this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
137 points (98.6% liked)

Asklemmy

44173 readers
1777 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy πŸ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

As a thinking experiment, let us consider that on the 1st of January of 2025 it is announced that an advance making possible growing any kind of animal tissue in laboratory conditions as been achieved and that it is possible to scale it in order to achieve industrial grade production level.

There is no limit on which animal tissues can be grown, so, any species is achieveable, only being needed a small cell sample from an animal to start production, and the cultivated tissues are safe for consumption.

There won't be any perceiveable price change to the end consummer, as the growing is a complex and labour intensive process, requiring specialized equipments and personnel.

Would you change to this new diet option?

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Reminder that the meat you buy at the grocery store is as also as human modified as it gets and NOTHING like the wild game that our ancestors ate or even the farm animals from 100 years ago. The animal itself is probably GMO, spends its entire life in a steel cage standing in its own shit and piss and is given specialized processed feed to optimize how much meat it produces (or just has a tube down its throat so we don't have to worry about it eating fast enough). Not to mention tons of antibiotics that are given to the animal just to ensure it survives the hell we put them through which definitely makes it into the meat and therefore into you as well. And they're slaughtered and butchered by underpaid overworked factory workers who have to balance fulfilling brutal quotas with carefully extracting the meat and not getting it contaminated with shit from the animal's guts or the myriad other disgusting things around the meat that you wouldn't want to eat (you can guess how well that usually goes).

Animal cells (without the animal itself and also no central nervous system to experience suffering) growing in a clean, well controlled lab in tanks of sterile cell media doesn't sound so bad in comparison.

Additional reminder that nearly all of the worst infectious diseases in history have been caused partially or completely by animal agriculture: the plague, spanish flu, smallpox, whooping cough, swine flu, bird flu, covid, etc. So if you're worried about the long term health implications of lab grown meat, you should be ten times more worried about long term the health implications of regular meat, to the point where you should be worried even if you don't eat meat.

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 5 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

If it was healthy, affordable, and tasty, then yes.

If it isn't all three, then Veganism can continue to go fuck itself.

[–] OmegaLemmy@discuss.online 2 points 3 hours ago

Cutting down on eating meat is as good as going vegan

Villianising anyone and everyone who even so much as touches a chicken breast is a damn blunder and totally puts me off against the community

Then again, most vegans that are decent wouldn't be pushy and tell people they're vegan

[–] LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

I'd try it if the price came down. Fake meat is in the store now but I still eat the real thing. Maybe the current stuff isn't what OP is talking about.

[–] noxypaws@pawb.social 2 points 5 hours ago

Impossible Burgers already exist and are fucking delicious.

But, sure, if I can have pastrami or corned beef again without requiring a cow experience a life full of torment, emit a cow's lifetime of methane, or have any of that happen where a forest should instead have been left untouched, I'd try it!

[–] PanArab@lemm.ee 2 points 6 hours ago

I’d rather go vegan. Falafel all the way.

[–] njm1314@lemmy.world 6 points 8 hours ago

If I could afford it yeah of course

[–] electric_nan@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago

I've been vegan for almost 25 years, and vegetarian for couple years before that... and I'd be happy it existed, but I wouldn't eat it. I don't miss meat, and the idea of eating any of it just grosses me out.

[–] juliebean@lemm.ee 11 points 15 hours ago

hell yeah. soon as its not way more expensive than normal meat, i'm down. your proposed technology also sounds like it should mean lab grown replacement organs with zero chance of rejection, which would be amazing.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

For seafood yes, but I'm unlikely to bother regrowing the necessary gut biome for other meats

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Jesus, people bitch about processed foods but have no issues with whatever shit has to be put into this to make it grow?

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Most that bitch about processed foods have no idea what "processed" actually means.

Most of the 'chemicals' they're worried about occur naturally at quantity in plants and fruit.

The lab-grown meat uses the same organics that happen in the animal to trigger growth.

That said, price-wise, real meat will have to become very very expensive before lab-grown meat will be competitive. Breeding cattle is expensive, but a lot of it is just making sure life happens. Cows are hearty, self feed and have immune systems.

[–] MarxMadness@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 58 minutes ago

That said, price-wise, real meat will have to become very very expensive before lab-grown meat will be competitive.

At least in the U.S., meat production/pricing is heavily subsidized.

[–] Shimitar@feddit.it 11 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

Yes, absolutely. No risk of virus or bacteria, or worse...

Grown to the size you want...

Of the shape and type you want...

No fat (maybe?)....

What's not to like.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 2 points 7 hours ago

What kinda idiot would want no fat?

[–] doingthestuff@lemy.lol 4 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

I'd say price is definitely a factor. I already pass over good cuts of meat for that reason. Also taste/texture/overall experience. If it checs those boxes, and it has been on the market long enough to be confident I won't get instant cancer, then 100%! A little marbled fat makes it better though.

[–] Shimitar@feddit.it 2 points 4 hours ago

Yeah, definitely some fat is needed...

But I can see hordes of healthy people looking for fatless meat, as they already do I the supermarkets.

[–] communism@lemmy.ml 7 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago)

You haven't mentioned if there are any ethical concerns with this new meat; e.g. environmental cost of the production process, what kind of human labour is required to create it, who is providing that labour and under what conditions are they working.

Provided I had no ethical concerns with it, sure, but a lot of modern innovations tend to have these issues and I assume lab-grown meat would have these issues too.

Edit: Also, I'm opposed to animal captivity, so if there's an ongoing need to collect samples from captive livestock then no, I wouldn't. If it's a "collect it once then it keeps reproducing from the lab samples forever" type of thing then sure.

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 5 points 19 hours ago

I would definitely eat cultured meat as long as it’s not too expensive.

[–] GhiLA@sh.itjust.works 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Can I see the lab?

no

Darnit...

[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 7 points 14 hours ago

Don't ask to see a slaughterhouse...

[–] r0ertel@lemmy.world 3 points 17 hours ago (2 children)

No, i'd go vegan before i'd eat cultured meat. I'm not opposed to it and it's probably better for the economy and environment, but I have a mental thing about it. Granted if I had to catch and clean my own meat, i'd also probably go vegan. Maybe I'm just squeamish about my food.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Sorta sounds like you already think meat is gross.

[–] r0ertel@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'm pretty picky about the meat I do eat. It's the fat and gristle that I can't stand. After a pork chop, it looks like a dissection. I don't like to eat around bones. If I think about it too much, old probably end up vegetarian, which would probably be better for me given my other health issues. I don't think anybody ever died from eating too many vegetables.

[–] Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 1 points 9 hours ago

This actually happened to me too for quite a long while. I knew I would be vegan for maybe 10 years before I decided I should just do it one day. Life's weird like that. I will say its pretty important to have fresh veggies and fruits nearby or else its practically impossible no matter what.

[–] argarath@lemmy.world 3 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

What is the mental thing you have against lab grown meat?

[–] r0ertel@lemmy.world 1 points 13 hours ago

It sort of grosses me out. I don't know how to explain it.

[–] LiamTheBox@lemmy.world 2 points 17 hours ago

500 protein bars...

As if the facists will allow it...

[–] bruhduh@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Only if I could put my own DNA in it so I could eat my own ass

[–] legionguy@lemmy.ml 2 points 10 hours ago

sucking your own meat would be crazy

[–] qyron@sopuli.xyz 2 points 23 hours ago

I... really don't have a reply to that. Autophagy? Perhaps?

[–] Birdie@thelemmy.club 19 points 1 day ago

I'll move to it in a second. Protein with no need to slaughter animals would be so fantastic for the animals, the earth, and people.

[–] AceFuzzLord@lemm.ee 5 points 1 day ago

The only thing I'd wait for is for the process to be refined enough to be more eco friendly than just eating real meat. I'd do it, but until there's proof of it being more sustainable and won't tank my blood thin/thickness levels (blood thinners sometimes suck), I would be down to try it at the very least.

Though I would receive resistance in changing my diet until either my dad changes his eating habits or I move out on my own because my dad absolutely refuses things like plant based meats, so I know he'd most likely resist lab grown meat as well. It's also hard for my mom and I to switch to a healthier dinner diet since both my dad and older brother wouldn't dare change their diets to something like a Mediterranean or some other healthier because they can be picky eaters (especially my older brother).

[–] Openopenopenopen@lemmy.world 59 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

In a heartbeat. Although I’d prefer meat alternatives to lab grown meat. Like impossible burgers.

I don’t eat a ton of meat, and I’d like to eat even less. this option would help me feel like I’m not making animals suffer just so I can survive.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] jet@hackertalks.com 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I would be wildly optimistic, but very cautious.

I'd want to see multi-year randomized control trials comparing the bioavailability of not only protein, but also vitamins and minerals from the synthetic meat and liver, to natural meat and liver.

Assuming the RCTs show no issues, then I would happily move over.

Modern meat products are on a spectrum as well, it's not just having the meat, it's what the meat ate before it became me that's important. Grass-fed, versus grain fed for beef. Insect, and protein for chickens, grain fed for chickens etc. antibiotics, hormones being supplemented into the feed to improve yields.

One massive problem the industry globally suffers from is overpromising. Just like multivitamins, which are very poorly bioavailable, and mostly peed out, they promise a lot but don't deliver much.

Factors I would look for:

  • can somebody sustain life eating only the synthetic meat for multiple years?
  • oxidative stress, and oxidation in the synthetic food?
  • The temptation to engineer sugar, and carbohydrates, directly into the meat to increase sales yields.

Green sustainability:

  • can the synthetic meat be produced globally?
  • Will poor farmers in the middle of nowhere be improved or hurt by this? Will they have access to the synthetic meat?
  • in the event global logistics fail, like an a war, will moving over to synthetic meat severely hurt critical infrastructure and ability to feed populations?
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] bblkargonaut@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] akkajdh999@programming.dev 22 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Yeah. If it's the same, of course. I don't like killing cats for food.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] DashboTreeFrog@discuss.online 35 points 1 day ago (9 children)

There's tons of plant based proteins already. Having already added more vegan meals to my diet I think this would just be another option for me and one more for novelty than anything else

load more comments (9 replies)
[–] yuri@pawb.social 16 points 1 day ago

once it’s affordable, yeah almost immediately i reckon. i already go for plant based meats whenever i can find them for a reasonable price!

[–] wesker@lemmy.sdf.org 27 points 1 day ago (11 children)
load more comments (11 replies)

If it were indistinguishable from other meat sources, and priced similarly (preferably less!), then of course. I expect it will take a very long time to get to that point, though.

load more comments
view more: next β€Ί