Space Meat Coming to your Kitchen 854
jdray writes "Australia's GizMag is running an article about the industrialization of a NASA-tested concept for artificially creating meat. The article mentions meat makers as home appliances. Carne-Matic aside, this sounds like a mixed blessing, and brings about visions of some sterile, Spandex-jumpsuit future where food production is controlled by some central authority, and real, hoof-grown meat is a rare delicacy. Remember, Soylent Green is people!" You can read a curiously familiar Slashdot story from a month ago too.
I think they already did this... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I think they already did this... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I think they already did this... (Score:3, Funny)
Interesting parallel. Both claim to be offerring some kind of meat, but neither one really claims to offer food.
All beef patties. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I think they already did this... (Score:3, Funny)
Just a couple nitpicks. I believe the correct spelling for a couple of those items are: "all-beaf" patties, cheeze, and sesamee seed buns. They also provide sope for the employess to wash their hands with after using the bathroom and hare nets for the foud preparers.
Re:I think they already did this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Beaf is most fun when you pronounce it "Bee-Aff", as in, "Hey, Horace, pass me the bee-aff!".
Also, from the perspective of someone who's a vegetarian because he doesn't want to kill animals, I suppose I'd prefer somewhat creepily grown meat to meat from dead animals.
To reiterate, I love Beaf.
Now the name make sense (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I think they already did this... (Score:4, Funny)
Uh...Isn't that how they make Gyros?
(There goes my lunch plan for today...)
You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:5, Funny)
"cruelty-free"???
What about the folks who have to eat this stuff?
Seriously though (Score:4, Funny)
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:4, Interesting)
My opinion (as one of 'those' folk) (Score:5, Interesting)
Back to those male cows though: you've got a lot of them, but you can't just kill them, that would be resource consuming in and of itself, so what do you do? You sell them off for veal. They, more often than not, have their hooves nailed to the tiny cages they'll spend the rest of their lives in, before being slaughtered for a delicacy. If I chose not to eat meat, but consumed a lot of dairy, I'd be directly funding one of the most inhumane (again, POV) parts of the industry I was personally boycotting. Male egg chicks are at least disposed of quickly, but usually not disposed of, generally just discarded, i.e. in a dumpster or elsewhere.
So yeah, those are my main reasons for not partaking in animal products. It'd require some deep thought, but initially I'd say that yes, it is possible that I'd consume products that were derived from an animal, so long as it was humane, sterile, and non-harmful to the animal. This seems, again initally, like a pretty non-invasive procedure, and there will probably always be host animals around, hopefully ones living happy lives.
*Note: I'm not in anyway trying to proselytize here; I'm not telling you what to do, think, eat, or say. The above information is accurate, as far as I'm concerned.
Re:My opinion (as one of 'those' folk) (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My opinion (as one of 'those' folk) (Score:3, Insightful)
I hear many ethical vegans say this, but it has always piqued my curiosity: why not choose to eat free-range, locally-raised, certified organic animal products? For example, I buy my milk from the local co-op, which acquires it from a local free-range organic farm: the cows are milked because they have giv
Re:My opinion (as one of 'those' folk) (Score:4, Interesting)
I do too, and that's really my answer to your question. Milk and eggs come about as a biproduct of reproduction, and there are a heck of a lot of people, so any useful amount of milk and/or eggs has to come from a lot of reproduction going on (lots of gettin' busy). Thus, as you've mentioned, the only way to for that to be in any way sustainable is to slaughter the animals for meat. Since I started out as a vegetarian, and didn't want to support the meat industry monetarily, it was the next logical progression to become vegan. It's not something I pressure on people, though I advocate it, it's just that personally, when I was just veg, I felt like a hypocrite a lot of the time, because I was funding the meat industry semi-directly by supporting an industry that can only be sustained transitively by the meat industry.
Also with regard to milk/cheese grossness, notice that I said it was a coping mechanism. If I were to stop being vegan today, I'd probably find both of them tasty and delicious, but since I'm choosing willfully not to consume either, it's easiest if I think about where it comes from, rather than keep thinking about what I may be missing out on.
Re:My opinion (as one of 'those' folk) (Score:4, Interesting)
I once organised a forum led by an activist vegan nutritionist and a free-range organic rancher. I was hoping for some controversy and heated discussion (ah, the perversions of media), but what I got was an underlying agreement: for many vegans, it is the structure of the food system they object to, especially its depravities. The vegan actually supported the rancher in his venture, and suggested that given his carefully 'humane' techniques as the dominant method of production, only the spiritually-motivated vegans would remain.
Vegans have developed an ideology (like any other movement) that blinds some of its purveyors. I have a friend who's devoted to it, she rescues livestock and keeps them on her property as 'farm pets' so they can live out their life as fertility producers (pigshit is good plant food). Still, it's a bit much, what are we going to do, free the cows? They can't be naturalized, just extincted by attrition according to that logic.
I myself grew up on my grandparents' subsistence farm, and saw how old-fashioned animal husbandry is not too far from hunting-gathering in its relationship (respect) for the livestock. They had names and a 'good' domesticated life... except for the veal (hey, we're italian). I was once vegetarian due to the dissociation between slaughter and table, but now tell people that "I eat meat, but prefer to know its name first." My advice? strive for less than 10% meat in your diet, buy local from smaller family farms, make sure you know about the steps in the food chain that lead to your table... including the death of the animal.
You must be easily grossed out.
Others maybe, but I'm not, I like milking goats/sheep/cows and killing my own food. However, do you actually know what the pus/blood/urine/hormone/pollutant/antibiotic levels are in industrial milk? No, if you want to drink in comfort, don't ask.
re: "if you think about it" (Score:3, Insightful)
Those naturally grown veggies have had all manner of bugs crawling all over them, not to mention being rained on by water containing who knows what pollutants
Re:My opinion (as one of 'those' folk) (Score:3, Informative)
For example - I'm surprised you didn't metion hot dogs. The process is pretty disgusting but they taste pretty good so its a wash as to the disgust factor.
Same is true of sausage. It is basically the bits of animal that you normally wouldn't use. Of course they grind it up and throw some fennel and other spices in.
But does that stop me from eating those items on occasion? Hell no.
I'm beyond
Re:My opinion (as one of 'those' folk) (Score:4, Informative)
I guess I can understand "doing the best you can," but it sometimes seems as though one can't be completely unhypocritically vegan and still live in the world.
I was vegan for three years. It's not at all hard to avoid animal products anymore.
Pangea [veganstore.com] has replacements for just about every kind of food, including Jello.
There are many makeup companies that make products without animal ingredients or testing. Not all of them are little speciality brands either - MAC is acceptable to vegans, and they're in every halfway-decent department store.
Vegetarian Shoes [vegetarian-shoes.co.uk] has all-vegan footwear, and if you like buckles and tall boots like me, Pennangalan Dreams [pennangalan.co.uk] can get most of their styles in synthetic material.
The only fabrics I'm aware of that are animal-based are wool and silk. I have a suit from Pangea made from synthetics that looks better and is more comfortable than anything I've worn made of wool.
I gave it up in the end because I wasn't getting something I needed in my diet, but I still avoid unnecessary animal products.
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:3, Interesting)
Suppose the vegan himself was the tissue donor. Could he cannibalize his own derived tissue without any ethical quandry?
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:5, Interesting)
I for one would not eat this. It skeeves me out like you wouldn't believe. Tank-grown, faux-critter isn't on the list of things I'm likely to try.
And, for many of us vegetarians, it's a combination of the ethics of meat combined with the fact that meat-heavy diets are held up as unhealthy overall.
I think you'll find that for vegetarians, this stuff is a non-starter -- it's still meat. The fact that it's a lab experiment is even creepier.
i'll second that (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:i'll second that (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:i'll second that (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you make that assumption? You have no idea what a 'free-range' cow is eating, or what diseases it had. If anything I would say it could only be less helthy. You have the knid of mentality that drives the demand for 'organic' products, even while in many cases it's impossible to know what 'organic' means; worse, even when we do know what 'organic' means we have no good idea of what is in any particular batch of 'natural' fertilizers or feeds and have little understanding of how the complex chemical mixtures in such things interact with our body when compared to the chemically simple 'artificial' fertilizers.
Whenever I heaar people talk about this stuff I always remember a section from Neal Stephenson's book 'Zodiac.' The (environmentalist/chemist) main character's drug of choice is nitrous inhaled out of a plastic garbage bag. His reasoning is that he doesn't want to put drugs in his body that he can't draw a molecular model of. (It's been a few years since I read it - It's explained much better in the book). Anyway, it seems like a good philosophy to me. A lot of things that are 'organic' scare the crap out of me.
Re:i'll second that (Score:3, Informative)
As far as organic vegetables, it's largely about the environmental impact, i.e. you don't get the huge nitrogen fertilizer run-off into the water supply. Also, you know that you're not eating genetically modified food. The genetica
Re:i'll second that (Score:3, Interesting)
I also find it puzzling that somehow a cow ranging the field eating where they took a dump a while ago is "healthier" than a biologically steril vat growing meat!
Re:i'll second that (Score:3, Interesting)
This is just a cultural meme that can easily change over the course of a generation. What different cultures think of as appetizing or revolting is so variable such a small transition as from hoof-meat to vat-meat is likely to be relatively painless. Of course, the flip side of the coin is that two generations from now, people might think in disgust of their grandparents who ate _actual_ _animals_ *yuck*
Should make
Re:i'll second that (Score:5, Insightful)
Not true. Mankind has been selectively breeding cattle for thousands of years. In that time we have literally bred them to be tasty. I remember seeing a while back a bit on CNN about cattler farmers using Ultrasound to measure the fat content and muscle mass of steer so they can tell who to stud before having to breed them, raise the offspring, then slaughter the offspring to get the information.
You also suffer from the falicy that any biomass is intended to be food. With the exception of milk and fruit, everything we eat was a creature or plant that had other ideas.
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:3, Insightful)
Whether any given vegetarian will or will not eat this stuff (or even consider doing so) very much depends on why exactly they became a vegetarian in the first place.
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:3, Insightful)
ethical vegetarians don't eat meat because of the horrible animal suffering that's involved. i think a lot of them might give it a try if the cruelty (hell, sentience even) were taken out of the equation.
Re:I'd eat it (Score:3, Insightful)
If you really wanted to not kill animals, you wouldn't live in a house, or even eat for that mater, since that all kills animals. It is possible to live a lifestyle where the number of animals are killed for your lifestyle are reduced, but physically impossible to live in a 0-kill world.
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd be interested in hearing what ethical vegetarians think about eating cruelty-free meat.
Your labels need refining. There are "ethical vegetarians" who don't eat meat because they are concerned about the unethical treatment of the animals. Most of these people have no problem eating meat raised on a traditional farm and slaughtered humanely or wild game killed in an ethical fashion. I don't see why they would have any problem eating this type of meat.
There are people who have an ethical problem with the killing of animals that trust them, or the killing of animals who trust their slaughterers on their behalf. These people are usually willing to eat wild game, or animals raised in a way in which the animals are not taught to trust the farmers. I imagine they would have no problem eating this meat.
There are people who have an ethical problem with the killing of higher life forms as defined at some arbitrary point. (For example some will eat fish, but no mammals.) These people most likely would not have a problem with this type of meat, although depending upon its origins some might.
There are some people who object to the killing of any living animal. Some or those people will likely not have a problem with this meat and some will (since it does originate from an animal) but most will probably be fine with it.
Finally there are people who believe meat is evil. These people will likely refuse to eat this meat.
On a slightly different note, I read a study last week that said 1 in 5 high schoolers thought beef came from pigs. I don't imagine this will do anything to alleviate this educational problem.
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:3, Interesting)
As an example, I worked for a few years at a wildlife rehab center. We had a very high turnover rate for volunteers because many of these folks had never had any actual experience with an animal other than
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:4, Funny)
http://angryflower.com/vegeta.gif [angryflower.com]
Re:As a borderline vegan, (Score:5, Insightful)
Great insight. As an unreconstructed carnivore, I've got some ignorant comments to make :)
While the attitude you describe may hold true for pre-existing vegan and vegetarian folk, I wonder if we would see a sharp decline in the ranks of 'new converts'. Pure speculation of course, but if the ethical difficulty becomes basically theoretical rather than actual, I doubt that many people would feel compelled to change their eating habits.
Re:As a borderline vegan, (Score:3, Informative)
Not to start a war, but I think the reason it is called propaganda is becauase they purposely choose only the bloody footage, sometimes even manipulating footage (admitted to by Ingrid Newkirk of PETA once), and putting it in a way where it looks like that's all that happens there, yeah it's a propogatic method. They should do what real undercover people do - film, and show the footage uncut, unmanipulated, unedited, that way peop
Re:As a borderline vegan, (Score:3, Insightful)
On one hand, I think this would be incredible technology. I became a vegetarian for moral reasons (my partner did for environmental reasons); almost any reason people become a vegetarian for (apart from, possibly, religious reasons), this addresses. Even further, developing this technology will help greatly with developing organ cloning, a
Re:As a borderline vegan, (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not?
If it tastes good, and it was grown in a lab to avoid any ethical problems, I don't see why not.
I suspect beef would taste better than human, but I'd give it a try if offered.
Re:As a borderline vegan, (Score:3, Funny)
Sure, but only if you can guarantee that those free-range humans didn't eat McDonald's food every week and inject themselves with questionable pharmaceuticals. If you had some pen-raised humans (and not our prisons, they have high incidence of AIDS and hard drug use) then that would be OK.
Re:Scientists in adverts - bad idea (Score:3, Informative)
He didn't do it for a british telecom ad. It was a Pink Floyd song (actually about relationships) which BT then used as an advert.
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:5, Funny)
What if a human volunteered his inital cells to grow meat in a vat? No cruelty. You can't get more ethical than that, and you would still get to eat Matt.
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:You Insensitive Clod!... (Score:4, Funny)
Official "DUPE" Thread (Score:3, Informative)
Large Scale Production of Artificial Meat
Posted by timothy on Wed Jul 06, '05 02:27 PM
from the vat-meat-cometh dept.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/
Fraser Cain writes "Scientists at the University of Maryland think that large quantities of artificial meat (link: http://www.universetoday.com/am/publish/artificia
GizMag (Score:5, Funny)
Whats with the Spin (Score:5, Insightful)
I dont actually enjoy having animals slaughtered just for fun.
Re:Whats with the Spin (Score:5, Funny)
Looks like meat (Score:3, Funny)
w00t! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:w00t! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:w00t! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:w00t! (Score:3, Interesting)
Take a
Society of people scared of acne... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's truly sickening to me the lengths that people go these days to ruin their eating experiences. Too many restaurants refuse to cook meat anything under "medium" - hell I'll sign a waiver to eat a burger medium rare! Too many people crinkle their nose unless you cook their meat to shoe leather and someone even asked me if I should be rushed to the hospital because my steak was "too pink".
All the fears in the world about animal borne disease (avian flu, mad cow disease, etc) have spawned even more "illness psychos" who are obsessed with the latest in 99.9% bacteria free soaps, hand lotions, and air filters. We are breeding a population of individuals that are more susceptible to illness than ever before!
Eat that fucking natural meat and cook it rare. When you are making some hamburger, wad up a ball, add some pepper and salt and eat it. I've done it since I was a kid and never had any ill effects.
I am beginning to enjoy food less and less (especially out here in the Midwest where they have no tastebuds) and bullshit like this will only make it worse. Sadly, people will love it... See, no bacteria - especially when I cook it till it's charcoal.
Blah.
Re:Society of people scared of acne... (Score:5, Funny)
Why not just walk up to a cow and take a bite out of their shoulder? It amounts to the same thing.
Man invented fire for a reason.
Re:Society of people scared of acne... (Score:5, Funny)
On that note, man invented water because he was thirsty.
Makes sense?
Re:Society of people scared of acne... (Score:3, Informative)
Our tastes have dictate that we cook meat; texture, flavor and temperature are enhanced by many of our tried and trued cooking methods. We have come to like cooked foods better, but not because raw (or rare) meats will kill you. The current problem that the grandparent post complains about doesn't have to do with cooking the meat, but cooking the bacteria on the meat and the parasites in the meat. Meats are now overcooked (to the tastes of some) to make sure that we are not being served bacteria.
Where
Re:Society of people scared of acne... (Score:3, Informative)
Any health benefits are probably just happy side effects as they would have been very difficult for primitive man to recognize given the poor knowledge of statistics and lack of health
Re:Society of people scared of acne... (Score:5, Informative)
Any place will cook your steak rare. It's safe to eat rare steaks because there isn't any bacteria inside the meat. It's on the outside, and that gets cooked.
Ground beef isn't safe to eat rare because bacteria is all over it and must be cooked off.
Re:Society of people scared of acne... (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry but this just isn't true.
Meat can surely contain bacteria or the likes. Especially wild animals are likely to be infected or be inhabitet by parasites. Though, i guess that most of the meat being sold is probably more likely to be harmless.
Skewed statistics (Score:5, Funny)
100% of the people I've talked to who have played Russian roulette have never had any ill effects either.
Re:Skewed statistics (Score:5, Informative)
First, fresh meat is unlikely to contain food-bourne illnesses if handled properly; after all the animal was alive and not dying of salmonilla not too long ago.
Not true. You can count on pork to contain trichinella. Also, you can count on the outside of chicken to be contaminated with salmonella, and E. coli will surely be found on the outside of steak and on the inside of ground beef. This is a fact of life now because of the methods used by meatpackers. If you buy your meat from anyone but a skilled independent butcher (a vanishing trade), not from your grocery store or not slaughtered or processed in a meatpacking plant, your meat will be dangerous to you uncooked.
Second, most food-bourne illnesses that you get from raw food are non-lethal unless you are unhealthy for other reasons.
Non-lethal cramping, diarrhea, are vomiting are fine with me! Where do I sign up?
Re:Skewed statistics (Score:3, Informative)
Source: The USDA
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/vs/trichinae/docs/fact_s heet.htm [usda.gov]
Today, the trichinae issue is a question of perception versus reality. Dramatic declines in prevalence in pigs and the extremely low numbers of cases in humans are largely unrecognized b
Re:Society of people scared of acne... (Score:3, Informative)
So really, making a medium-rare burger is a lot more risk than you may think. Personally, I think if you want something like that, I'd go for a s
Soylent Green is people! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Soylent Green is people! (Score:5, Funny)
Soylent Green. It's who's for dinner.
Where meat is everywhere, it is nowhere? (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, because I know all my home appliances are controlled by the government. I get a Toaster Use Coupon every Tuesday in the mail so I can use the toaster 3 times a week between the hours of 4-6 PM. Thank god for the central authority.
I don't see what the problem is. If the meat tastes like meat and has roughly the same protein and calorie content but costs much less then this can only be a good thing, right? Maybe we won't need to raise millions of cows just for meat production and we can change some of the food crop over to something more useful like grains.
I just don't understand how being able to synthesize food in every home in America means there would suddenly be a shortage of non-synthesized food, strictly controlled by the government.
Re:Where meat is everywhere, it is nowhere? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see what the problem is. If the meat tastes like meat and has roughly the same protein and calorie content but costs much less then this can only be a good thing, right?
Because it won't taste like meat. It'll taste "something like meat, but not quite as good". Like soya-based 'meat' products. It'll taste just a little more mediocre, more bland, and more 'homogenised' than the real thing. You may not care, but many people already think modern packaged foods (and society in general) has become too bland, mediocre and homogenous, and this is just another step towards the ultimate bland, generic society. (Maybe. Maybe not. Probably.) Of course, the first generation to grow up on the stuff will just think that's normal.
I just don't understand how being able to synthesize food in every home in America means there would suddenly be a shortage of non-synthesized food
Because industrial agriculture requires economies of scale to work effectively. If the majority of people mostly eat synthesized food, modern large-scale agriculture will collapse. (Of course, it's debatable as to whether or not this is good or bad in itself, because industrial agriculture is not sustainable anyway.)
flavor (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell, I eat meat and I still prefer good veggie burgers to meat ones due to the lack of flavor in the vast majority of meat burgers and the amount of time it takes to make one. I can spend 20 minutes making the perfect Mex
Slashdot submitter comments are made of STUPID! (Score:5, Interesting)
Decentralized 'meat' production where there's no suffering involved, the risk of dangerous bacterial contamination from slaughterhouse processing is gone, the consumer has moer direct control over what antibiotics and hormones, if any, go into their meat is such an Orwellian idea.
Since when did it become required in
I'm curious (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I'm curious (Score:3, Insightful)
Calling someone a troll because you can't comprehend what they are t
Re:I'm curious (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm vegan, but I would argue that eating meat is natural (perhaps not ethical or healthy, but natural.) Eating factory farmed animals injected with chemicals is less natural.
therefore we have
why the distopia? (Score:5, Informative)
Jeez, lighten up. There are plenty of technologically-induced distopias to worry about. This one ranks near the bottom of the list. First of all, food is pretty much already controlled by a central authority (ADM anyone?). Besides, have you ever been inside an abattoir, or within 5 miles of an industrial hog farm? The idea of eating meat without killing cows (and mad cow disease!) seems pretty good to me.
If you absolutely must freak about technology, worry about what happens when your health insurance company can do genetic screening on you. The go watch GATTACA.
Sorry mate, no hard feelings, but... (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, like the horrid age of computers where people can't spell...
Wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
Unless you grow it yourself, this is already effectively the case, isn't it? If you're not making a deliberate effort to the contrary, the bulk of the food you eat is likely to come from large operations and national chains.
SPACE MEAT: Obligatory Invader Zim reference (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, it all started in 1962... Utilizing advances in modern food synthesis, scientists at NASA began work on a germ hostile space meat to be used into long expeditions in deep space! Only recently has their hard work paid off. As even more advances in the field of space meat have been made and applied to what is now known as operation meat. Seeing this as a way to end their streak of being sued by angry costumers poisoned by their burgers, the Mac Meaties corporation decided to try this miraculous space meat. Not having access to that technology, we make ours out of napkins.
Religious Implications (Score:5, Interesting)
I think the ideological implications are more interesting (fake bacon is one thing, but this...), but those aren't really of any concern on
-Erwos
Not necessarily death... (Score:3, Insightful)
They could just take a tissue sample by a biopsy. Then the "donor pork chop" wouldn't actually have to die.
Or would that still be too much harm?
Prior Art (Score:5, Funny)
Manwich (Score:3, Interesting)
yes the whole bass (Score:3, Funny)
Erm (Score:3)
And I thought Slashdot's unlimited, completely baseless paranoia had reached its pinnacle
Substantial Environmental Benefits (Score:4, Informative)
Farming converts vast tracts onto a monoculture completely replacing the natural environment. North America used to have vast amounts of grasslands and millions of Bison. Now the whole area is covered with farms and people are only dimly aware that there was ever anything else there before.
Most species are made extinct by habitat distruction and most habitat distruction is mostly caused by farming.
Re:Substantial Environmental Benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course.. we need to keep a substantial number of livestock animals alive in case of problems later on concrerning this meat
Re:Substantial Environmental Benefits (Score:3, Insightful)
You're just swapping one set of problems for another. If you are growing food in the lab, you now have to deal with contamination, you have to use aseptic procedures, disposable equipment, chemical sterlization agents etc. Unless what you really want to sell is a huge E. Coli or S. aureus or fungal colony...but anyone can do THAT...who wants to eat it tho? Ewww.
The mere fact that
Spandex jumpsuit future (Score:4, Insightful)
Geez. (Score:3, Informative)
I thought that was your sig.
I couldn't disagree more (Score:3, Insightful)
A lot of people have moral qualms about killing animals for food, and their numbers are growing. I think this growth may, ironically, be correlated with increasing urbanization: as fewer people are involved in the process of raising -- and butchering -- farm animals, there's less desensitization to it. Urbanites experience animals most often as pets, rather than as servants or foodstock. Of course, most of these people still eat meat -- but even that is a less visceral experience than it used to be, with undifferentiated meat prodcuts like hamburger and chicken "nuggets" making up a large portion of what's consumed. So, although it's become easier for the average person to avoid confronting the realities of the slaughterhouse, it makes more of an impact when they finally do.
I think these changes are all to the good. I'm not (yet) a vegetarian myself, but I gotta admit, I'm sympathetic. And if artificial meat makes the switch easier, I think that's wonderful.
There's an even deeper problem with (natural) meat, though -- one which I even believe could, in combination with the spread of vegetarianism, lead to its complete abandonment within the next century. The problem is the cost. Not simply the monetary cost, which is an imperfect reflection of the true cost; but the fact that meat is incredibly inefficient. You can feed grain to cattle, and then feed the cattle to people; or you can feed grain directly to people. Skipping the cattle step lets you feed several times as many people. The price of meat already reflects this, to some extent, and it's only going to go up. But one of the largely uncounted costs is deforestation, as more and more land is cleared to create grazing grounds for larger and larger herds. This is a major factor in the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, with very far-reaching consequences. We haven't paid much of that cost, yet -- but one way or another, we will. The sooner we can replace those herds with artificial meat, the less the blow will be.
What? No Invader Zim references? (Score:3, Interesting)
However, having grown up on a dairy and beef farm, there is nothing more satisfying than a good slab of heated cow flesh.
I'm an omnivore, have always been. I hate plants as well as animals.
There was a militant vegan in my office. Ignoring her leather shoes and so on, she used to scoff me for my lunch. Smirkingly and smarmingly eating a banana like she was -superior- to me. "You know. Cows are superior to Bananas." "Impossible!" "Sure. After I'm done eating -MY- lunch, -I- can wear the peel."
Unlike her, I've -seen- cows in person. I grew up on a farm. I -know- just how mind numbingly stupid cows are. I mean, they're nearly as dumb as your average member of $political_party. I mean, the cow's -ONLY- saving grace, is that they are tasty. (Mind you, I'm not of the faith that considers cows to be sacred.)
I eat steak, chicken, fish, you name it. If its the flesh of a formerly living creature, there's a good chance I'd consider it food. Make it as rare as safe. I want to -taste- the meat. Steak Sauce? Sure, but -only- if I really, really f'ed up the cooking. She? Strictly Vegan, has been most of her life.
I take practically no sick leave from work. If I'm out sick, people are surprised, and wonder about me when I return. Her? She was out sick constantly. Anyone so much as wrote 'Germs' on a post-it, and she had a three day cold.
I'd like to think that -maybe- my diet contributed to a more formidable immune system.
Additional Social Impact (Score:4, Interesting)
* Monkey Meat - People will no longer have the taboo associated with eat Chimm Chimm.
* Cannibals - Someone with phrack one of these units and take a human muscle sample (your own, a friend, a famous person, ect.) so they can indulge in eating human flesh.
* Faked Identities - take someone's DNA, grow it, and use it in an examine.
* Faked Deaths - take your own DNA, grow it, and put it into a house fire.
Re:Additional Social Impact (Score:3, Funny)
You are being Poisoned (Score:3, Insightful)
One of the worst ingredients that has found it's way into too much of the food supply is white processed sugar. One can of soft drink can contain up to 14 tablespoons of sugar in it. Sugar also has some light preservative qualities and tends to make everything taste better. In small quantities, sugar is mildly harmful. But at the rate that we ingest sugar, it is downright dangerous. Don't believe me? Next time you are at the grocery, pick up most prepared foods and look at the ingredients. You'll find that sugar or high fructose corn syrup is in nearly everything. It's a bit frightening especially since I had a personal health issue that no doctor could solve until I cut food with sugar out of my diet. Compounded with the medications that doctors tried to give me to cure my sinus infections, I continued to get more and more ill rather than get better. But once I stopped taking the antibiotics and the prevacid and dumped white sugar, white rice, white flour, corn syrup and honey ouf of my diet, my various illnesses went away. It's been about three years now and my health is better than ever.
So now I read this story about "space meat" and it makes me cringe. I can only imagine what kinds of horrible effects this artificial food stuff is going to have on some people. (remember even if one person gets sick because of a chemical reaction it's one person too many) I have this feeling that if this becomes standard "food" for anyone they will need a whole slew of drugs to combat various ill effects caused by this new toxin. I don't call that living, I call it chemical bondage. Why can't we just start to work on improving organic farming???
They're Made Out of Meat (Score:3, Informative)
Since when is dog meat hoof-grown?
Speaking of space meat, have you read Terry Bisson's excellent short story"They're Made Out of Meat"? [terrybisson.com]
"Remember, today is Soylent Yellow Day!"
Re:What is wrong with people? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Error, please redirect research funds elsewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure the market will grow slowly initially, but people had objections to microwaved food and irradiated spices originally too.
The tipping point will likely be when this can be made reasonably cheaper than "real" meat, combined with campaign
Re:Error, please redirect research funds elsewhere (Score:3, Insightful)
Probably, but I agree with you.
What I found really humorous was when McD's went from having "dark meat" chicken nuggets to all "white meat" chicken nuggets. At the time of the "dark meat" variety, you could usually count on the "odd shaped" ones to be "dark" (and more tender and flavourful - for a McD nugget, I guess), and the round ones to be "white". Today, all nuggets are "white" - odd-shaped ones and round
Re:Wonderful (Score:3, Insightful)
Ship it to the 3rd world and it will end up rotting in a warehouse while the people starve. The problem with the 3rd world is not a lack of being able to produce, it's a political one. The government's job in those countries is pretty much to rob the population blind, not help develop the country's infrastructure. I should know, I've lived there for 20 years.