Vegans of Lemmy, would you eat lab-grown meat?
The main reasons I've seen from vegans for not eating meat seem to be all about the morality of eating a sentient animal, the practices of the modern meat industry, and the environmental impact of it. And don't have anything to do with the taste of meat.
Since lab-grown meat doesn't cause animal suffering, and assuming mass production is environmentally friendly, would you consider going back to eating meat if it were the lab-grown kind?
I would not mind eating lab grown and I think it is great if people would eat that instead but ive been vegan for so long that i have no interest in meat. I hardly eat mock meats, its only in social situations to not stand out to much.
Seconded. When I was vegan I'd already been vegetarian for years. Meat, including fake meat, held no appeal.
Fake meat has more of an appeal to me than lab grown meat, or it used to. It was kinda interesting when they were unique flavours marketed as alternatives rather than accurate immitations.
Honestly the food science is one of my favourite things about being vegan, I can cook way more interesting meals than I could as a carnist because I'd just use meat as the main flavour which works but it's kinda lazy. Let me make something with a little miso and shitake broth and you'll be in love
You got me drooling - any recipe suggestions? I’ve both ingredients in my fridge!
I don't have any written recipes I'm afraid, I've been making them up as I go.
I usually use that combination for a ramen base. I used dried shitake and soak them in a ton of water overnight in the fridge. The dried shitake are honestly kinda inedible even after being rehydrated so I don't always use them afterwards. I should also soak Kombu but I keep forgetting to buy it.
If you mix that broth with the right amount of miso paste then you'll get the amazing combination of msg and nucleotides that gives you some amazing flavours. Soy sauce helps too, some garlic, ginger and sesame oil make it perfect.
Good luck working out ratios because I just guess everytime based on the size of my bowls 😅
Thanks so much for sharing! I’ll have to experiment for dinner tomorrow (I’m blessed to have a local eco store that sells everything you mentioned).
Hell yeah!
Good luck and have fun!
Same. I stopped eating meat in the mid 90s, was pescatarian until 2019, and have been vegan since. I don't miss meat at all. I'll eat an impossible or a beyond burger occasionally because it's sometimes my only option, but I could just as easily skip them.
I wouldn't judge anyone else for eating lab meat, though. I don't have any moral issue with it, it just isn't something I'm personally interested in.
Ill let it slide, because you seam to have made it youre hole identity, butt ill note its knot relevant to this discussion
Meat is delicious, you should try it if theres no reason not to
I eat meat, but I've gone months at a time on a vegetarian diet, and the smell of cooking meat could be nauseating at times. I don't think as many people would eat meat if it wasn't so ingrained in our society
Meat traditionally was the only food option for most people. Meat, eggs and grain are staple foods across the world no matter where you look.
Ah, so witty! Here is more.
Wasn’t trying to be witty.
If it’s cheap, sure.
I don't have any ethical issues with it, I just don't find meat appetizing anymore. I'm all for having the option for people who want it though.
Same
It's a lot of effort to solve an issue that's already solved by being vegan so eh, I'm pretty indifferent to it at least at face value. If it can compete with a vegan diet in terms of climate and ecosystem impact then I'll support it but I've no interest in it personally. I don't really have any justification for not being interested, I'm just not.
I'd be much more interested in seeing artificial cheese made from proteins created by yeast or bacteria tbh.
Growing plants outdoors takes a lot of water, and growing them indoors takes a lot of energy for the lighting.
Since lab grown meat won't need all that light, energy costs might be lower, but maybe the energy to keep the growth happening at the right temperature will be quite high. You could offset some of that though with where its grown. Ultimately if we can do it close to room temperature that would be ideal, but I have no idea what the requirements are.
Overall though it might be exceptionally environmentally and climate friendly in it's own rights, not just compared to raising the animals to kill them.
The energy for lab grown meat has to come from somewhere - thermodynamics is always king. You can provide it via sugars/carbohydrates which the cells can motabolise, but you've got to put energy into making the sugar/carbs which is easiest by just growing some sugarcane/potatoes/etc. There's more steps for meat vs plant and it's very unlikely you can make 100 calories of lab meat with lower total system energy input than 100 calories of plant matter. (N.B., I'm a chemist, not a astronomical biologist, so if an expert refutes me and my assumptions, Place more trust in them)
Oh you're right about the food for it. I wasn't thinking about that. I can't see any way they'd get those to parity even if it was room temperature.
Edit: Oh just a thought, but if we were able to somehow able to get the nutrients from things we were going to compost. But I have a feeling that's not how that would happen, and that they wouldn't be the proper nutrients for growing. Maybe way out in the future though like in Back To The Future, Mr. Fusion garbage fuel! Fresh meat from waste!
That's certainly the hope, but I don't think that's the way it's going so far. The little I've read about it suggests it's going to use a considerable amount of energy, there's probably going to be a lot of research on the environmental impact. Other considerations include water usage, raw materials and waste, and at this stage it's too early to say what those are going to be like.
I'm honestly not keen on just hoping it'll work out, especially when capitalism is involved. It'll be great if it does and I'm legitimately hoping for that, but there isn't a great track record with this kind of stuff. Especially with the meat industry basically funding laws to stop it from being available in the first place.
I guess I'm worried about it being another failed magic bullet, and I'm just sitting here completely fine without it.
Greenhouses aren't lit, usually. What are you talking about?
I was thinking indoor hydroponics. Vertical farming.
Way less water than traditional growing. Like 90% less or something like that, but the LEDs aren't cheap and use a lot if power. Also a lot less space.
Depends on where you live. The further north you go, the less sun you have. And most people in developed countries live quite up north.
My ethics and my mouth think it's a great idea.
But I feel like my intestines would complain a LOT.
They would, at first. You might have a very uncomfortable few days but then your guts would get up to speed and it'd be fine. Happens all the time to people.
Was vegan, not anymore. Meat takes a little while to readjust to but eventually it's fine, dairy is the real problem.
No, I dont like the taste or texture
So, you've already tasted lab-grown meat?
Given that the point of lab grown meat is to stand in for butchered meat, I think it’s fair to assume they’ll target the same taste/texture. Honestly, what’s even the point of the discussion without that premise baked in?
I think they mean they don't like the taste/texture of meat already so why would they go over to lab grown.
Where are you getting lab grown meats?
I assume they meant meat in general. Supposed lab-grown meat aims to be a similar experience, the given answer is self-explanatory.
Btw, you can get lab-grown meat in a reastaurant in Singapore iirc.
Yes you are correct. I was talking about meat in general.
From.. A guy. Don't ask questions.
For sure
It would depend how this lab grown meat affects the environment or who produces it, how, what price it is.... I'm not opposed to it, just need to see the details.
And whether screams in inarticulate horror at being conscious without senses other than pressure and pain.
But hopefully that’s not how it goes
Lab-grown meat might not have nerve-endings or nerve-endings that connect to nowhere. You will need a brain or spine for the nerves to connect back to for the nervous signals to get recognized and processed before the screaming and "conscious" state of the brain can potentially exist.
So in essense, the lab-grown meat will just be like tissue cultures kept artificially alive but not a living organism.
Perhaps then it screams at the horror of having no nervous system to organize its consciousness into a time-bound shape.
Maybe the more a creature’s consciousness morphs into the shape you and I inhabit, the more protected its consciousness is from the unshaped horror of formlessness.
Maybe the only reason we have anything other than pure yelp as our existence is because evolution built these structures to give us some relief from a background agony.
Perhaps when we try to engineer flesh that doesn’t suffer, we instead make flesh that lacks the dopaminergic insulation from suffering that higher-order structure enables.
Probably not though
pure hell not pure yelp lol
Vegetarian here. It's not something I'd personally buy or use in meals, as I don't really have the desire to eat meat. That said, if it happened to be in a dish I really want to try at a restaurant, sure I'd eat it.
For me the main benefit of it would be the ability to try local/cultural dishes while travelling, if lab grown meat was an option.
I've been vegetarian my whole life and vegan for ~4 years or so, and I would definitely eat lab grown meat (assuming the conditions you stated).
I almost certainly wouldn't eat it often but there is sooo many cultural dishes I haven't ever tried due to them containing meat, which I would love to try sometime.
Admittedly I expect that most things I would not end up liking, but the ability to try would be really nice.
Man, what a great attitude. I wish everyone was this open about food.
Vegetarian not vegan, but I wouldn't really have an issue if ethical. Nutrition is another matter to consider.
+1, I was fully veg for about 15y until I started having dreams about turkey sandwiches. I'm weekday veg now and only eat meat/eggs/etc that isn't sourced from factory farming. Shit's expensive and if lab grown meat has the same nutritional profile without the animal suffering I'd happily switch.
Well damn I want turkey now lol
I don't eat meat because it causes suffering in another. Plants have no concept of pain without a brain, nervous system or even nerve endings. So to me, the question becomes if the lab grown meat was ever attached to a brain that could feel suffering.
Now as far i understand it, lab grown meat isn't nessecarily grown in isolation from a cow. But in a solution primarily compromised of blood extracted from living cows. That's without question better than killing a creature, buuuuuuut we all know that when profits are involved the health of a animal is not prioritized.
So it really depends, while I don't miss meat, once lab grown becomes widely available I'll make my choice depending on the exact process of how it reached the grocery store.
Ehhh, questionable.
No. It's really not. I know the study you are going to link with the clickbait title that "plants feel pain", but it's unscientific garbage.
When you cut a plant, it only reacts with a secretion. That's not sentience, it has no concept of pain because it literally does not have the required parts to feel it. Pain requires a nerve ending to feel the sensation, a brain to process that sensation in to an threat and a system to connect those two organs. Plants have none of this.
Yes plants release a pheromone when they are cut, but to extrapolate that to pain is a wild leap. If I cut an animal, they bleed, they yell, and they either run away or attack me, they generally do the same for their children. Exactly like humans react when cut. It's impossible to disprove if plants have some other totally radically different type of intelligence we just don't understand yet, but there is no evidence to suggest that is the case. I am making my choices based off evidence, not "idk, what if it was true". It's the same reason I know the earth is round and not flat, evidence not vibes.
It is intellectually dishonest to say that a potato and a pig perceive the world in the same way.
Consciousness is an open question. A potato does not perceive the same way as a pig, but a pig does not perceive the same way as a human. Plants communicate and make rudimentary decisions. Once you start getting into questions of degree, you subjectively decide where to draw the line. If you can argue that the line is between animals and plants, then someone else can argue the line is between animals and humans.
It's intellectually dishonest to pretend our understanding of sentience and sapience is simple and unambiguous.
See, this is where you are just throwing your hands up and giving up on an sort of ethics. Because it's theoretically possible for plants to feel pain then there is no reason to act moral when it comes to animals who we KNOW feel pain.
It's like saying "porn with adults is harmful, but so is porn with children, who is to say where the line is? It's an open question that is all perspective, so consume whatever you like". When we know for a fact that sexual abuse of children causes suffering as opposed to what consenting adults do for a job.
Saying plants feel pain is motivated reasoning to call vegans hypocrites, not to actually produce a better world. I did not message you with my beliefs, you messaged me with whataboutism. 99% of the food humans eat is living in some sense (aside from minerals like salt), yeast in my bread is alive in some sense, but comparing that life to an animal as a reason it may not be matter? That it's all perspective? Well then why not draw the line around cannibalism of anyone under a certain IQ. If consciousness is such an open question, then who is to say anyone is real except for myself? If I hurt another human, who is to say that they feel at all? It could all be simulation from a certain perspective so who cares?
This sort of "what if" and "it depends" whataboutism doesn't actually help anyone. I didn't bring veganism to you, you brought this to me. This is just naval gazing because calling vegan hypocrites makes you more secure in your own choices. You're not saying anything of value,
Uh, you do know it's possible to focus on fruits, which are freely given, right? You volunteered your perspective in the first place, and you're the one throwing your hands up instead of finding an ethical diet. You're the one trying to justify your choices based on subjective distinction. You're the one calling yourself a hypocrite. All I said was that your absolute claim was questionable.
I eat, primarily, botanical fruits (which includes cucumbers, squash, and a surprising quantity of other vegetables freely given by plants for our consumption) as well as meat which would otherwise be thrown away. Once the animal is dead, it is far more respectful to consume it than let it be wasted. I typically buy meat on clearance, at the end of the night, on the expiration date.
I have no desire to "gotcha" people who sincerely want to make a better world, but hypocrites who call out others while justifying their own ethical blind spots are typically more interested in self-righteousness than actually improving the world.
🙄🤦
Exactly. I agree completely, but scroll up and remember I didn't call ANYONE out in my original comment. I came to this thread because my perspective was asked for in the title. You came to me with a "but plants" trying to call MY beliefs out. So think whatever you want, but frankly, leave me the hell alone. This isn't a discussion I asked for, it's not on topic and you're not saying anything interesting.
Once again, I said none of that. Scroll up to verify I didn't call you out at any point.
This is a public forum, when you make a statement people are free to comment. You made a statement I disagreed with, and all I said was that the statement was questionable. All the rest of this "calling beliefs out" happened purely in your head. Feel how you wish about your choices, but don't implicate me in your projection.
Let's take this a step farther.
Would you eat human meat that was grown in a lab, if you could know for certain that the cells that were used to form the cultures were harvested from a consenting adult that was duly compensated? What if that person not only had consented, but wanted to be eaten, because they had a vore fetish, and enjoyed the thought of people eating pieces of them?
No, but the reason for it is one of safety, not morality:
Every bacteria, virus, fungus or other germ that can contaminate that lab and that meat is already adapted to hurt me, there is no species barrier. Nature generally abhors cannibalism because of this.
Now if you grow it in a lab, that might not be too much of a risk, but once you enter capitalist industrial production there are numerous incentives to cut corners and increase the risk of contamination.
Contamination also exists in factory farming, but at least there, there's a species barrier and the impact of that cannot be overstated.
Alternatively, you'll create a swamp of human meat factory farms that use huge amounts of antiviral, antifungal and antibiotic agents and just get soooooo much more effective in training multi-resistant germs, already adapted to human tissue.
There are a few things to unpack here.
First, most of the bacteria, et al. that we have to worry about right now from meat production and consumption are already well-adapted to human hosts. The solution, in most cases, is to adequately cook the meat, and to practice very basic food safety at home. Most food-borne illnesses are the result of inadequate cooking time and temperature. Other toxins--like botulism--are actually a biproduct of bacteria that colonize meat during putrefaction; you can kill the bacteria that produce the botulism toxin, but once it's present, there's not a lot you can do. (This is why you refrigerate meat. Clostridium botulinum reproduction is primarily room temperature, and anaerobic, so it's mostly a problem with canned goods that weren't sterilized properly during canning.)
The same solution to bacterial contamination in meat now would be the most effective solution for any lab-grown meat: cook your food correctly.
I think that it's unlikely that, aside from cleaning agents, that you would need antibacterial/antifungal/virucidal agents in producing lab-grown meat of any kind. Many of the most effective cleaning agents work because there's no way to evolve protections against them. 70% isopropyl alcohol for instance; any resistance that bacteria evolved would also severely inhibit their ability to have any other functions. You can use radiation, or heat + steam (or even dry heat) to sterilize all of your equipment prior to introducing cells, and you have more control over the nutrient bath that it grows in. Depending on the nutrient bath, you can sterilize that by filtration; .22μm filtration is the standard for sterilizing IV and IM compounded medications. (.22μm is smaller than all bacteria, and many viruses. Molecules will still pass through that filter pore size though. You can also get filters down to .15μm if you need to remove more viruses.) Cows, chickens, etc. use so many antibacterials because they aren't able to put them in ideal conditions and maintain the desired production levels.
I think that the lack of a species barrier is a far, far smaller risk than you might believe it to be.
BUT.
I think that there is one enormous risk: prions. Misfolded proteins are exceptionally hard to detect, and anything that denatures them will denature other proteins as well. The risk is likely very, very low, given how uncommon prion diseases are, but it's definitely a risk when you can grow a culture indefinitely.
Typically the major threats from canniblism are bacteria, viruses, fungus, parasites and prions. The bacteria, viruses, fungus and parasites shouldn't exist under properly maintained lab conditions. But prions are just misfolded proteins. They happen rarely and typically they are quarantined in the cell they were produced in. A number of things have to go very, very wrong for them to get out into your body from your own cells. However, eating and digesting cells can let out the prions they contain. Once they get out they'll start triggering other proteins to misfold but only if the right materials are present and if the prion came from human tissue you can be sure they are.
The human immune system is incredible, it has impressive countermeasures for almost anything you could think of. Heck it'll even attack solid objects that get stuck inside you. If you get shot by a bullet and don't get it removed (not recommended) your body will layer by layer eat that bullet. Slowly dissolving it and passing it into your blood so your kidneys can filter it and you can piss out that bullet over the course of decades. (Though having a bunch more metal in your blood causes its own problems). Your body has a response to just about everything including cancer which to get anywhere has to have some mutations to deceive your immune system.
Your body has no answer to prions whatsoever. Your body puts up no fight. If you are infected by a prion disease you are going to die. There is no vaccine, no cure, no treatment.
Once symptoms appear you'll have at most a few years if your very lucky but more likely a few months. Most prion diseases attack the brain. (side note; don't eat the brains of any animal regardless of circumstances)
Will perfectly sterile lab conditions eliminate prions as a concern? No If anything it might be possible that growing the meat artificially might result in more misfolded proteins. I'd still happily eat lab-grown animal meat. But lab-grown human meat? No thank you
I always enjoy the weird questions most.
It's technically vegan if the human consents and wants to be eaten.
I don't have any desire or curiosity to eat meat, human or animal, so I wouldn't partake. The added vore fetish sexual aspect is also really gross to me tbh.
Absolutely. Nothing suffered or died to produce it so I wouldn't consider it unethical. I realize most people wouldn't be able to get past the "human" label.
Edit: not actually a vegan so not sure my vote counts in this thread.
I'm vegan, and agree with you 100%
I've been telling my friends for years that the technology advances in lab grown meat mean it's only a matter of time before we get Kevin Bacon bacon.
Have you seen the old reddit foot eating thread?
I have not. On the other hand, I'm familiar with Armin Miewes, who spent a fairly long time in prison for murdering and eating someone that wanted to be murdered and eaten as a sexual kink.
It's a facinating ride.
https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/8p5xlj/hi_all_i_am_a_man_who_ate_a_portion_of_his_own/
This I think raises a real question of whether its verifiabley lab grown or from a consenting place and not just unethically harvested.
As an omnivore I’ll admit the idea is curious, and while I wouldn’t personally partake because of cultural upbringing about cannibalism, I wouldn’t judge someone who did enjoy it the way I would an actual cannibal.
The real question is, can you call it "human meat" if it is lab grown?
It might have the same texture, taste and consistency, but because it didn't come from an actual human it isn't really cannibalism, is it?
I would. Ever since I singed my arm with a small explosion in high school, I’ve been intrigued to try. It smelled delicious.
I have a brand (yeah, the kind done with red-hot metal); my impression was that burning skin and subcutaneous fat smelled like a delicious pork roast.
Sure, why not.
I really don't see why not if it tastes good. Sounds like a win all around if you want to eat meat.
I'd definitely eat it, especially over ecosystem-destroying meats and dirty meats. Especially if they can work on the price. I'd like to see more farmlands and public lands reforested and taken back to nature.
I would eat it, but I would do so on rare occasions in the same way I might have a drink with friends once a month. I became vegetarian for health reasons in addition to the reasons listed by OP and I have grown to really enjoy meat-free eating, so I don't really miss it but would view it as a treat best enjoyed sparingly.
No, I think it's a good idea but I'm fine with plant based alts. I think it's a lot better than having to kill animals for food but still seems like a lot of extr steps when you can just eat plants and stuff mad from plants without requiring a biological reactor, and lab. I would also assume that the process requires at least some more energy or resorces than regular food processing methods. So it wouldn't win any points on that front. I was raised vegan for context, so I've never actually tasted real meat and don't see any reason to try it now, lab grown or not.
My question is: why not try it? I mean, I know of people who don't like to travel outside their town because why bother? But the world is a big interesting place with all sorts of new experiences. Why wouldn't you want to try new and different foods? Would you try a new fruit you hadn't had access to before?
re: energy/etc: this is an issue everywhere, and it's all slowly changing. Farming is still done with big gas guzzling, smoke bellowing machines, for example. (I've seen Secret of NIMH).
If it's not wasteful/polluting to produce it, I don't see why not
Still need to investigate the sustainability of it before I would try, but presently there's no produce on sale here. But I'm pretty used to dishes without meat by now, so there's no direct need. I suppose it would be more targeted towards current meateaters, hopefully they stop destroying life on the planet at some point.
I, a meat eater, and you, presumably not, will both continue to destroy life on this planet for as long as we exist.
Causing no damage isn’t really an option for one who exists.
Extracting the stem cells may or may not cause harm to animals. If it is extracted from a live animal then it would cause harm and stress to an animal.
The medium used for growing may not be vegan (like FSB which is extracted from an animals death). But reportedly companies are moving to cheaper, plant-based, mediums.
Even if the process caused no harm or stress to animals, I'm not sure i would eat lab grown meat. I've already completely replaced meat in my cooking, and learned how to make much more nutrious meals. Adding meat back in would be regressive. Not to mention i feel like lab grown meat in particular will have been made possible through animal suffering research. While I'm glad it will have potential to be a net positive in the long run, i personally don't feel the desire to support lab grown meat
I feel like there's a limit to this. How much time has to pass before it's ethical again? After all, many animals were harmed in the research (selective breeding) of modern vegetables too. It's a process that took hundreds to thousands of years and a ton of livestock used as farm equipment to create something like the modern carrot.
Poking with a modern needle or using a single cattle by comparison is a lot less sacrificial research by comparison, only it's more recent.
Of course this could apply to a lot of other things and i realize it isn't particularly rational. Though on the note of modern needle vs not, a single biopsy on a live animal is causing harm so that's not a good comparison since that is not vegan by any standard.
But i mention the past suffering here because that is what i would be reminded of eating lab grown meat, rational or not. In general i think if the current process is vegan then it is fine (so using a biopsy on a recently, naturally, deceased animal or from an umbilical cord).
It is a great alternative though I personally would not eat lab-grown due to the taste/texture even with plant based alternatives I find it being to close to animal meat as a turn off.
I don't think so, it doesn't sound very appealing. I'm very used to going without meat, and tofu satisfies me quite well, or seitan. Being vegan to me is getting away from the idea that you need a lump of something fleshy on your plate to be satisfied.
Fwiw my wife had a long period of being vegetarian primarily because she doesn't like the taste of beef. So that reasoning does occur as well. She's not vegetarian any more but mostly keeps to chicken due to the taste
Yeah, I was going to say, if taste is the only issue, has she tried NON-beef meats? Like pork, and turkey, and chicken, and fish.
Or hell......if you want a heart attack, go back to 2014 and get the meat mountain. It was like 37 different meats stacked on top of each other, and when I measured mine, it was 23 inches tall. My arbys sandwich was 23 inches tall. I only ever ordered one. It was meals for like 3 days. I made the joke that you don't put a toothpick in the middle, you put a dagger.
Username checks out
I think the actual question is do you feel you can eat lab grown meat? Ethically it meets all the requirements of vegan, as there is no animal suffering, no consent, and muscle tissue cells are less sentient than a plant.
I grew up vegetarian and I'm used to regarding body parts as belonging to a living thing and to be used in service of it, not as food.
If others cannot stop eating meat from animals then I would find it less morally wrong to eat lab-grown. Still disgusting though. And unlikely to be very resource efficient. Or safe. That's my two pennies!
I would not trust anyone who tells me it's lab grown. I've had so many restaurants and people lie to me that someone ws vegan, out of malice and out of incompetence, that I just would not believe that a burger was "lab grown" instead of made with cheap meat leftovers.
If somehow I I could assure that it was made without animals being hurt, maybe. Meat is unhealthy so I would still mostly avoid it.
How is free range grown-up meat bad for health?
Everything within limits and maybe not the cheapest drug filled meat?
The human body is an amagin versatile machine. But the best diet for health seems to be plant based whole foods. Meat should be a very small part of your diet. It has been linked to all main causes of death like heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimers...
Only for fish/eggs/dairy. I've never really liked pork or beef.
Chicken, turkey, rabbit?
I don't think that lab-grown meat will ever replace animal agriculture on a large scale, at least in my lifetime. That being the case, I'd rather leave any ethically produced meat for people who would've been eating unethically produced meat instead.
If the situation is basically full on Star Trek replicator, then I wouldn't have ethical qualms but I might still find it gross and it might not digest well since I'm not used to it. Either way, it's very distant from the actual situation we're in now.
I wouldn't call that going back, exactly
10-year vegan here , 20-year veg. My answer is no no no.
Other than the taste and what it represents, there is far better food to eat which is grown outside than animal flesh.. grown inside a lab no less.
I’m all for people being vegan and vegetarian. I just wanted to follow up on this with a question: what about genetically engineered fruit/veg? Or greenhouses? Really, what’s the difference between a lab and a greenhouse when it comes to making food? I just don’t see the lab thing making any sense. We eat a ton of stuff grown in what is essentially food labs. Kitchens are food labs, especially the bigger ones. Don’t eat the lab grown meat, all fine with me. I just think the distinction is strange.
Not that it matters, but obviously if this ever becomes commercialised and actually available, it will no longer be grown in a lab, as labs are equipped for research, not mass production of products.
I'm vegetarian, my wife is vegan and I think this best reflects how I feel about it. Once you remove meat from your diet, you start to explore how flavourful everything else is.
If it’s vegan (is fetal bovine serum still an input?) then yes.
Any vegan who says no is saying so for some other reason besides veganism (ick factor, no desire, environmental considerations).
If your knee-jerk reaction to this is to downvote because "what kind of vegan eats meat?" - consider why you went vegan. Was it for the animals? Well, if lab meat allows us to produce meat without animal suffering then it's vegan...
I don't really see the point, so probably not.
Do people know for sure that consciousness emanates from the brain only?
Nah, the stuff I am cooking without meat tastes better anyways.
Seems like a bold assertion, saying your food tastes better than something that doesn't exist yet, and so cannot be compared.
I mean, you are probably right, but you can't know how dinosaur meat or whatever genetically engineered nonexistent animal meat tastes like.
The point of lab meat is to taste like dead animals. I know what dead animals taste like, I ate them for 28 years.
I get that, what I mean is that current attempts fail to even taste like animal meat, so it's hard to tell what that could actually taste like in the future. Now they pursue the taste of animal meat, but I imagine if they succeed they will go in other directions. Ultimately it's a tech to grow arbitrary cell structures from arbitrary cells, so nobody says it has to replicate any animal tissue. That's just unfortunately what people are familiar with.
Personally I think it's still kind of gross. I wouldn't judge anyone else for eating it though. It's gotta be less harmful to the environment and animals than full strength meat. Right? It is less harmful isn't it? Guys?
I'm mostly vegetarian because of ethical concerns. I would eat this stuff as readily as tofu. Heck, it would be awesome if a decent economy of scale would make my protein needs much easier to obtain.
Since we're far off from making it on an industrial scale it's hard to say. Beating livestock farming probably isn't hard though
I’m a lazy vegan. I intend to stop eating animal meat as soon as cultured meat is viable. Maybe opportunistic vegan is the term?
I'm pretty sure the term here is "not a vegan".
A potential vegan
Yeeeah, it's not going to be environmentally friendly, probably the opposite. In the lab grown meat discussions people seem to forget how incredibly efficient cows are at converting biomass to muscle.
For lab grown meat you'd need a circulation system that can reach all parts of the meat and provide it with enough nutrients, proteins, supplements and all that while also removing by-products such as ammonia that result from chemical processes in the cells.
So you'll end up needing a circulation system, immune system, bones for the meat to not get crushed by it's own weight ideally, recycling system like the liver and logistical system to back everything up, and that's assuming the whole process will be energy efficient.
Adding a brain to it makes essentially gives you all parts of a cow except the cow can largely produce the meat without any oversight and will do all the nutrient differential equations automatically.
We're still decades away from being able to scale this up while being within the same order of magnitude in cost. It's far easier to do a decade of chemistry and biology on textured soy meat to perfectly replicate the flavor, texture and nutrient profile of cow meat. This shouldn't come as a shock since plants are more efficient than animals in creating protein.
I'm personally hoping for genetically modified soy beans that have good amount of the amino acid leucine which is lacking in most plant protein.
Sidenote: We are close to fixing the methane emissions of cows by feeding them a supplement mixed with the feed.
You didn't want answer the hypothetical though?
That's true, I shouldn't since I'm not vegan.
I would not east lab grown meat. At this point meat grosses me out, and vegan protein is already very tasty.
I think lab grown meat mostly appeals to meat eaters who recognise that eating meat is wrong but don't have the discipline to go vegetarian/vegan.
Discipline. Jesus....
i'm not a vegan or vegetarian, but from my experience with various plant-based proteins i honestly just do not see the point
we already have perfectly affordable vegan proteins that, while not identical to meat or even necessarily that close, are absolutely as satisfying to chew on and very tasty.
Really, all you need is a chunk of mostly pure protein of any kind and it's doubtful people are going to much notice the difference if it's part of a dish and they aren't given a chance to study the protein in detail.
The only thing you'd really need lab-grown meat for is steaks, which are overrated anyways and like.. god eating steak is such a violently bougie thing! The shelves with ground meat here are hilarious because the cheaper ground pork is constantly completely sold out while the ground beef is barely even touched, so i doubt people would even notice the disappearance of the steak that costs 6 times as much..
Very relevant video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR8M4zARBXY
Why not celebrity meat?
If that's fine for them, why not? But I'd rather like to have a taste of myself. Always wondered what I would taste like.
As a vegan, I would not eat lab grown meat.
It's mainly a texture/concept thing, my food needs to be safe from disembodied muscle, fat, skin, cartilage, bone, minced meat containing the combined flesh of thousands of raped and tortured carcasses, the faecal matter and bacterial colonies all meat is covered with, and the horrifying possibility of meat containing hidden cysts full of pus, bits of hair, teeth, genitals, eyeballs, parasites, tumours, zoonotic diseases, prions, etc.
Lab grown flesh would hopefully be exponentially cleaner, and far less problematic than the current rape torture factories and abattoir system, but I will never be able to thematically seperate labgrown meat from what meat currently is, not enough to be able to put it in my mouth and chew it anyway.
Also, all sentient life (as we know it) is made of flesh. Lab growing billions of disembodied chunks from a handful of sentient animals? There is still deep horror to this. Granted it's on a completely different scale to the current system of livestock atrocities, but it's still horrifying none the less.
Oh, better to eat only broccoli. In the third world, with poop of human cow pig. With a lot of antibiotics, pesticides and other chemicals.
Did I really trigger you so badly that your feeble hormone addled carivore brain tried to get you to think about eating broccoli?
Wow. New vegan power unlocked.
Every time I see someone shitting on vegans and saying they're all assholes I always stick up for them and say I see way more aggressively assholish people arguing for eating meat and in fact I haven't seen any asshole vegans.
Thanks for breaking my streak and making it so I can't say that anymore without it being a lie...
What makes me an asshole here?
Just fyi, when I’m trying to stem the flow of vegan hate I see online, I find way, way, way more success in not being an obnoxious asshole. It’s a stupid trend, bashing and shitting all over vegans and vegetarians saying the habit is a good thing. Don’t make it harder for everyone else to get on board with this kind of shit.
Did you mean to reply to me?
…yes. Did you read what I said? Because it should be clear I mean you.
So you think vegans should passively put up with bullshit from trolls and never poke fun back? Why?
Are you-
Um. I don’t know what’s even happening here. How do you not get what I’m saying.
Or put another way: “it’s best when trying to make sure not everyone hates a good cause, to not be a total dick.” (Read: you’re being a total dick and not helping your cause.)
“I understand it’s a stupid trend that people on the internet hate vegans and anyone speaking positively about veganism/vegetarianism.”
“You’re making sticking up for veganism/vegans much harder by, as mentioned before, being a dick.”
Get it now?
If you have less respect for vegans because you saw a vegan once took the piss out of a carnist troll on an internet forum... you do realise that's fucking pathetic of you right?
That’s…not what I’m saying. At all. Are you…reading what I’m writing? I literally can’t make it any clearer.
You, (as in you, the person I’m talking to) are being a dick (a douchebag, a pissant, an annoying prick). And you being a dick (douchebag, pissant, et. al) makes trying to stop others (other people on the internet; people who are not you; meat eaters) from hating all vegans (other people; not yous who also happen to subscribe to and live the vegan lifestyle).
You being a dick makes vegans look like assholes. And looking like assholes makes people hate vegans even more. Stop it.
So in order to placate the meat eating masses, vegans should never talk back to the meat headed trolls?
Bruh a vegan having good comebacks to trolling isn't going to tank the cause and my putting a troll in their place with a good quip isn't going to make the meat eating bigots hate vegans any more or less. They're going to hate us anyway, so why not let some vegans enjoy fucking with them back?
Or you know, just get the fuck over yourself and stop trying to control people.
No. In order to help…yknow…the earth? The animals? Why is this so much about other people for you?
Why are you vegan? For yourself? For clout? As I mentioned…like, three or four times…my whole idea is to help promote the good idea. Not you, not others. And you’re standing in the way of a good thing because you can’t get the fuck over yourself.
Not vegan but I'd wager most wouldn't, not even because of the ethics stuff everyone memes about
Breaking down meats takes an energy investment that breaking plants down doesn't. So people who are used to a low meat or meatless diet aren't recommended to go full steam on some carnitas first time they feel like getting back on the red and pink stuff.
Literally it causes heavy fatigue and tiredness untill they re-adjust to the energy investment, and if you're already feeling fine just not eating meat then what exactly would be the point of putting yourself through that?
And I'm saying this as a total beef and pork addict, my dad's pescatarian so I got to learn about sudden diet shift health effects from his doctor when he first went for the fishes.