Mmmm, lab meat
Hurry up, Science. I need a bacon tree.
Via insty, comes seven disruptive foods that change the way we eat. I found it interesting that every banana we eat today is actually a clone of the same banana. But even more interesting is this:
What if meat didn’t have a brain attached to it? One imagines the guilt factor dropping lower, in addition to increasing efficiency. If science serves up a filet mignon that was grown in a filet mignon factory, it will require less water and other resources than the commensurate number of actual cows, in addition to staking the presumable moral high ground.
Non-sentient lab meat is not yet a reality for widespread human consumption, and growing a steak with longer strands of tissue presents greater difficulties than simulating ground meat. But the wheels are already in motion — witness the In Vitro Meat Consortium, In Vitro Meat Foundation, this FutureFood.org article, and researchers at universities and labs around the world.
Harvesting animals is expensive, time-consuming, has negative effects on the environment, and cow farts apparently cause global warming (like everything else). Probably a good idea. What say you?
I think such a development (presuming it was cost-effective) would lead to the extinction of the chicken.
ETA: Chickens are safe. I forgot about eggs.
April 9th, 2010 at 9:00 am
Interesting idea, but there are other factors that will continue to keep chickens in the pipeline. Eggs, for one. Maybe that won’t be enough, though.
“Which came last, the chicken or the egg?”
April 9th, 2010 at 9:05 am
Oh yeah, forgot about eggs.
April 9th, 2010 at 9:07 am
Science, bitches.
Though, I doubt that filet from a factory will ever replace goats and chickens in third world countries.
April 9th, 2010 at 9:25 am
I suspect that modern breeds of cows, pigs, and chickens, raised and kept in clean, non-stimulating barns, are as close to brainless as you can get. The technology to manage all the metabolic needs of a slab of living muscle will turn out to be so complex, the chip involved will be as smart as a chicken brain, at least.
So, keep them clean, fat, and
happydumb, and then kill them in humane slaughterhouses before they know what’s happening.April 9th, 2010 at 9:49 am
We need those cow farts to keep the globe warm! Think about the unintended consequences.
April 9th, 2010 at 9:59 am
Soylent green, anyone?
When the faux filet mignon starts tasting like that from a young steer, fattened on corn and slaughtered humanely for my consumption, I will consider it.
However, I recall a time when a Kraft Velveeta plant had to shut down and the manufacturing line had to be emptied out and completely sterilized due to an unwanted bacteria that got in there. I would hate to get cooties from my factory meat.
April 9th, 2010 at 10:09 am
Heinlein called the growing of meat “carniculture”. Seems logical to me. And a lot easier to control cleanliness and health than Real Live Animals(tm).
April 9th, 2010 at 11:00 am
I can’t help but think we’ll screw it up, and not realize it for a couple decades.
April 9th, 2010 at 12:04 pm
This idea is backwards. We already have things which grow meat very efficiently: animals. As DJMoore says, they are already bred to be docile and stupid. What you need to do is breed or engineer “animals” with no higher brain functions or superfluous features. Same thing as what they’re trying to do here, but easier.
April 9th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Hmmm….their definition of sentient and mine do not correspond.
April 9th, 2010 at 12:15 pm
You’re behind. Just recently cows were let off the hook for global warming. Seems if the pasture gives off nitrous oxide if not grazed short. Of course, everyone might be happier if a spring stroll gave them a dose of laughing gas.
April 9th, 2010 at 7:02 pm
In the 1970’s I attended a philosophy seminar on vegitarianism where the main point was that animals were sentient enough to suffer for the satisfaction of our appetites.
At the end of the seminar, I asked if a tomato plant’s physical responses to a tomato being harvested made the same kind of logic against eating plants as the claim that mooing cows meant meat was murder.
The seminar speaker shook his head, looked confused, and asked for the next question.
It is turtles all the way down, I guess.
April 10th, 2010 at 2:47 am
“What you need to do is breed or engineer “animals” with no higher brain functions or superfluous features.”
So, we should try breeding them with politicians?
April 12th, 2010 at 9:52 pm
As to the whole ‘eggs thing’ we could always clone the Easter Bunny…