Vat grown meat

[ursaminortaur]

A US firm is going to build the biggest ever vats for growing chicken and beef from cells.

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/lab-grown-meat-climate-crisis-b2087841.html#comments-area

An American company will build the world’s largest bioreactors to create artificially grown meat that doesn’t require the killing of animals.

Good Meat, the cultivated meat division of Eat Just, has commissioned the largest known bioreactors for chicken and beef cultivated meat.

Cultivated meat, also sometimes referred to as cell-based meat, clean meat, cultured meat and in-vitro meat, is artificially-grown genuine meat that is produced by cultivating animal cells directly.

After cells are taken from a healthy animal – which isn’t killed in the process – they are placed in a large tank where they are fed nutrients until they divide and grow.

Ten 250,000-litre bioreactors will be built in the US and form the foundation for Good Meat’s large-scale cultivated meat facility. Good meat claims the complex will have the capacity to produce up to 30 million pounds of meat without the need to slaughter a single animal.
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The facility will initially produce chicken and beef and the company plans to distribute products to millions of customers across the United States. Good Meat is planning to finalise site selection in the next three months and is continuing to engage with the Food and Drug Administration and US Department of Agriculture on a regulatory pathway to market.

Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just, said Good Meat is the only cultivated meat manufacturer in the world to secure regulatory approval.

[doug2500]

It amazes me how quickly the narrative has changed from frankenstein food to totally accepted.

It may be the future but I think I'll stick to the real stuff.

[GrahamPlatt]

It amazes me how quickly the narrative has changed from frankenstein food to totally accepted.

It may be the future but I think I'll stick to the real stuff.

That’d be the stuff of Dracula then.

[bungeejumper]

Cultivated meat, also sometimes referred to as cell-based meat, clean meat, cultured meat and in-vitro meat, is artificially-grown genuine meat that is produced by cultivating animal cells directly.

After cells are taken from a healthy animal – which isn’t killed in the process – they are placed in a large tank where they are fed nutrients until they divide and grow.

And served up with delicious artificial blood. Lovingly made from haem that's been genetically cross-engineered by inserting DNA from soy (a plant) into a yeast (a fungus), and then dyed red. Still sounds pretty frankenfoody to me, TBH. Perhaps I'll give it a miss for the time being?

BJ

[mc2fool]

Cultivated meat, also sometimes referred to as cell-based meat, clean meat, cultured meat and in-vitro meat, is artificially-grown genuine meat that is produced by cultivating animal cells directly.

After cells are taken from a healthy animal – which isn’t killed in the process – they are placed in a large tank where they are fed nutrients until they divide and grow.

Well interesting ... so if there is no harm done to the "donor" animal then I can see all sorts of possible culinary revelations that are just not on currently.

Perhaps we'll have the chance to find out what the "long pork" actually tastes like then?

Or maybe see if we agree with W.C. Fields view of: "I like children. If they're properly cooked."?

Or even find out what really goes best with some fava beans and a nice Chianti? (Although harmless extraction of cells from some organs may be more problematic than others....)

[ursaminortaur]

Cultivated meat, also sometimes referred to as cell-based meat, clean meat, cultured meat and in-vitro meat, is artificially-grown genuine meat that is produced by cultivating animal cells directly.

After cells are taken from a healthy animal – which isn’t killed in the process – they are placed in a large tank where they are fed nutrients until they divide and grow.

Well interesting ... so if there is no harm done to the "donor" animal then I can see all sorts of possible culinary revelations that are just not on currently.

Perhaps we'll have the chance to find out what the "long pork" actually tastes like then?

Or maybe see if we agree with W.C. Fields view of: "I like children. If they're properly cooked."?

Or even find out what really goes best with some fava beans and a nice Chianti? (Although harmless extraction of cells from some organs may be more problematic than others....)

For problematic organs it would probably be better to use induced pluripotent stem cells reprogrammed to become the correct tissue type

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell

One promising source being skin cells which can obviously be accessed fairly easily

https://www.science.org/content/article/researchers-turn-skin-cells-stem-cells

(For animal meat you could also use animal embryonic stem cells though since that destroys the embryo some vegans especially those who are anti-abortion after conception may object to such meat)

As to growing human tissue for consumption as meat even though it wouldn't hurt the donor it would still technically be cannibalism - after all if you ate your dead relative who had died naturally it wouldn't hurt them but would still be considered cannibalism.
It would also probably be slightly more risky for those consuming the meat as there would be more chance for something to go wrong - for instance producing cells which produce misfolded human proteins leading to those consuming the meat to develop a prion disease similar to kuru. Although cell meat processors might check their product for known prion disease causing misfolded human proteins it's probable that more novel instances would get through.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

[mc2fool]

Cultivated meat, also sometimes referred to as cell-based meat, clean meat, cultured meat and in-vitro meat, is artificially-grown genuine meat that is produced by cultivating animal cells directly.

After cells are taken from a healthy animal – which isn’t killed in the process – they are placed in a large tank where they are fed nutrients until they divide and grow.

Well interesting ... so if there is no harm done to the "donor" animal then I can see all sorts of possible culinary revelations that are just not on currently.

Perhaps we'll have the chance to find out what the "long pork" actually tastes like then?

Or maybe see if we agree with W.C. Fields view of: "I like children. If they're properly cooked."?

Or even find out what really goes best with some fava beans and a nice Chianti? (Although harmless extraction of cells from some organs may be more problematic than others....)

For problematic organs it would probably be better to use induced pluripotent stem cells reprogrammed to become the correct tissue type

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_pluripotent_stem_cell

One promising source being skin cells which can obviously be accessed fairly easily

https://www.science.org/content/article/researchers-turn-skin-cells-stem-cells

(For animal meat you could also use animal embryonic stem cells though since that destroys the embryo some vegans especially those who are anti-abortion after conception may object to such meat)

As to growing human tissue for consumption as meat even though it wouldn't hurt the donor it would still technically be cannibalism - after all if you ate your dead relative who had died naturally it wouldn't hurt them but would still be considered cannibalism.
It would also probably be slightly more risky for those consuming the meat as there would be more chance for something to go wrong - for instance producing cells which produce misfolded human proteins leading to those consuming the meat to develop a prion disease similar to kuru. Although cell meat processors might check their product for known prion disease causing misfolded human proteins it's probable that more novel instances would get through.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion

You do understand my post was somewhat tongue in cheek, right? But ok, if you want to treat it with dry facts...

Cannibalism isn't illegal in the UK.

https://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2015/dec/16/eating-people-is-wrong-but-is-it-against-the-law
https://www.theweek.co.uk/news/society/953196/a-brief-history-of-human-cannibalism
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/556734 "Make cannibalism illegal in the UK ..." (petition rejected)

So pass that cell-based, cultured, in-vitro, artificially-grown deep fried 7 year old please ...

[Hallucigenia]

Or even find out what really goes best with some fava beans and a nice Chianti?

<winegeek>
Not liver - in the books Hannibal Lecter drank Amarone, which makes a lot more sense from an oenological point of view, but which Hollywood decided was too obscure for their audiences.
</winegeek>

And as an aside, not many people realise the medical point he is making, which is that he's either not taking his psychiatric drugs or he is but they're not working. Liver, beans and red wine all have a lot of tyramine, which you're meant to avoid with certain drugs.

[pje16]

Wiil it cost an extra 20%

[jfgw]

It amazes me how quickly the narrative has changed from frankenstein food to totally accepted.

It may be the future but I think I'll stick to the real stuff.

Frankenstein food? I hope that the vat doesn't get struck by lightening, I dread to imagine what might climb out of it


Julian F. G. W.

[pje16]

Frankenstein food? I hope that the vat doesn't get struck by lightening, I dread to imagine what might climb out of it
Julian F. G. W.

Think you might watch too many horror films

[88V8]

One day this stuff will be the norm.
Real meat will be priced out of reach, or impossible as all the land will be taken up with little brick breeding boxes.

Or perhaps Musk has plans for meat grown on the moon where cows will have very long legs.

Failing that, welcome to the future.

V8

[gryffron]

Sounds like a moral nightmare. Does vat grown meat feel pain? Should it have rights too? Will it see 3rd world "natural" meat producers destitute as the first world grows its own at lower cost? Which option produces more global warming? Cows are quite bad news for CO2 and Methane, but presumably this new method will require a fair amount of energy too.

Gryff

[scrumpyjack]

Sounds like a moral nightmare. Does vat grown meat feel pain? Should it have rights too? Will it see 3rd world "natural" meat producers destitute as the first world grows its own at lower cost? Which option produces more global warming? Cows are quite bad news for CO2 and Methane, but presumably this new method will require a fair amount of energy too.

Gryff

Presumably it has a much lower C02 footprint as cows aren't breathing out C02 or farting!
I suppose the 'meat' can be shaped however you like, and has the added bonus of having no identifiable sex, so we don't need to worry about pronouns

[Hallucigenia]

the added bonus of having no identifiable sex, so we don't need to worry about pronouns

Err - you do realise that all animal cells contain sex chromosomes?

But I must admit that as an English speaker I've never worried about pronouns for a steak, it's just...steak????

[bungeejumper]

the added bonus of having no identifiable sex, so we don't need to worry about pronouns

I must admit that as an English speaker I've never worried about pronouns for a steak, it's just...steak????

The last time I looked, the vast majority of cows could safely be assumed to be female. They may, of course, have self-identified as something else, but I doubt that I'd have tasted the difference?

BJ

[servodude]

the added bonus of having no identifiable sex, so we don't need to worry about pronouns

I must admit that as an English speaker I've never worried about pronouns for a steak, it's just...steak????

The last time I looked, the vast majority of cows could safely be assumed to be female. They may, of course, have self-identified as something else, but I doubt that I'd have tasted the difference?

BJ

True... but likely because the cows you saw didn't end up as your steak

[Hallucigenia]

The last time I looked, the vast majority of cows could safely be assumed to be female. They may, of course, have self-identified as something else, but I doubt that I'd have tasted the difference?

By definition cows are female, as they're cattle that have had a calf. For milk production you're only interested in lactating females, so male calves of dairy breeds are generally killed when young and a dairy herd is essentially all females. Since they've been bred for milk quantity rather than meat quality, old dairy cows get turned into mince or petfood rather than steak.

But there's no need to discriminate between genders for meat production (although specialists can tell the difference), so beef herds are a mix of bullocks and heifers, and so your typical steak could be male or female.

[gryffron]

But there's no need to discriminate between genders for meat production (although specialists can tell the difference), so beef herds are a mix of bullocks and heifers, and so your typical steak could be male or female.

Yes but,… more females than males must be kept to maintain breeding stock. So it’s likely the (overwhelming) majority of males and only some of the females are killed off young for human consumption. So I would suggest the majority of steak is male.

Gryff

[servodude]

But there's no need to discriminate between genders for meat production (although specialists can tell the difference), so beef herds are a mix of bullocks and heifers, and so your typical steak could be male or female.

Yes but,… more females than males must be kept to maintain breeding stock. So it’s likely the (overwhelming) majority of males and only some of the females are killed off young for human consumption. So I would suggest the majority of steak is male.

Gryff

Indeed that's why a "typical" steak will have been male at birth (what pronouns does a steer use?)
and there's also a fair bit of work gone in to biasing the sex ratio of calves born (cows don't get as big or as quickly)

male calves of dairy breeds are generally killed when young

"Bobby calves" are where a lot of veal comes from
Kept away from the dam (milk's not for the offspring) and generally slaughtered under a week old (it seems like a pretty miserable week)

-sd