Lab grown meat solves a ton of issues: animal welfare, environment (both CO2 and clearing land for agriculture), food safety, and potentially cost too. It can’t come fast enough.

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skybrian 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe someday, but for now, it's very expensive, and that suggests that it's also using lots of environmental resources.

	▲	joha4270 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Alternative explanations (pick and chose any you like) * High demand but limited supply * Unable to externalize costs that wild/farmed fish doesn't pay * R/D investments that needs to be recouped * Small production with a lack of economy of scale Oh it could obviously be this is a terrible product where its more important to appear environmentally friendly than to actually be so. But lets see where it is in a decade, with my current limited data it looks like a step in the right direction.

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3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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cogman10 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> CO2, food safety

I'm not 100% sure either of those has been proven out.

I could see CO2, but it sort of depends on how much power the bioreactor and sterilization consumes and how much methane is release. Granted, it'd be easier to capture those and easier to place these reactors in or near a grocery store, for example, for immediate delivery.

Food safety is almost certainly going to be a bigger problem. The big problem with bioreactors is they are cultivating the ideal substance for very nasty bacteria/fungus/etc to flourish in. Bioreactors do not have immune systems. That means keeping things absolutely sterile is of the utmost importance. I'm sure when the initial products are produced safety will be pristine. However, what happens when the CEOs of these companies decide to cut back? Heck, what happens when the new guy forgets to do a sterilization cycle or runs it short?

A major issue is these will be regulated by the FDA which has a history of doing a poor job of keeping food safe. I'd feel better if it were under the jurisdiction of the USDA.

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unsnap_biceps 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Looking beyond just eating the output, encouraging research into bioreactors and effective sterilization is a great path towards lab grown organs for humans. Imagine a world where getting a heart transplant isn't a lottery anymore. This is a worthy path for research imho.

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mapt 3 days ago | parent [-]

Imagine a world where you have to take whatever "heart" a pioneering lab can produce for under $100. Are you gonna be in the first group of recipients to risk it, knowing that these labs are largely unregulated startups?

I can cherish the research path and value the intended endpoint, but knowing what I know of agribusiness, early approval to market seems a mite reckless. Particularly in 2025. Particularly with "sushi-grade fish".

We produce millions of tons of affordable meat from industrial production of animals THAT HAVE immune systems, swimming in antibiotics, that the FDA tells you to cook thoroughly because it's definitely full of salmonella. We chop it up using child labor on production lines that would make you a vegetarian if you saw them.

	▲	janalsncm 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Unfortunately the alternative for not using a lab grown heart in that scenario would be death, not a human heart. So I’m guessing many people will take it.
	▲	3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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janalsncm 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

You bring up a good point, a future steak factory will be a lot more centralized than the distributed system of farms we have today. So an outbreak in one would significantly disrupt the market, at a minimum, and in the worst case cause a mass outbreak. The flip side is that a factory has a higher ceiling for cleanliness and disease surveillance. I would be wary of foreign lab grown meat for this reason.

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__turbobrew__ 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

All of those things are solved by eating legumes as well. I would rather eat protein rich vegetarian food over lab grown meat. I still eat meat but maybe only once a week, I really enjoy discovering what other cultures have created for meat free meals. Hell, hundreds of millions of Indians are vegetarians, and I would much rather cook and eat Indian food over eating some abomination of nature which only exists due to human’s destructive diet tendencies and lack of discipline. I also refuse to eat beyond meat either as those meat substitute products are very processed and far from their natural state.

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KempyKolibri 3 days ago | parent [-]

I'm not sure I understand this argument. The point is that there are some serious issues with the production of meat that are not (or may not be in future) issues with lab grown meat.

It's true that you could solve this by only eating legumes, but you then go on to say you don't even eat only legumes yourself, you also consume meat. So for those times where you do consume meat, lab grown meat would solve the issues that come with that.

Totally get that you may have dietary/taste preferences that preclude consumption of these meats, but that sounds different to the OP's point that they potential solve a lot of issues with our current food supply.

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__turbobrew__ 2 days ago | parent [-]

I consume very little meat, and when I do it is either because someone serves me meat at a meal or occasionally I will buy some meat from my local butcher which sources their meat from local free range farms.

Meat consumption is also not a binary decision, you can consume 10% of the meat you currently do and reduce the environmental side effects caused by your meat consumption by 90%. Furthermore, you can consume meat that comes from small scale local sustainable sources to further reduce your footprint.

It is the same deal with eggs, I don’t buy factory eggs, I buy them from my local farmer who has free range chickens. Sure, eggs are $8/dozen, but that is the real cost of eggs which do not preclude animal suffering and unsustainable farming practices.

My point is maybe the solution to the meat supply issues is to consume less meat, and consume meat from more sustainable sources. It is almost impossible for western society to grasp that maybe the solution to sustainability problems is to align their consumption with the rest of the world instead of turning to technology to solve all their problems. It is the same with so many other things like water management where the solution seems to be to dam more rivers and suck more acquifers dry instead of maybe not trying to grow grass and cedar trees in a desert.

	▲	KempyKolibri 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Still not sure what your contention with the OP is. They said lab meat solves problems inherent to non-lab meat. This seems to be trivially true. It could also be true that consuming 10% of the meat you normally consume would also reduce the issues of meat consumption. > It is almost impossible for western society to grasp that maybe the solution to sustainability problems is to align their consumption with the rest of the world instead of turning to technology to solve all their problems. Not sure what persuasive power this is supposed to have. In the case of lab meat, the technological solution seems outright better than the “rest of the world” solution. If the “rest of the world” solution is “eat less meat” then on an ethical basis, that is a worse option compared to lab meat. Sure, fewer sentient beings having their throats slit for taste pleasure is better than the status quo, but zero is even better than that.

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gazpachotron 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[dead]

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swat535 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Animal welfare can be solved with regulations and CO2 contributions is debatable.

I’m not sure about the cost savings either, at least right now it doesn’t seem feasible.

Innovation is fun but I think the best way to tackle all your points is to keep the pressure on legislation.

	▲	Intralexical 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		IDK. Some might say that the "eat" in "meat" is incompatible with welfare.

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throwaway422432 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Their first additive after water and salmon cells is canola derived so any environmental or food safety claims should factor that in.

Canola is often sprayed with neonicotinoids and the oil processed with solvents like hexane.

I'd personally prefer to get my omega acids from real salmon.

	▲	schuyler2d 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Just balance that as well with what chemicals and elements show up in farmed salmon and wild salmon (heavy metals, micro plastics, PBDEs,...) Not saying one's better, just that all our food sources have higher and lower quality steps before market.