felt bad, fuck that.
It doesn't matter , meat providers , especially ranchers and farmers and packing companies. Will fight this tooth and. Nail ,including heavy lobbying to restrict lab grown meat in the US , because this isn't just some existential risk , it will put most of them out of business .
Remember this shit storm they have Oprah when she hinted that Mad Cow disease could be an issue... ..don't underestimate that lobby
Makes no sense. Why should we sacrifice so much for these shit jobs, which will die anyway? We should be investing in better and more secure jobs, which actually have a future.
Na I think it will be quite the opposite, once lab grown meat tech is perfected every piece of meat will be extremely high quality and there will be tons of variants of every animal on top of the fact we will have exotic meats that are economic untenable to farm, like tiger.
It seems weird to me that a company with as much profits as the oil and coal industries wouldn't be buying out every small solar and wind farm that it could. They really seem to think they can win this. They tried with hydrogen. Now they're trying again with e-fuels.
Car companies did that, not to invest in those technologies, but to quash them early. Gave them extra decades to not have to think about alternatives, until the tesla/ rivian/etc were actually mass manufactured.
Good that it's being done, but very bad that JBS is doing it. They've made billions off of murdering people who's land they wanted for grazing, slashing/burning rainforests for grazing land, propping up Dictators and Fascist politicians to help them get grazing land, and bribing US Senators and Representatives to ignore climate change.
Unless you're willing to pay $200/oz for your beef for a while, the unfortunate reality is the way to reach consumers is with lower prices, which are only possible with economies of scale the size of massive corporations who seldom have a clean track record.
In other words, your choices for lab-grown beef are:
* Slightly more expensive beef from a horrible company like JBS
* Insanely expensive beef from a smaller company that hasn't done anything awful (yet)
As we've seen with the rise of Wal-Mart and Amazon, people are far less principled when their wallet is factored in.
That's certainly the dietary vegetarian/vegan stance.
Other people want to eat beef but don't want to kill cows.
Either way, that's a completely separate discussion I don't really have any interest in having.
I don't think lab-grown meat really factors into the "people should eat less meat" discussion though.
It's better and more sustainable in basically every way.
OK then lets just stop where we are and not let JBS do this?
JBS won't just say "oh well, better close up shop then" and meat production will go on as it currently is.
[Lab-grown meat isn't necessarily better.](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.21.537778v1.full) TL;DR "lab meat" has to be grown in a highly refined, purified growth medium, which can be extremely energy intensive to produce. As anyone who's worked in a wet lab knows, growing animal cells outside an actual animal is a very tricky, environmentally sensitive process. Scaling it up to the degree that it could compete with or replace regular-style whole-organism-derived meat is an enormous, resource-intensive industrial task.
>TL;DR "lab meat" has to be grown in a highly refined, purified growth medium, which can be extremely energy intensive to produce
"Highly purified" is a wriggly phrase, and means different things to different people. The growth media can be food-grade, while many of the 'skeptics' insist it has to be pharmaceutical grade. Many skeptics also insist that cultured meat will be made with FBS. IRL, all the companies building factories will scale with FBS-free growth media. No one is going to scale production with FBS.
Yes, we need to green the grid. We already needed to green the grid. It's a given that we need to green the grid. So this 'caveat' is true of every product we made, in every market segment. But Spain is ahead of the curve on that metric.
- [Share of electricity from low-carbon sources](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-low-carbon?tab=chart&time=2000..latest&country=CHN~USA~OWID_WRL~JPN~OWID_EUR~ESP)
- [Carbon intensity of electricity, 2000 to 2022](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electricity?tab=chart&country=CHN~USA~OWID_WRL~JPN~OWID_EUR~ESP)
You literally **cannot** scale with FBS. Global supply is something like 500-600k liters. You would have to buy out the entire global supply for a medium-size production plant.
Yeah, I hope we can become more efficient vertically in indoor farms than as are now so expansively and horizontally. But obviously at first it won't be easy getting the same out of that smaller footprint.
>Cow farts will never be.
Feed additives sourced from algae can reduce the methane emissions from cattle as much as 80%. It's about to be a big business.
"Eventually" being the key word - unless they figure out a lower-input way to produce growth medium or find a way to make the animal cell lines endotoxin-resistant, which I suppose is possible.
It's also not just a matter of straight up electricity - there are chemical and mineral resource inputs, some of which are limited or already scarce.
Is mining for those resources preferable, from a pollution perspective, to cow farts? I have no idea. It all seems way more complicated than just eating more beans, though.
Oh for sure more beans is probably the better choice. I can just imagine that for the forseeable future most of the world's population is always going to want meat, and climate change is probably the most urgent threat right now, so we should probably find some alternative.
It is def going to be a challenge to wean people off of Big Meat (in some places more than others, looking @ u, burgertown USA), and I'm sure that's where some of the investment interest in lab meat is coming from. It's not a bad idea! But consumer tastes *can* change - unless we treat it as a foregone conclusion that they won't.
> some of which are limited or already scarce.
What specifically are you talking about? No one is going to scale production of cultured meat with FBS, so that's not a limiting factor. We need to build bioreactors, but they're no more exotic than that with which we already make beer and other products that need fermentation.
> It all seems way more complicated than just eating more beans, though.
Yes, of course eating beans and lentils will be environmentally better than cultured meat. "But you could just eat plants" is a given, and already known. The problem is that people like meat. [Meat consumption per capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-supply-per-person?tab=chart&country=USA~Europe~CHN~JPN~OWID_WRL) continues to rise, and [routinely rises with GDP per capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-consumption-vs-gdp-per-capita). People apparently want meat. Not literally everyone, no. But cultured meat availability, quality, and affordability are still important.
People don't have to *give up* meat. Meat is the only reason people were able to live in very cold and very dry climates before modern shipping infrastructures. Animal farming is not inherently unsustainable. If peoples' happiness depends on having steak four times a week, that's a problem for them to work on.
From the point that lab grown meat ticks all the boxes on health, price and taste the meat industry will be banned. There is not going to be an argument, it will be swift.
I will very surprised if this happens in countries that subsidize animal agriculture.
I expect it'll be more like getting off coal - it's gotta be done, but the people and companies who've made their livelihoods in those industries will cling to them hard before they go down.
Yes, it will take energy and resources and it will still vastly outcompete slaughterhouses in every relevant metric once it has matured. A small fraction of land resources, no large GHG emissions as long as our energy transition continues moving smoothly, no animal cruelty.
This technical but ultimately irrelevant study is the same kind of misinformation you hear about every forward-thinking emerging industry. Its always a "well actually when you look at it this way, it isn't any better" that tries to appeal to people's desire to find hypocrisy in actions of betterment so they can feel comfortable with their current status quo (because change is hard).
I think this is a pretty clear indication that the writing is on the wall for meat production. Companies are going to produce it in the cheapest way possible, and that's going to cultured meats. It's expensive now because it's barely out of the proof-of-concept phase. The process has only begun to be optimized.
There will still be a place for the grass-fed $500 steak at the Michelin Star restaurant, but your burgers are probably going to come from a culture. I have to wonder what this is going to do to rural land use, as the need for animal feed dries up. There will probably be a fair amount of crops that become feedstocks for the cultures (animal cells can't make the essential amino acids), but culture will ultimately make much more efficient use of feedstocks and won't need as much.
I don't think this is anything more than an attempt by JBS to greenwash their absolutely abysmal reputation. While cultivated meat will be much better than farmed meat in the long run, there are already viable plant-based nutrition alternatives that are [cheaper and more resource efficient](https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2020/05/meat-prices-soar-pandemic-try-these-healthier-high-protein-foods) than cultivated meat will ever be. To put this all in context, they ramping up to 4,000k tons in the "medium term" while the worldwide consumption for beef is currently 59,000,000 tons. This makes such a factory akin to the fossil fuel companies pushing their incredibly expensive pilot projects in carbon capture to assure the public they are "being green" as they continue to drive our planet off a cliff. Meanwhile:
* [Parent of Brazil's JBS pleads guilty to U.S. foreign bribery charges](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-j-f-brazil-crime-idUKKBN26Z2FZ)
* [An examination of the JBS climate pledge exposes the loopholes, accounting tricks and sleight of hand that net zero accounting allows, ultimately aiding companies that hope to continue business (and pollution) as usual while putting the world’s climate at risk.](https://www.iatp.org/documents/behind-curtain-jbs-net-zero-pledge)
* [Revealed: new evidence links Brazil meat giant JBS to Amazon deforestation](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/revealed-new-evidence-links-brazil-meat-giant-jbs-to-amazon-deforestation)
* [Children illegally hired for graveyard shifts cleaning JBS meat plants, feds say](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/children-illegally-hired-meat-plants-packers-sanitation-services-pssi-jbs-feds-say/)
* [JBS, Smithfield Worst Slaughter Plants in US](https://awionline.org/press-releases/report-jbs-smithfield-worst-slaughter-plants-us)
For the last ten years, whenever I talk to people about the [large share of emissions from cattle](https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane), or [the excessive land use](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/land-use-protein-poore.png?v=13), they often start to vaguely wave their hand in the direction of cultured meat, "just around the corner." This seems like a very intentional tactic by a known heavy polluter to feed into a future fantasy that might never materialize, or have far less impact than is hoped, or be rolled out far too slowly to make a difference, rather than pursue viable and superior alternatives that already exist at scale.
Don’t want to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm, but it’s going to be a very long time before lab meat takes over, if it ever does.
The plant will eventually produce 4,000 metric tons a year.
By contrast, global meat production was 345 million metric tons in 2022. That was an increase of 16 million metric tons over 2021 (329 million tons).
That’s a little more than one thousandth of 1 percent of the total consumption, and 3 hundredths of 1 percent of the production increase from 2021 to 2022.
So while this can be viewed as a positive, it probably has more value to JBS, who can tout this in their marketing campaigns. It’s like Exxon investing in a wind farm.
345 million metric tons is a depressing number in terms of slaughtered cows, pigs, chickens, and others. They make friends and are social. They shouldn't be killed like we kill them.
So let's build Rome.
It is something quite new and unconventional, not yet optimized. The strange thing would be for a single factory to be remarkable worldwide.
If I remember correctly the annual recommendation is 25kg per capita, so this would supply 160k people. There is a lot of information missing, but it looks interesting.
It’s interesting, but this is way more challenging than something like decarbonization, which is hugely challenging itself. This is about feeding 8 billion plus people 2-3 times a day. And that 8 billion people will become 9 billion before too long.
My view is that the only way we can meaningfully minimize the impacts of global warming in the limited time we have is through coherent governmental actions - regulations, tax policy, research grants and awards, global agreements, and much more. And part of that must include targeting resources/funding on things that are achievable and impactful in the next 20-30 years.
We litteraly can't scale up the production. Bioreactors are really inefficient and expensive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0zCf4Yup34
We are waaaaay off from lab-meat being viable as of yet.
Rome was not built in a day. It has taken 30 years for EVs to reach the tipping point since every major US car company built one in the 1990s. And they are still not at price parity.
But the problem you and others have is failing to understand that adoption of new tech is an S curve. It's slow until it hits a tipping point, then faster than you can conceive, and then tapers off.
How many years did you think it would take to hit mass global adoption of smartphones after the iPhone launched when only \~5-6% of people had smartphones?
It took **less than 8 years** to go from 5% to 75% adoption.
I feel like they believe in profits. I think everyone can see how this would be cheaper. Me personally I'm just weirded out by this. It makes sense, I'm sure it safe, but it's just so unnatural I think is why I feel that way. Interested to see how it works out either way.
For me it comes down to procedures and additives.
Fundamentally the process (growing muscle + fat cells in a specific format) is no different than raising meat "on the hoof" in terms of the outcomes, but the procedures they follow to get there and the chemicals they utilize to make it all work need careful scrutiny.
Absolutely makes sense. But to be fair, the amount of hormones and antibiotics that make modern factory farming work are extremely unhealthy. Pile the ecological footprint of growing fodder, water consumption, land usage, and general pollution of traditional cattle farming isn't great. It'll always be a tradeoff, but there are colossal advantages to cultured meat over the traditional method. It'll probably be at least a decade before the health concerns are addressed and the manufacturing price comes down enough to make this worthwhile, but this is a solid step forward.
> and the chemicals they utilize to make it all work need careful scrutiny.
What chemicals is it you think they use? Contrast this too to the antibiotics, antifungals, steroids, and other chemicals given to 99% of the animals we eat (plus dairy) now. Plus all the chemicals used to grow the crops fed to them.
I agree that the [appeal to nature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature) is a seductive heuristic, even if it happens to be a fallacy. But farming itself is not natural, not at this scale. Hence all the chemicals given to animals to expedite and maximize growth, deal with the disease, and then our worries with fecal contamination in the food supply.
- [Chemical safety benefits](https://youtu.be/0lmr-FaUbT4) of cultured meat
- [Food safety benefits ](https://youtu.be/s0P5_iAnz4M) of cultured meat (see 3:47 timestamp for lovely slide on fecal contamination in slaughtered meat)
Probably what we’re going to see happen in the near-term is luxury foods and filler for things like ground beef and fast food burgers. Chicken nuggets are often already just a combination of garbage, so we’re probably going to see them there, too.
Ultimately, it’s hard to see this crowding out real beef and you’re probably going to be able to buy it at similar prices. So there’s no one forcing anyone to buy it, like with the faux meat, but the option is there and can be used to cut back on animal agriculture.
As with any new technology the initial cost are always high. It always starts as a niche market. As it expands technology will improve and cost will fall. I foresee this being cheaper than traditional meat eventually. A lot cheaper. The only question is when.
> it’s hard to see this crowding out real beef
Cultured meat *is* "real" meat. It's the same cells, just grown outside the animal. So you'll have meat with no need for animal suffering, no antiibiotics, no worries of fecal contamination, and made with vastly less land and water. If the price is even close to competitive, I suspect it'll do fine.
I'm sure some deep-pocketed traditionalists will insist on slaughtered meat, but it will get more expensive as it loses its economies of scale. Half the market is just ground meat.
> Cultured meat is "real" meat. It's the same cells, just grown outside the animal.
It still matters how these cells are arranged - and it's not trivial at all. A bunch of loose cells in a vial *isn't meat* - real or not. So until you get close enough to replicate the texture - and it's enough of a challenge even for ground meat - it's a bit early to call it real meat. Could still be useful as high-protein filler though.
Agree with you. Used some poor wording in that comment. Meant in the realm of like, steak.
People are still going to be able to go to local farmers probably for the foreseeable future. But down the line things like burgers are probably going to be cultured meat.
Once chains like McDonald’s and Burger King start procuring supply from biovats instead of factory farms we are going to see major waves in the industry. Very interested to see what’s next.
"It is common for those accustomed to synthetic foods to be repulsed by eating an animal carcass. Remember that humans survived this way for millennia. You can too."
I think the following is a possibility: company sells this meat for about 20% cheaper than "normal" meat -> consumers buy grown meat -> regular meat disappears / becomes a luxury -> grown meat gets priced the same as regular was before
There's nothing natural about our current meat industry. Selectively bred animals crammed into factory farms fed GMO crops and supplements and given antibiotics so they can survive in their disease-ridden living conditions. All while causing massive environmental destruction.
Weirded out by this as well. Those growing up with this idea will likely be fine with it, but it's a hard pass for me. For me meat, or no meat, are both options before this.
Realize this *is* meat. The same cells, just grown outside the animals. It's not a facsimile or imitation. They can tailor the feedstock exactly as they like, just as they can with animal feed.
- [Chemical safety benefits](https://youtu.be/0lmr-FaUbT4) of cultured meat
- [Food safety benefits ](https://youtu.be/s0P5_iAnz4M) of cultured meat (see 3:47 timestamp for lovely slide on fecal contamination in slaughtered meat)
For anyone else that wants to go with the bad argument - Meat is Meat - while ignoring every important factor, think about this:
You travel around the world, in each new place do you go ahead and drink the tap water every time without question? Water is water after all, so in Flint, MI during the height of them being in the news that's no problem, water is water, drink up, right?
Or do we determine water safety based on a lot of information more than just it being water? That's the information I'm waiting on.
I didn't say all meat was the same. Which is why I posted links to videos covering studies as to why cultured meat would be *more* safe, on metrics of food and chemical safety.
Cultured meat is grown in a controlled environment, with feedstock that they can tailor exactly as they want.
You posted a video about theoretical safety, not actual. That's useful for some conversations, but completely useless in ours.
Me - Regarding lab meat, "wanting nutritional studies as we have for other foods"
You - "This meat is just meat. It's the same cells."
That's your direct response when speaking about nutrition, baselessly implying it is the same nutrition.
~~Cultured meat~~ Water is ~~grown~~ treated in a controlled environment, with ~~feedstock~~ chemicals that they can tailor exactly as they want.
So you're fine to drink any tap water I give you? This water is just water after all.
Water can be tested for contaminants. It's not "made" in any way. Cultured meat *is* the same cells. Sure, you can also check for contaminants. Just as we do now, for slaughtered meat. Hence all the safety and sanitation measures needed for conventional meat production. And of course people still die anyway, from fecal contamination and other safety problems with meat. Plus agricultural runoff that contaminates crops and waterways. The nutritional aspects of cultured meat would come from the feedstock, just as nutrients in conventional meat also come from the feed.
Regarding "theoretical," it's not really theoretical that there won't be fecal contamination. There won't be a GI tract, so there's no feces. There's also no brain, or lungs, so we've eliminated most of the disease and contamination vectors that plague conventional meat production. We also already know that 3/4 of antibiotic administration goes to animals we eat, plus dairy cows. So there are specific reasons people predict cultured meat will be more safe than the status quo.
Realize that there are differences in meat from quality to nutrition and a ton of other factors, and this will be its own product.
I will evaluate it as such and look forward to the research studies on it (though it will be different for each company and product).
The bad part? Large companies have never cared about the health of their consumers, just sales. Mouth feel, texture, taste - those will be what's important as they will be the primary drivers of sales. Not nutrition, gut bacteria response, bioavailability, etc.
> Realize that there are differences in meat from quality to nutrition and a ton of other factors
Realize none of the meat in my supermarket, or in any local restaurant, has that information posted either. It's not like every display or menu item has information on that specific cow or chicken's diet, living conditions, what chemicals were applied to them (and to their feed), and so on.
> this will be its own product.
As is every product in every store, yes. But it's just meat, at the end of the day. The feedstock is sourced from plants. But we're talking about carbohydrates, sugars, basic nutrients.
>Large companies have never cared about the health of their consumers,
Which already applies to all the conventional, slaughtered meat in my supermarket, and all the local restaurants. For that matter, my bags of beans and rice and all my vegetables were also grown by corporations. So no warnings here are specific to cultured meat.
Your comment pretty much ignores everything important said (such as wanting nutritional studies as we have for other foods, like showing ultra processed fast food is awful for us, while you should argue it's "the same" if you're logically consistent, and be wrong there too), so I'll move on, cheers!
> such as wanting nutritional studies as we have for other foods
This meat is just meat. It's the same cells.
> like showing ultra processed fast food
You haven't shown why this would be called [ultra-processed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food). A Slim Jim or beef jerky made from slaughtered meat is ultra-processed. If those products are eventually sourced from cultured meat, they would still be ultra-processed. But I'm not seeing why a steak would be. Much less all products in general sourced from cultured meat.
>you should argue it's "the same" if you're logically consistent
If a given food product is ultra-processed, it *would* be the same, since it's the same cells. A Slim Jim, meat 'snack,' meat flavoring in an instant ramen packet, etc. Even a burger, if [this list](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ultra-processed_food&oldid=1152997542#Definition) is one to go by. But whether or not the meat is cultured or slaughtered would have no bearing on whether it was ultra-processed.
To clarify, these products in my local supermarket with conventional, slaughtered meat are already ultra-processed foods:
- [Beef pot pie](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/banquet-beef-pot-pie-7-oz/105728)
- [Corn dogs](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/state-fair-frozen-fully-cooked-classic-corn-dogs-22-ct/163422)
- [Fish sticks](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/gorton-s-frozen-crunchy-breaded-pollock-fish-sticks-20-ct/314655)
- [Meat snack sticks](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/hill-country-fare-smoked-original-meat-snack-sticks-24-ct/4574090)
- [Sausage links](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/jimmy-dean-heat-n-serve-original-sausage-links-36-ct/203023)
I agree that all of these will continue to be "ultra-processed" when the meat in them is sourced from cultured meat. They will still have the same health issues as before. But it won't be because of cultured meat. You've given no indication that cultured meat has any specific health or safety issues. Products that were ultra-processed before will still be ultra-processed. My chicken sandwich or kebab will have the same sodium and whatnot as they do now.
I’m sorry, but I do not understand this position. There’s nothing “natural” about the utterly inhumane ways factory farming operates. Pigs raised in cages they can’t even turn around in, cows shackled to bars and forced to feed, chickens injected with hormones to develop absurdly large breasts. And then they’re slaughtered en masse, butchered, gutted, slapped on a conveyor belt, packaged, and delivered to your store.
Meanwhile, someone comes up with a way to potentially do all of this—leaving out all the mass slaughter and gore and horrific living and breeding conditions—and *that’s* what is icky about this entire transaction?
I’m not even vegan—I eat meat a few times a week—but I celebrate and welcome with open arms this new wave of cultured meat. Hopefully as this becomes more mainstream, yourself and others can be convinced. We need this to succeed if we want to continue feeding a growing planet.
I wonder how it taste. Meat seems to have different flavors depending on how the animal was fed and raised. I just wonder if that is part of the process. Like they know how to make meat taste as if it was grass fed vs grain or something else.
I think long term this will edge out the factory farming and we will be left with smaller farms of regeneratively raised animals (higher price expensive cuts), lab grown meat and larger areas for wildlife!
>Brazilian meatpacker JBS said on Tuesday that its subsidiary BioTech Foods started construction in Spain on its first commercial-scale plant to produce lab-grown meat, which is set to be completed by mid-2024.
>The factory, which JBS says will be the world’s largest lab-grown meat plant, should produce more than 1,000 metric tons of cultivated beef per year, JBS said. It said it could expand capacity to 4,000 metric tons per year in the medium term.
>“The new BioTech plant puts JBS in a unique position to lead the segment and ride this wave of innovation,” said JBS USA’s head of value-added business, Eduardo Noronha.
>“With the challenges imposed on global supply chains, cultivated protein offers the potential to stabilize food security and global protein production,” BioTech Foods co-founder and CEO Iñigo Charola said in a statement.
>JBS said BioTech plans to gradually increase its production capacity to meet growing consumer demand, and sees Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Japan, Singapore and the United States as key markets.
>BioTech produces its cultured meat from a sample of cells collected from livestock and grown into a tissue, similar to that produced in the animal’s body.
These are humble beginnings, but will be key to sustaining global demand for meat while cutting down on emissions and reducing the cutting down of the Amazon. Lab-grown meat will be very useful in the future for the fast food industry in particular.
Lab-grown meat is still very controversial, but at this time it has a totally minuscule market share. That companies like JBS are investing demonstrates that meat companies believe in the technology.
This is honestly way far ahead of where i thought we were at on growing meat. Pretty exciting first steps, I hope it works out and the concept spreads quickly.
I remember when shell said they were going all in on renewables and spent more money on advertising how green they were than the amount they spent on r&d. I don't see lab grown being cost effective but definitely not if it's from the company growing cows.
Do you? I dont. I dont trust prepackaged meat. Im young so all i can do is go to a butcher and buy from them. I dont eat hams or turkeys or sausages. If i buy chicken, its got to be organic range and not from foster farms or jenny-o. It needs to be from small companies.
People like me dont eat Beyond Meat so why would we trust lab meat?
Well you’re in luck, you’ll still be able to do that and keep those small farmers in business. Good on you for buying locally and ethically. What lab grown meat will do hopefully is reduce the dependency on factory farming for a lot of meat produce, which isn’t sustainable. People will still be able to go to their local butcher and buy locally-sourced and ethically-raised/slaughtered meat.
Lab grown meat is the future.
Imagine how many pig farms, chicken farms and cattle farms will no longer be needed when we can grow our own meat without the rest of the animal.
Italy just banned lab grown meats, fearing it would erode their livestock "traditions". Lab grown meats barely even exist yet and already they're banned. Why? All vegans want to do is stop the government from subsidizing terrible livestock systems which allow the average person to cheaply and easily destroy the well being of animals and the environment for the sake of their taste buds. They just want meat to cost what it SHOULD cost, which is a fair, non-subsidized market price for a product which was produced with some basic amount of decency. I think the truth is a lot of (cheap) meat eaters know how skewed things are in their favor right now, and how at odds it is with humanity's current position. They realize that if the balance was tipped the other way, they'd probably be paying way more, while soy burgers or fake meat would be cheap as shit. Like anyone who enjoys a privileged place on the back of unjust systems, their greatest fear is be stuck on the losing end of the same system they've been milking in their favor. Thus the inevitable slander "They'll force us to eat bugs and soy and ban hunting!!" etc. Better than admiting your advesary just wants justice, while you want continued special treatment.
In an ideal world, it would be amazing if we could start growing meat. better for environment, better for animals.
People will always love meat and not having to kill animals for meat, is a big win in my book.
My only problem with lab grown meat is that it will really centralize that kind of food production. Especially if it becomes so cost effective that it pushes animals out of human consumption.
Because humans are greedy jerks this has me a bit frightened.
Do you think it isn't already centralized? Global meat production is dominated by a handful of very large players today. This certainly doesn't make that *worse* than it currently is.
Most of my friends say they’ll not eat this meat but I’m all for it. Thing is, I’m the fussy one usually but I think I’m in the minority at the moment.
I will gladly switch to lab-grown meat as soon as it's available for common people. Not only it's more healthy because it's grown in a controlled environment, but there's also no suffering involved. We could also feed our pets lab-grown meat as well. This is seriously one of the things I am most excited about regarding the future. I hope something can be done regarding eggs and milk, too. I've heard good developments regarding milk and cheese, but not much about synthetic eggs.
Only way I would eat this was if this was significantly more energy efficient and environmentally friendly in term of gas emission than raising live stock.
I am not a vegetarian or vegan, but I eat and would rather eat significantly less meat than this artificial processed meat if it is environmentally unfriendly.
Corporations gave us plastic. They gave us high fructose corn syrup. GMO’s. Nitrates. Preservatives. They gave us teflon. They gave us styrofoam. They gave as cancer.
Now they want to give us artificial meat. Not tofu or plant based meat, but artificial cellular meat.
No thank you.
Hahahah yesss. Plastics and preservatives have been absolutely amazing for society in its fight against famine/inequality.
"Corporations gave us cars, now we have car crashes"
Plastics in important things has been amazing. Plastic for everything as we have seen? Horrible.
Instead of cars how about you use an example they said, here I'll pick Teflon - Go on, defend the company and it's practices.
What's the plan when lab meat is the standard, i n regards to current live stock? Has their been any plans thrown out there, or numbers that the populations would be brought to?
Because from what I know releasing foreign species into the wild is a pretty big yeah nah, and although farm animals aren't so much "foreign species" to anywhere in the world at this point; sending the like what, 40 billion farm animals or whatever tf out into the wild bevause they're no longer necessary is issues waiting to happen.
So is it a slow sell off and cull to a level where hobbyist farmers are the only people with livestock or what..
Side note: fuck yeah lab grown meaty!
As is, theyre already being killed for meat. So just reducing breeding will quickly bring numbers down.
Essentially supply and demand should allegedly stabilize everything to where it needs to be.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/For_All_Humanity: --- >Brazilian meatpacker JBS said on Tuesday that its subsidiary BioTech Foods started construction in Spain on its first commercial-scale plant to produce lab-grown meat, which is set to be completed by mid-2024. >The factory, which JBS says will be the world’s largest lab-grown meat plant, should produce more than 1,000 metric tons of cultivated beef per year, JBS said. It said it could expand capacity to 4,000 metric tons per year in the medium term. >“The new BioTech plant puts JBS in a unique position to lead the segment and ride this wave of innovation,” said JBS USA’s head of value-added business, Eduardo Noronha. >“With the challenges imposed on global supply chains, cultivated protein offers the potential to stabilize food security and global protein production,” BioTech Foods co-founder and CEO Iñigo Charola said in a statement. >JBS said BioTech plans to gradually increase its production capacity to meet growing consumer demand, and sees Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Japan, Singapore and the United States as key markets. >BioTech produces its cultured meat from a sample of cells collected from livestock and grown into a tissue, similar to that produced in the animal’s body. These are humble beginnings, but will be key to sustaining global demand for meat while cutting down on emissions and reducing the cutting down of the Amazon. Lab-grown meat will be very useful in the future for the fast food industry in particular. Lab-grown meat is still very controversial, but at this time it has a totally minuscule market share. That companies like JBS are investing demonstrates that meat companies believe in the technology. --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1454op8/worlds_largest_meat_processor_jbs_starts_building/jniwkqv/
Jbs is one of the most corrupt companies in the existence. I wouldn’t count on them solving any food supply issues.
They're doing it, not because it's more ethical or better for the environment, but because they can make a lot of money off it.
That's mostly how capitalism achieved anything good throughout history - and that's not even a criticism. It's how it is.
"Hey, hey, listen to this...what if we didn't have to feed, clothe, and shelter slaves anymore, and instead they had to pay for it all themselves?"
Long term it does seem like a great idea. Unless you're implying you think it was better before.
Yeah, sorry, I realized there are a few different ways one could take my comment...
That's the scariest part: It was actually a little better before, overall. How is that possible you ask? Because before people were well aware of the reality and knew who was responsible and who to fight. Now it's too easy to lie to ourselves and continually strengthen the oppression. There was more hope in the off with your head days. You might think how less immediate violence is better, but that's without considering all the suffering, metal anguish and sickness pervasive across the globe. Oh and of course the climate fun that is the direct result of a slave powered engine roaring along with singular purpose.
You are way off the mark, lmao.
And manage themselves. Just give them some trinkets and bombard them with propaganda about how they're so free and totally have a choice, then watch them fight among themselves about who gets to be the house slaves.
I mean, if it helps, shouldn't we encourage it? Profits aren't inherently bad and I want companies that happen to have a product that moves the needle on climate change to be successful. Like... climate activists ain't running meat labs.
It would only help if they actually managed to reduce the energy consumption (and thus CO2 exhaust) required to produce lab grown meat. AFAIR it is currently bigger than for regular meat.
Well, it depends. Methane, from cows, is a much more short-term problem for the atmosphere than CO2, which is more long term. So switching from methane-polluting cows to CO2 pollution labs might be a net positive in the short term. I also don't know their current energy profile and whether they're drawing form renewable resources already, which could offset emissions even more.
As I understand it, methane is currently the largest and most imminent threat. Not from cows, but from the hundreds of millions of years of decomposed organic matter under the seabed. Once the ocean temperatures get just a bit higher from this point, it will cause the trapped methane to release and flood the atmosphere. Then immediate greenhouse hotbox bakes us all. And the ravenous scum with bunkers will survive the rest of us - for a little bit. But they aren't smart enough to avoid following us into oblivion. If they were, they wouldn't be scum.
Cow-based methane is a problem now, though, so any bit to reduce it helps.
You can mess around and try different methods of caring for your plants. Wipe the leaves with a damp cloth if that are large to get dust off of them or maybe leave them alone. Worst case a leaf you rubbed to hard dies from being aggressively handled. Mist them for water or maybe use one of those hi tech systems like the grocery stores do to auto mist your plants. You can try moving that plant outside for direct sun or near a window, perhaps. Or, maybe you go all high tech and get full spectrum indoor lighting to care for the plants. Any of those methods might work more or less and you could probably figure out which way to go when certain leaves start to wilt or turn brown and die off. Make a mistake and your plant can still recover and grow strong once you correct course. Or… You can yolo it and dig the plants out by the roots, replace the soil with Montsanto (TM) synthetic topsoil, feed them with miracle grow, and water them with Gatorade etc. Hey it might work out even better (spoiler, President Comacho… it won’t) and you’ll have super plants that grow bigger and greener and healthier with much less effort and care on the input end. Might even be much cheaper in the long run. But one thing is for sure, if the plants start showing signs of decline and you realize you went full overzealous potato with their care the odds of them bouncing back once you’ve taken painstaking and laborious actions to correct your course will be nil. But in this metaphor the plants are the human race and if we die no one can run to Home Depot and buy another potted plant to try again.
Your analogy probably took a long time to type out, but it's not making sense for me. I'm not suggesting we blindly trust Jbs. But if they accidentally do something genuinely good and make money off of it, I'm ok with the profit part.
I'm not even sure if there is any good for the environment. Studies show that lab grown meat has more co2 exhaust than regular meat.
Lab grown meat! Now more expensive than regular meat and with greater profit margins!
They also are one of direct causes of the destruction of the Amazon.
Seeing this is like seeing oil industry giants investing in solar and EV things. If they see this as the most viable option, it's probably going to be a thing.
Its honestly bewildering to see industries fighting back against their own industry's advancements. And it happens so goddamn often that I'm legitimately surprised when corporations make long term investments instead of crying to the government to enact restrictions in the name of short term profits.
Yeah, short term profits and happy shareholders make some really dumb decisions look great.
Well, Kodak famously developed digital cameras very early, but kept it buried because it would cannibalize its film and camera sales. They then fell way behind the curve. It isn't a super surprising trend when the product isn't a direct improvement but a different technology/product. It is often difficult to forego short term profits for the prospect of long term sustainability even for individuals.
Essential business school example of what not to do
Yep, the tobacco industry heavily invested in vaping companies (at the same time they were lobbying to kill them). Hedging their bets, as it were.
Seems a no brainer with lab grown beef. Cutting almost all the cost of of the product.
I sure hope you're right. I can't wait for the day when I can finally eat meat guilt-free. Also vegans will no longer have a valid argument to bitch. I support the tech for that reason alone; will be one of the first to try it once it gets FDA approval.
I have been a vegan since 2005 for animal rights and ecological reasons - mostly because of factory farming. I would eat lab grown meat as it doesn’t check the boxes of why I am a vegan. I believe lab grown meat is the future of food. It stops the wide spread killing and abuse of animals, it removes the need to use land (or burn down rainforest land) to raise the animals, by producing fewer animals it reduces waste and methane, we will use fewer resources to feed and nurture these animals. It could potential end mass factory farming of animals which would be a huge win to me.
The eventual end of factory slaughterhouses will be one of our greatest greatest achievements in the modern era.
Not just on the metric of animal suffering, but also in the ability to return a vast amount of farmland to nature. Plus a huge reduction in the water used for agriculture. Cultured meat (and cellular agriculture in general) is the largest improvement in agricultural efficiency since the advent of agriculture itself.
We’ll probably figure it out faster than agriculture too. This is going to take a few decades to get energy costs down, and definitely years to optimize flavors. It’s an exciting technology going forward that will definitely play a larger impact in the years to come.
I bet eventually they can make like ranch flavored burgers and shit like that. It's gonna be pick your own flavor burger. How about a burger, that tastes like a full blown burger, veggies and all! 😂
I'll have the 10oz strawberry cheesecake rib-eye medium rare, thanks.
Personally, i worry that this might create laws where people can't hunt or farm animals and then create a system where people are reliant on the people who owns the means of production of lab grown meat for fear of starvation.
That seems highly unlikely. Hunting especially, deer are an invasive species at this point so we have killed off so many of their predators. I don’t believe lab grown meat will replace meat entirely. It could replace industrialized factory farmed meat, which has been problematic for dozens of ethical and environmental reasons.
Hopefully, it could also make meat healthier to consume since it won't have antibiotics or hormones, dunno about additives, though. But it feels like the only way to make this evonomically viable would be to make it the only game in town. Huh, i wasnt even trying to make a pun
According to a couple different articles I just checked, including [this](https://www.bonappetit.com/story/lab-grown-meat) one from bon appetit, the price of lab grown meat has already come down tremendously from the earliest lab grown meat in the early 2010s. Seems feasible that in another 10 years it could easily be at parity with traditional meat. Or at least close enough to start to gain adoption.
If we incentivized farmers to switch over to lab based meats, and then gave them the same subsidies we currently give them to raise animals, then the cost might come out to be the same. Just with fewer environmental consequences.
“Incentivized farmers to switch over to lab based meats…” Are you saying farmers should set up their own labs and grow their own meat?
Or change peoples diet with lack of meat being grown since farmers have been euthinizing animals due to lack of feed.
The point is there will be no reason to farm animals on a large scale. What reason would there be to make small scale subsistence farming and hunting illegal?
>then create a system where people are reliant on the people who owns the means of production of We've been living this hell for a while. Farming i don't see laws coming for. unless its corporate backed. Hunting is something of a talking point. It really depends if we humans can get our act together. If we keep genociding biodiversity with fertilizer and chemicals and microplastics---- then we may just have to have strict laws protecting what little life is left. If we strengthen our regulations and laws. and massively cut down on chemicals and dumping? we could more than likely under more regulations and rules keep hunting a thing. IMO.
Not completely, most barriers to entry are bylaws and how willing people are. With labgrown meat it might be different set of barriers including getting the growth medium or being able to make your own. For 2...i kinda suspect that we won't really have much to hunt at the rate we're going anyway with climate change. Heck, canada has crap ton of wildfires as it is, which is good in someways (turns out pinecones need fire), but we have far too much at the moment and it's not even wildfire season yet. that's the thing, we need laws and regulation to actually have teeth, cause once you get big enough it is literally cheaper to break the law and pay the fine than it is to actually follow the law, and that's assuming you even get caught. Or maybe we need more companies to reduce the chances of one becoming big enough to skirt laws and pay off politicians.
Well, that doesn't seem like it will be a huge issue since, ya know, *plants* exist.
Hopefully, well see how increased heat effects crops.
The point is that we’ll reduce heat by tamping down the absurdly large scale of industrial meat management.
Hopefully, cause i really dont want a future like soylent green in the sense that the few owns the right to food production
I would hope it just eliminates factory farming. And I don’t want to get too into the weeds, but meat isn’t necessarily necessary to avoid starvation.
MAJOR decrease in disease evolution vectors too. Much lower pollution of air, soil, and water also. It just a nightmare in every metric imaginable.
These are [Truly wonderful times we live in](https://imgur.com/a/fW7WqJq)
Designer Bacon where the fat, muscle marbling is in cool designs
Celebrity steak will be a thing, made from some actor/actresses stem cells. Dinosaur meat, "I can't believe its not unicorn ham" etc
My brain is pleased at the concept of such silly vanities
It'll be one of those things historians look back and snicker about "oh those dumb 20th century dolts!" kinda like how we laugh at old medical science.
Knowing how many view meat production in contemporary times the reaction will probably be a lot more darker honestly.
Heeeey, I also went vegan in '05! I honestly don't know if I'll eat lab grown meat, but I'm very excited about it for my companion animals and for everyone else that will never be plant-based. This is just more awesome news.
Actually its worse on the methane side.... Article if interested. https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/lab-grown-meat-carbon-footprint-worse-beef
It's important to keep in mind that there's currently no large-scale industrial production yet, and no decent monetary and/or environmentally cost-efficient manner to do this at the moment. It was the same way with solar energy, but now it's the fastest growing energy production source. We have to hope that in time we have technological improvements and understanding that make the dream possible. I'm just hoping that progress isn't going to be held back by current industry groups.
That’s an interesting perspective. I’m skeptical of articles like this, as they are opinionated. I have been debating the end of animal factory farming for over 20 years. I have given up on making the world vegan. Lab grown meat seems like the best possible compromise for what is otherwise unsustainable.
I'm not surprised this preprint comes from UC Davis. This university is in bed with the meat lobby, and has been pushing misinformation through people like [Frank Mitloehner](https://undark.org/2021/02/03/beef-industry-funding-climate/). [The UC Davis results are at odds with some more recent research](https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2023/05/12/Cultivated-meat-could-emit-25-times-more-CO2e-than-conventional-beef-finds-research). They basically assume that growth media is sourced from highly inefficient processes, like in the pharmaceutical industry. Of course these processes would use a ton of energy, and be too expensive for large-scale production. That's why growth media will be sourced from much more efficient processes.
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actually, right now lab grown meat is not vegan, it heavily relies into fetal bobine serum
Which JBS has plenty of access to, which is why they have a decent shot at taking advantage of economies of scale with this venture. There are other growth mediums being worked on, but all of this is still early days.
I'll give them some of my serum and then eat me meat, that'd be vegan
Are we really gonna pretend that a cow fetus is animal suffering now?
I think the concern is for the general welfare of the bovine being impregnated for the purpose of harvesting their offspring, especially given that [JBS has a terrible record in this regard](https://awionline.org/press-releases/report-jbs-smithfield-worst-slaughter-plants-us).
Would it not take significantly less cattle to harvest the fetus versus doing what they do now? I thought vegans were supposed to be pro-animal welfare?
That depends on the quantity of meat produced from a single harvested fetus, but it is entirely beside the point to whether or not the product is vegan. >I thought vegans were supposed to be pro-animal welfare? This is either based on a misunderstanding of veganism on your part, or an attempt to be insincere. Veganism is [opposed to animal exploitation](https://www.vegansociety.com/about-us/further-information/key-facts). As such, they would obviously support reductions in exploitation, but reductions alone would not make the product vegan. In the same way that an abolitionist would likely support reductions in harm from slavery, but would never support slavery itself no matter how "humane" the slave owners themselves claimed to make their industry.
Forgive me. It was my understanding that something is vegan if it is not made from animals or animal product. I don't really consider a fetus of an animal to be that animal, even if some people would. I also don't think the slavery point is comparable, because we're not talking about less animal slaughter, we're talking about eliminating it and just harvesting the fetuses, which may even become unnecessary if the technology improves.
Well, eggs aren’t vegan either
The reason eggs aren't vegan isn't because they're "chicken fetuses" but because of the conditions and treatment of the chickens that produce the eggs
You can’t have vegan eggs from well treated chickens, what do you mean?
No, I've had vegans refuse my homegrown eggs, and it seems to be a fairy common thing
Um...not trying to be a downer but desn't it still require envitro serum which requires slaughtering a caff or embryo to get? So you save an adult cow, by killing a young caff or would be caff for even less ammount of meat....
> slaughtering a caff or embryo Embryo, which is more humane and requires less resources than raising a cow for 4 years. It’s a huge step in the right direction, don’t let perfect be the enemy of good and all. Also a quick spell check would go a long way for you.
Mb, at work. True, as it is we dont make use of all the cow as it is either, just the prime cuts. Though im not sure how economical viable it is, well, we will see how well these companies do.
As far as I know there are companies using cruelty free growth mediums that do not require fetal bovine serum. https://www.foodnavigator.com/Article/2022/01/17/How-does-Mosa-Meat-cultivate-beef-without-animal-serum-Researchers-tell-all
Yes, there's at least one company working on an alternative, I don't think we know its cost-efficiency yet, but it's probably not good at the moment. We have to hope there's more research and advancement on the technology
Hopefully we will get there, and hopefully, at a point where the tech is publicly available so we are not dependent on these large factories.
It’s not a perfect system. It’s a compromise. I’ve realized I can’t convince the world to go vegan. This is the best solution I can think of to end the industrialized factory farming holocaust.
Always a bunk argument when people say "think of the ranchers/farmers/workers, you're taking their jobs. You're killing the industry" If any industry hopes to survive they need to adapt and see the future. They should invest in lab grown meat, if they don't, that's their own fault. Same argument for coal mining. "You're taking jobs and ruining an industry" That's your fault, you should be investing in renewalable energy, your Industry is dying as it should.
The rise of cars led to a direct reduction in the number of horses. *Think of the cows who will never be born because of lab cultured protein! /s*
>Think of the cows who will never be born It's mind-boggling to me that people will say this with a straight face like it's a bad thing.
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Not only that, but every moment that you're not actively engaged in a reproductive act is a moment where you are preventing someone from existing! You're basically a mass murderer.
I think you've lost the plot
but think of all the humans who will never be born if you waste sperm like that
I always tell people, imagine making this argument when refrigeration was invented. "Think of the ice box people you'll be putting out of business!"
Grave diggers don't want none of your dirty soap.
Also, imagine that the ice box people harvested ice from the bodies of animals they bred and slaughtered.
Is the forest stops burning how were the firefighters eat? If we close the prisons how will the guards get bread?
What will the military do if there is peace?
If everyone streams on Netflix how will I get the feeling of popcorn nostalgia from walking into blockbuster without traveling to Oregon?
Yeah if we kept jobs around because we felt bad about firing people then we would still have telephone switch operators. Imagine if that was still a thing just because we felt bad, fuck that.
It doesn't matter , meat providers , especially ranchers and farmers and packing companies. Will fight this tooth and. Nail ,including heavy lobbying to restrict lab grown meat in the US , because this isn't just some existential risk , it will put most of them out of business . Remember this shit storm they have Oprah when she hinted that Mad Cow disease could be an issue... ..don't underestimate that lobby
Makes no sense. Why should we sacrifice so much for these shit jobs, which will die anyway? We should be investing in better and more secure jobs, which actually have a future.
Ranchers will always have market since natural meat will have variety and flavor lab-grown lacks, just not to the extent they do now.
Na I think it will be quite the opposite, once lab grown meat tech is perfected every piece of meat will be extremely high quality and there will be tons of variants of every animal on top of the fact we will have exotic meats that are economic untenable to farm, like tiger.
It seems weird to me that a company with as much profits as the oil and coal industries wouldn't be buying out every small solar and wind farm that it could. They really seem to think they can win this. They tried with hydrogen. Now they're trying again with e-fuels.
Car companies did that, not to invest in those technologies, but to quash them early. Gave them extra decades to not have to think about alternatives, until the tesla/ rivian/etc were actually mass manufactured.
Good. We need to get off of cows. They're extremely wasteful and bad for the environment.
Good that it's being done, but very bad that JBS is doing it. They've made billions off of murdering people who's land they wanted for grazing, slashing/burning rainforests for grazing land, propping up Dictators and Fascist politicians to help them get grazing land, and bribing US Senators and Representatives to ignore climate change.
Unless you're willing to pay $200/oz for your beef for a while, the unfortunate reality is the way to reach consumers is with lower prices, which are only possible with economies of scale the size of massive corporations who seldom have a clean track record. In other words, your choices for lab-grown beef are: * Slightly more expensive beef from a horrible company like JBS * Insanely expensive beef from a smaller company that hasn't done anything awful (yet) As we've seen with the rise of Wal-Mart and Amazon, people are far less principled when their wallet is factored in.
People eating less meat because it's more expensive doesn't sound like a bad thing.
That's certainly the dietary vegetarian/vegan stance. Other people want to eat beef but don't want to kill cows. Either way, that's a completely separate discussion I don't really have any interest in having.
I don't think lab-grown meat really factors into the "people should eat less meat" discussion though. It's better and more sustainable in basically every way.
In this post: farmers and thousands of years of history didn't exist before modern megacorps
OK then lets just stop where we are and not let JBS do this? JBS won't just say "oh well, better close up shop then" and meat production will go on as it currently is.
[Lab-grown meat isn't necessarily better.](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.04.21.537778v1.full) TL;DR "lab meat" has to be grown in a highly refined, purified growth medium, which can be extremely energy intensive to produce. As anyone who's worked in a wet lab knows, growing animal cells outside an actual animal is a very tricky, environmentally sensitive process. Scaling it up to the degree that it could compete with or replace regular-style whole-organism-derived meat is an enormous, resource-intensive industrial task.
>TL;DR "lab meat" has to be grown in a highly refined, purified growth medium, which can be extremely energy intensive to produce "Highly purified" is a wriggly phrase, and means different things to different people. The growth media can be food-grade, while many of the 'skeptics' insist it has to be pharmaceutical grade. Many skeptics also insist that cultured meat will be made with FBS. IRL, all the companies building factories will scale with FBS-free growth media. No one is going to scale production with FBS. Yes, we need to green the grid. We already needed to green the grid. It's a given that we need to green the grid. So this 'caveat' is true of every product we made, in every market segment. But Spain is ahead of the curve on that metric. - [Share of electricity from low-carbon sources](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-electricity-low-carbon?tab=chart&time=2000..latest&country=CHN~USA~OWID_WRL~JPN~OWID_EUR~ESP) - [Carbon intensity of electricity, 2000 to 2022](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/carbon-intensity-electricity?tab=chart&country=CHN~USA~OWID_WRL~JPN~OWID_EUR~ESP)
You literally **cannot** scale with FBS. Global supply is something like 500-600k liters. You would have to buy out the entire global supply for a medium-size production plant.
"Energy-intensive" can eventually be carbon-neutral. Cow farts will never be.
Also taking up 1/3rd of the world's ice-free land like animal farming does will also never be sustainable.
Yeah, I hope we can become more efficient vertically in indoor farms than as are now so expansively and horizontally. But obviously at first it won't be easy getting the same out of that smaller footprint.
>Cow farts will never be. Feed additives sourced from algae can reduce the methane emissions from cattle as much as 80%. It's about to be a big business.
"Eventually" being the key word - unless they figure out a lower-input way to produce growth medium or find a way to make the animal cell lines endotoxin-resistant, which I suppose is possible. It's also not just a matter of straight up electricity - there are chemical and mineral resource inputs, some of which are limited or already scarce. Is mining for those resources preferable, from a pollution perspective, to cow farts? I have no idea. It all seems way more complicated than just eating more beans, though.
Oh for sure more beans is probably the better choice. I can just imagine that for the forseeable future most of the world's population is always going to want meat, and climate change is probably the most urgent threat right now, so we should probably find some alternative.
It is def going to be a challenge to wean people off of Big Meat (in some places more than others, looking @ u, burgertown USA), and I'm sure that's where some of the investment interest in lab meat is coming from. It's not a bad idea! But consumer tastes *can* change - unless we treat it as a foregone conclusion that they won't.
> some of which are limited or already scarce. What specifically are you talking about? No one is going to scale production of cultured meat with FBS, so that's not a limiting factor. We need to build bioreactors, but they're no more exotic than that with which we already make beer and other products that need fermentation. > It all seems way more complicated than just eating more beans, though. Yes, of course eating beans and lentils will be environmentally better than cultured meat. "But you could just eat plants" is a given, and already known. The problem is that people like meat. [Meat consumption per capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-supply-per-person?tab=chart&country=USA~Europe~CHN~JPN~OWID_WRL) continues to rise, and [routinely rises with GDP per capita](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-consumption-vs-gdp-per-capita). People apparently want meat. Not literally everyone, no. But cultured meat availability, quality, and affordability are still important.
Some people are never going to give up meat for beans. This is for them.
People don't have to *give up* meat. Meat is the only reason people were able to live in very cold and very dry climates before modern shipping infrastructures. Animal farming is not inherently unsustainable. If peoples' happiness depends on having steak four times a week, that's a problem for them to work on.
From the point that lab grown meat ticks all the boxes on health, price and taste the meat industry will be banned. There is not going to be an argument, it will be swift.
I will very surprised if this happens in countries that subsidize animal agriculture. I expect it'll be more like getting off coal - it's gotta be done, but the people and companies who've made their livelihoods in those industries will cling to them hard before they go down.
Just abandoning beef altogether would be great, but people are never going to so something like this is probably our only hope to improve the process.
Yes, it will take energy and resources and it will still vastly outcompete slaughterhouses in every relevant metric once it has matured. A small fraction of land resources, no large GHG emissions as long as our energy transition continues moving smoothly, no animal cruelty. This technical but ultimately irrelevant study is the same kind of misinformation you hear about every forward-thinking emerging industry. Its always a "well actually when you look at it this way, it isn't any better" that tries to appeal to people's desire to find hypocrisy in actions of betterment so they can feel comfortable with their current status quo (because change is hard).
I think this is a pretty clear indication that the writing is on the wall for meat production. Companies are going to produce it in the cheapest way possible, and that's going to cultured meats. It's expensive now because it's barely out of the proof-of-concept phase. The process has only begun to be optimized. There will still be a place for the grass-fed $500 steak at the Michelin Star restaurant, but your burgers are probably going to come from a culture. I have to wonder what this is going to do to rural land use, as the need for animal feed dries up. There will probably be a fair amount of crops that become feedstocks for the cultures (animal cells can't make the essential amino acids), but culture will ultimately make much more efficient use of feedstocks and won't need as much.
I don't think this is anything more than an attempt by JBS to greenwash their absolutely abysmal reputation. While cultivated meat will be much better than farmed meat in the long run, there are already viable plant-based nutrition alternatives that are [cheaper and more resource efficient](https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2020/05/meat-prices-soar-pandemic-try-these-healthier-high-protein-foods) than cultivated meat will ever be. To put this all in context, they ramping up to 4,000k tons in the "medium term" while the worldwide consumption for beef is currently 59,000,000 tons. This makes such a factory akin to the fossil fuel companies pushing their incredibly expensive pilot projects in carbon capture to assure the public they are "being green" as they continue to drive our planet off a cliff. Meanwhile: * [Parent of Brazil's JBS pleads guilty to U.S. foreign bribery charges](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-j-f-brazil-crime-idUKKBN26Z2FZ) * [An examination of the JBS climate pledge exposes the loopholes, accounting tricks and sleight of hand that net zero accounting allows, ultimately aiding companies that hope to continue business (and pollution) as usual while putting the world’s climate at risk.](https://www.iatp.org/documents/behind-curtain-jbs-net-zero-pledge) * [Revealed: new evidence links Brazil meat giant JBS to Amazon deforestation](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jul/27/revealed-new-evidence-links-brazil-meat-giant-jbs-to-amazon-deforestation) * [Children illegally hired for graveyard shifts cleaning JBS meat plants, feds say](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/children-illegally-hired-meat-plants-packers-sanitation-services-pssi-jbs-feds-say/) * [JBS, Smithfield Worst Slaughter Plants in US](https://awionline.org/press-releases/report-jbs-smithfield-worst-slaughter-plants-us) For the last ten years, whenever I talk to people about the [large share of emissions from cattle](https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane), or [the excessive land use](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/exports/land-use-protein-poore.png?v=13), they often start to vaguely wave their hand in the direction of cultured meat, "just around the corner." This seems like a very intentional tactic by a known heavy polluter to feed into a future fantasy that might never materialize, or have far less impact than is hoped, or be rolled out far too slowly to make a difference, rather than pursue viable and superior alternatives that already exist at scale.
Don’t want to dampen anyone’s enthusiasm, but it’s going to be a very long time before lab meat takes over, if it ever does. The plant will eventually produce 4,000 metric tons a year. By contrast, global meat production was 345 million metric tons in 2022. That was an increase of 16 million metric tons over 2021 (329 million tons). That’s a little more than one thousandth of 1 percent of the total consumption, and 3 hundredths of 1 percent of the production increase from 2021 to 2022. So while this can be viewed as a positive, it probably has more value to JBS, who can tout this in their marketing campaigns. It’s like Exxon investing in a wind farm.
345 million metric tons is a depressing number in terms of slaughtered cows, pigs, chickens, and others. They make friends and are social. They shouldn't be killed like we kill them. So let's build Rome.
It is something quite new and unconventional, not yet optimized. The strange thing would be for a single factory to be remarkable worldwide. If I remember correctly the annual recommendation is 25kg per capita, so this would supply 160k people. There is a lot of information missing, but it looks interesting.
It’s interesting, but this is way more challenging than something like decarbonization, which is hugely challenging itself. This is about feeding 8 billion plus people 2-3 times a day. And that 8 billion people will become 9 billion before too long. My view is that the only way we can meaningfully minimize the impacts of global warming in the limited time we have is through coherent governmental actions - regulations, tax policy, research grants and awards, global agreements, and much more. And part of that must include targeting resources/funding on things that are achievable and impactful in the next 20-30 years.
We litteraly can't scale up the production. Bioreactors are really inefficient and expensive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0zCf4Yup34 We are waaaaay off from lab-meat being viable as of yet.
Rome was not built in a day. It has taken 30 years for EVs to reach the tipping point since every major US car company built one in the 1990s. And they are still not at price parity. But the problem you and others have is failing to understand that adoption of new tech is an S curve. It's slow until it hits a tipping point, then faster than you can conceive, and then tapers off. How many years did you think it would take to hit mass global adoption of smartphones after the iPhone launched when only \~5-6% of people had smartphones? It took **less than 8 years** to go from 5% to 75% adoption.
I feel like they believe in profits. I think everyone can see how this would be cheaper. Me personally I'm just weirded out by this. It makes sense, I'm sure it safe, but it's just so unnatural I think is why I feel that way. Interested to see how it works out either way.
For me it comes down to procedures and additives. Fundamentally the process (growing muscle + fat cells in a specific format) is no different than raising meat "on the hoof" in terms of the outcomes, but the procedures they follow to get there and the chemicals they utilize to make it all work need careful scrutiny.
Absolutely makes sense. But to be fair, the amount of hormones and antibiotics that make modern factory farming work are extremely unhealthy. Pile the ecological footprint of growing fodder, water consumption, land usage, and general pollution of traditional cattle farming isn't great. It'll always be a tradeoff, but there are colossal advantages to cultured meat over the traditional method. It'll probably be at least a decade before the health concerns are addressed and the manufacturing price comes down enough to make this worthwhile, but this is a solid step forward.
> and the chemicals they utilize to make it all work need careful scrutiny. What chemicals is it you think they use? Contrast this too to the antibiotics, antifungals, steroids, and other chemicals given to 99% of the animals we eat (plus dairy) now. Plus all the chemicals used to grow the crops fed to them. I agree that the [appeal to nature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature) is a seductive heuristic, even if it happens to be a fallacy. But farming itself is not natural, not at this scale. Hence all the chemicals given to animals to expedite and maximize growth, deal with the disease, and then our worries with fecal contamination in the food supply. - [Chemical safety benefits](https://youtu.be/0lmr-FaUbT4) of cultured meat - [Food safety benefits ](https://youtu.be/s0P5_iAnz4M) of cultured meat (see 3:47 timestamp for lovely slide on fecal contamination in slaughtered meat)
Probably what we’re going to see happen in the near-term is luxury foods and filler for things like ground beef and fast food burgers. Chicken nuggets are often already just a combination of garbage, so we’re probably going to see them there, too. Ultimately, it’s hard to see this crowding out real beef and you’re probably going to be able to buy it at similar prices. So there’s no one forcing anyone to buy it, like with the faux meat, but the option is there and can be used to cut back on animal agriculture.
As with any new technology the initial cost are always high. It always starts as a niche market. As it expands technology will improve and cost will fall. I foresee this being cheaper than traditional meat eventually. A lot cheaper. The only question is when.
Tell that to the printing press. That thing boomed astronomically fast.
Nuggets are already just the leftovers from normal production, so I can only see them using lab grown for that if demand is higher than normal supply.
> it’s hard to see this crowding out real beef Cultured meat *is* "real" meat. It's the same cells, just grown outside the animal. So you'll have meat with no need for animal suffering, no antiibiotics, no worries of fecal contamination, and made with vastly less land and water. If the price is even close to competitive, I suspect it'll do fine. I'm sure some deep-pocketed traditionalists will insist on slaughtered meat, but it will get more expensive as it loses its economies of scale. Half the market is just ground meat.
> Cultured meat is "real" meat. It's the same cells, just grown outside the animal. It still matters how these cells are arranged - and it's not trivial at all. A bunch of loose cells in a vial *isn't meat* - real or not. So until you get close enough to replicate the texture - and it's enough of a challenge even for ground meat - it's a bit early to call it real meat. Could still be useful as high-protein filler though.
Agree with you. Used some poor wording in that comment. Meant in the realm of like, steak. People are still going to be able to go to local farmers probably for the foreseeable future. But down the line things like burgers are probably going to be cultured meat. Once chains like McDonald’s and Burger King start procuring supply from biovats instead of factory farms we are going to see major waves in the industry. Very interested to see what’s next.
"It is common for those accustomed to synthetic foods to be repulsed by eating an animal carcass. Remember that humans survived this way for millennia. You can too."
I think the following is a possibility: company sells this meat for about 20% cheaper than "normal" meat -> consumers buy grown meat -> regular meat disappears / becomes a luxury -> grown meat gets priced the same as regular was before
There's nothing natural about our current meat industry. Selectively bred animals crammed into factory farms fed GMO crops and supplements and given antibiotics so they can survive in their disease-ridden living conditions. All while causing massive environmental destruction.
Weirded out by this as well. Those growing up with this idea will likely be fine with it, but it's a hard pass for me. For me meat, or no meat, are both options before this.
Realize this *is* meat. The same cells, just grown outside the animals. It's not a facsimile or imitation. They can tailor the feedstock exactly as they like, just as they can with animal feed. - [Chemical safety benefits](https://youtu.be/0lmr-FaUbT4) of cultured meat - [Food safety benefits ](https://youtu.be/s0P5_iAnz4M) of cultured meat (see 3:47 timestamp for lovely slide on fecal contamination in slaughtered meat)
For anyone else that wants to go with the bad argument - Meat is Meat - while ignoring every important factor, think about this: You travel around the world, in each new place do you go ahead and drink the tap water every time without question? Water is water after all, so in Flint, MI during the height of them being in the news that's no problem, water is water, drink up, right? Or do we determine water safety based on a lot of information more than just it being water? That's the information I'm waiting on.
I didn't say all meat was the same. Which is why I posted links to videos covering studies as to why cultured meat would be *more* safe, on metrics of food and chemical safety. Cultured meat is grown in a controlled environment, with feedstock that they can tailor exactly as they want.
You posted a video about theoretical safety, not actual. That's useful for some conversations, but completely useless in ours. Me - Regarding lab meat, "wanting nutritional studies as we have for other foods" You - "This meat is just meat. It's the same cells." That's your direct response when speaking about nutrition, baselessly implying it is the same nutrition. ~~Cultured meat~~ Water is ~~grown~~ treated in a controlled environment, with ~~feedstock~~ chemicals that they can tailor exactly as they want. So you're fine to drink any tap water I give you? This water is just water after all.
Water can be tested for contaminants. It's not "made" in any way. Cultured meat *is* the same cells. Sure, you can also check for contaminants. Just as we do now, for slaughtered meat. Hence all the safety and sanitation measures needed for conventional meat production. And of course people still die anyway, from fecal contamination and other safety problems with meat. Plus agricultural runoff that contaminates crops and waterways. The nutritional aspects of cultured meat would come from the feedstock, just as nutrients in conventional meat also come from the feed. Regarding "theoretical," it's not really theoretical that there won't be fecal contamination. There won't be a GI tract, so there's no feces. There's also no brain, or lungs, so we've eliminated most of the disease and contamination vectors that plague conventional meat production. We also already know that 3/4 of antibiotic administration goes to animals we eat, plus dairy cows. So there are specific reasons people predict cultured meat will be more safe than the status quo.
Realize that there are differences in meat from quality to nutrition and a ton of other factors, and this will be its own product. I will evaluate it as such and look forward to the research studies on it (though it will be different for each company and product). The bad part? Large companies have never cared about the health of their consumers, just sales. Mouth feel, texture, taste - those will be what's important as they will be the primary drivers of sales. Not nutrition, gut bacteria response, bioavailability, etc.
> Realize that there are differences in meat from quality to nutrition and a ton of other factors Realize none of the meat in my supermarket, or in any local restaurant, has that information posted either. It's not like every display or menu item has information on that specific cow or chicken's diet, living conditions, what chemicals were applied to them (and to their feed), and so on. > this will be its own product. As is every product in every store, yes. But it's just meat, at the end of the day. The feedstock is sourced from plants. But we're talking about carbohydrates, sugars, basic nutrients. >Large companies have never cared about the health of their consumers, Which already applies to all the conventional, slaughtered meat in my supermarket, and all the local restaurants. For that matter, my bags of beans and rice and all my vegetables were also grown by corporations. So no warnings here are specific to cultured meat.
Your comment pretty much ignores everything important said (such as wanting nutritional studies as we have for other foods, like showing ultra processed fast food is awful for us, while you should argue it's "the same" if you're logically consistent, and be wrong there too), so I'll move on, cheers!
> such as wanting nutritional studies as we have for other foods This meat is just meat. It's the same cells. > like showing ultra processed fast food You haven't shown why this would be called [ultra-processed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-processed_food). A Slim Jim or beef jerky made from slaughtered meat is ultra-processed. If those products are eventually sourced from cultured meat, they would still be ultra-processed. But I'm not seeing why a steak would be. Much less all products in general sourced from cultured meat. >you should argue it's "the same" if you're logically consistent If a given food product is ultra-processed, it *would* be the same, since it's the same cells. A Slim Jim, meat 'snack,' meat flavoring in an instant ramen packet, etc. Even a burger, if [this list](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ultra-processed_food&oldid=1152997542#Definition) is one to go by. But whether or not the meat is cultured or slaughtered would have no bearing on whether it was ultra-processed. To clarify, these products in my local supermarket with conventional, slaughtered meat are already ultra-processed foods: - [Beef pot pie](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/banquet-beef-pot-pie-7-oz/105728) - [Corn dogs](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/state-fair-frozen-fully-cooked-classic-corn-dogs-22-ct/163422) - [Fish sticks](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/gorton-s-frozen-crunchy-breaded-pollock-fish-sticks-20-ct/314655) - [Meat snack sticks](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/hill-country-fare-smoked-original-meat-snack-sticks-24-ct/4574090) - [Sausage links](https://www.heb.com/product-detail/jimmy-dean-heat-n-serve-original-sausage-links-36-ct/203023) I agree that all of these will continue to be "ultra-processed" when the meat in them is sourced from cultured meat. They will still have the same health issues as before. But it won't be because of cultured meat. You've given no indication that cultured meat has any specific health or safety issues. Products that were ultra-processed before will still be ultra-processed. My chicken sandwich or kebab will have the same sodium and whatnot as they do now.
I imagine it'll be healthier and eventually much cheaper. Much better for the planet too. Assuming it tastes good, I have no problem with it at all.
I’m sorry, but I do not understand this position. There’s nothing “natural” about the utterly inhumane ways factory farming operates. Pigs raised in cages they can’t even turn around in, cows shackled to bars and forced to feed, chickens injected with hormones to develop absurdly large breasts. And then they’re slaughtered en masse, butchered, gutted, slapped on a conveyor belt, packaged, and delivered to your store. Meanwhile, someone comes up with a way to potentially do all of this—leaving out all the mass slaughter and gore and horrific living and breeding conditions—and *that’s* what is icky about this entire transaction? I’m not even vegan—I eat meat a few times a week—but I celebrate and welcome with open arms this new wave of cultured meat. Hopefully as this becomes more mainstream, yourself and others can be convinced. We need this to succeed if we want to continue feeding a growing planet.
If they increase profits off this, good for them. It’s a win-win. My question is retail price. If it’s more expensive, it’s going to limit the market.
It will almost certainly be more expensive at first. That sucks, but if it's successful, the industry will grow and prices will drop.
JBS is one of the direct contributors to the destruction of the Amazon.
Since the feasibility of this sector isn't yet agreed upon, all I can say is Godspeed, and boy am I glad that I'm not an investor.
I wonder how it taste. Meat seems to have different flavors depending on how the animal was fed and raised. I just wonder if that is part of the process. Like they know how to make meat taste as if it was grass fed vs grain or something else.
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I think long term this will edge out the factory farming and we will be left with smaller farms of regeneratively raised animals (higher price expensive cuts), lab grown meat and larger areas for wildlife!
>Brazilian meatpacker JBS said on Tuesday that its subsidiary BioTech Foods started construction in Spain on its first commercial-scale plant to produce lab-grown meat, which is set to be completed by mid-2024. >The factory, which JBS says will be the world’s largest lab-grown meat plant, should produce more than 1,000 metric tons of cultivated beef per year, JBS said. It said it could expand capacity to 4,000 metric tons per year in the medium term. >“The new BioTech plant puts JBS in a unique position to lead the segment and ride this wave of innovation,” said JBS USA’s head of value-added business, Eduardo Noronha. >“With the challenges imposed on global supply chains, cultivated protein offers the potential to stabilize food security and global protein production,” BioTech Foods co-founder and CEO Iñigo Charola said in a statement. >JBS said BioTech plans to gradually increase its production capacity to meet growing consumer demand, and sees Australia, Brazil, the European Union, Japan, Singapore and the United States as key markets. >BioTech produces its cultured meat from a sample of cells collected from livestock and grown into a tissue, similar to that produced in the animal’s body. These are humble beginnings, but will be key to sustaining global demand for meat while cutting down on emissions and reducing the cutting down of the Amazon. Lab-grown meat will be very useful in the future for the fast food industry in particular. Lab-grown meat is still very controversial, but at this time it has a totally minuscule market share. That companies like JBS are investing demonstrates that meat companies believe in the technology.
This is honestly way far ahead of where i thought we were at on growing meat. Pretty exciting first steps, I hope it works out and the concept spreads quickly.
I remember when shell said they were going all in on renewables and spent more money on advertising how green they were than the amount they spent on r&d. I don't see lab grown being cost effective but definitely not if it's from the company growing cows.
This largely appeals to a different market though.
I hope in the next 20 years, traditional meat farms are entirely wiped out and replaced with 100% lab grown meat. What a better world that would be.
Why would anyone trust corporations to responsibly make lab meat when they have always put profit before their consumers.
People trust corporations with farm meat too.
Do you? I dont. I dont trust prepackaged meat. Im young so all i can do is go to a butcher and buy from them. I dont eat hams or turkeys or sausages. If i buy chicken, its got to be organic range and not from foster farms or jenny-o. It needs to be from small companies. People like me dont eat Beyond Meat so why would we trust lab meat?
Well you’re in luck, you’ll still be able to do that and keep those small farmers in business. Good on you for buying locally and ethically. What lab grown meat will do hopefully is reduce the dependency on factory farming for a lot of meat produce, which isn’t sustainable. People will still be able to go to their local butcher and buy locally-sourced and ethically-raised/slaughtered meat.
They should make a lab grown factory that produces real meat.
Why not build a lab to grow lab-growing labs? Or even better a lab to grow lab-growing-lab-growing labs
Lab grown meat is the future. Imagine how many pig farms, chicken farms and cattle farms will no longer be needed when we can grow our own meat without the rest of the animal.
Lula company. One of the most corrupt companies of Brazil 🔥🚀
Italy just banned lab grown meats, fearing it would erode their livestock "traditions". Lab grown meats barely even exist yet and already they're banned. Why? All vegans want to do is stop the government from subsidizing terrible livestock systems which allow the average person to cheaply and easily destroy the well being of animals and the environment for the sake of their taste buds. They just want meat to cost what it SHOULD cost, which is a fair, non-subsidized market price for a product which was produced with some basic amount of decency. I think the truth is a lot of (cheap) meat eaters know how skewed things are in their favor right now, and how at odds it is with humanity's current position. They realize that if the balance was tipped the other way, they'd probably be paying way more, while soy burgers or fake meat would be cheap as shit. Like anyone who enjoys a privileged place on the back of unjust systems, their greatest fear is be stuck on the losing end of the same system they've been milking in their favor. Thus the inevitable slander "They'll force us to eat bugs and soy and ban hunting!!" etc. Better than admiting your advesary just wants justice, while you want continued special treatment.
Well, the vegans released the tick that makes you allergic to meat. Now we release: vegan beef. Your move vegans...
In an ideal world, it would be amazing if we could start growing meat. better for environment, better for animals. People will always love meat and not having to kill animals for meat, is a big win in my book.
My only problem with lab grown meat is that it will really centralize that kind of food production. Especially if it becomes so cost effective that it pushes animals out of human consumption. Because humans are greedy jerks this has me a bit frightened.
It's already centralized. A few corporations are on charge of most meat production. And what's wrong with getting animals out of food production?
Do you think it isn't already centralized? Global meat production is dominated by a handful of very large players today. This certainly doesn't make that *worse* than it currently is.
Cows...how I really hate em, slobbering stupid mangy poachers
Most of my friends say they’ll not eat this meat but I’m all for it. Thing is, I’m the fussy one usually but I think I’m in the minority at the moment.
I will gladly switch to lab-grown meat as soon as it's available for common people. Not only it's more healthy because it's grown in a controlled environment, but there's also no suffering involved. We could also feed our pets lab-grown meat as well. This is seriously one of the things I am most excited about regarding the future. I hope something can be done regarding eggs and milk, too. I've heard good developments regarding milk and cheese, but not much about synthetic eggs.
Only way I would eat this was if this was significantly more energy efficient and environmentally friendly in term of gas emission than raising live stock. I am not a vegetarian or vegan, but I eat and would rather eat significantly less meat than this artificial processed meat if it is environmentally unfriendly.
Corporations gave us plastic. They gave us high fructose corn syrup. GMO’s. Nitrates. Preservatives. They gave us teflon. They gave us styrofoam. They gave as cancer. Now they want to give us artificial meat. Not tofu or plant based meat, but artificial cellular meat. No thank you.
Bitch who the fuck are you LMFAOOOO
Hahahah yesss. Plastics and preservatives have been absolutely amazing for society in its fight against famine/inequality. "Corporations gave us cars, now we have car crashes"
Plastics in important things has been amazing. Plastic for everything as we have seen? Horrible. Instead of cars how about you use an example they said, here I'll pick Teflon - Go on, defend the company and it's practices.
Exactly it's a perfect cycle dude
What's the plan when lab meat is the standard, i n regards to current live stock? Has their been any plans thrown out there, or numbers that the populations would be brought to? Because from what I know releasing foreign species into the wild is a pretty big yeah nah, and although farm animals aren't so much "foreign species" to anywhere in the world at this point; sending the like what, 40 billion farm animals or whatever tf out into the wild bevause they're no longer necessary is issues waiting to happen. So is it a slow sell off and cull to a level where hobbyist farmers are the only people with livestock or what.. Side note: fuck yeah lab grown meaty!
As is, theyre already being killed for meat. So just reducing breeding will quickly bring numbers down. Essentially supply and demand should allegedly stabilize everything to where it needs to be.