Dutch try to grow enviro-friendly meat in lab (Vegan approved?)

[seriousstan]

Source: Reuters

UTRECHT, The Netherlands (Reuters) - Dutch researchers are trying to grow pork meat in a laboratory with the goal of feeding millions without the need to raise and slaughter animals.

"We're trying to make meat without having to kill animals," Bernard Roelen, a veterinary science professor at Utrecht University, said in an interview.

Although it is in its early stages, the idea is to replace harvesting meat from livestock with a process that eliminates the need for animal feed, transport, land use and the methane expelled by animals, which all hurt the environment, he said.

"Keeping animals just to eat them is in fact not so good for the environment," said Roelen. "Animals need to grow, and animals produce many things that you do not eat."



Read more: http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USL3051670020070601

---

The reason I post this is we had a discussion at work about whether this would be acceptable "vegan meat". Much like stem cell research, no animals would have to be harmed after the initial culture. No cages, no death.

Of course that is putting aside the fact that I would never put this crap in my mouth because the idea of lab made meat revolts me. I will opt out for the real deal.

[THUNDER HANDS]

1. the only problem with that lab-grown pork meat

it tastes like chicken.

[Ayesha]

2. I might eat it

I am a vegetarian, but would consider eating this. It would be GREAT as a food source for my dogs and cat, who need meat to be healthy - I buy them meat but wish it didn't have to be that way.

I hope they are successful!

[PittPoliSci]

3. soilent pork?

[srulifsonmiles]

23. brilliant

[PittPoliSci]

38. thank you, thankyouverymuch!

:hi:

[srulifsonmiles]

52. you are so welcome

at last intelligence

it's life jim, but not as we know it

:shrug:

[Posteritatis]

4. I'll give it a shot. (nt)

[Warren Stupidity]

5. It simply seems yucky

An entirely emotional reaction. I eat soy based meat substitutes all the time, but somehow this just seems wrong.

[cobalt1999]

8. How does it seem wrong?

cells are cells.

Meat cells vs. plant cells. Both grow and reproduce. If the meat cells can be grown in a crockpot without killing anything, how can it be wrong?

[Warren Stupidity]

14. I said it is an emotional reaction, not a rational one.

My reaction is simply "yuck, testtube meat".

[AndreaCG]

6. I'm very surprised the Dutch are doing this

The EU is adamantly against genetically modified crops. How is this different?

Veg News, a vegan magazine, had an article about this a few issues ago. Most of the readers said they would not eat it. I probably wouldn't either, but am not certain. I think it's the process more than the morality. I really don't know if it would be safe or cost efficient.

[anotherdrew]

11. how is it different than GM crops? no contamination of natural wild crops for one n/t

and BTW, the GM genes are leaking into the wild, as we speak. Most likely we'll all pay a dear price for that foolishness in the not to distant future.

but petri-meat seems like a good idea

[Duer 157099]

16. Petri-Meat! Priceless

And when it's finished growing, it's already in a nifty burger shape!

I don't see a problem with this. Yet. But I have to think about it.

I know that labs are trying to grow muscle cells in vitro, for transplantation (eg, for muscular dystrophy patients). So why not? Just seems like it might be expensive, though.

[anotherdrew]

25. another good thing about this - it'll make the the "white male power structure's" heads spin

imagine, eating meat without killing anything (except for a group of millions of microscopic cells) "what kinda dominion is that?" they'll say. I'd guess we're 10 years away from them growing anything that would taste 'good' or 'realistic' but maybe sooner.

The range of possible flavors should expand with this technology...

[Buns_of_Fire]

36. No problem -- a petri dish is about the same size as a clay pigeon

Just load up a bunch of 'em in the clay-pigeon-launcher-thingie,* let fly and let 'em blast the hell out of it. Then, just pick up what was shot and slap it straight on the barbie. No muss, no fuss, everyone's happy (except that poor guy who broke three teeth on the petri dish shards and birdshot).

*SKEET SHOOTING -- yeah, that's the term I was trying to think of!

[youngdem]

32. It's different because they aren't gonna set any free tube meat to mate with wild pigs

(snicker....tube meat)

[whopis01]

58. that's just wrong...

But I do give you kudos for using the phrase tube meat while talking about mating, yet not actually meaning 'that type' of tube meat...

[Zuiderelle]

65. I'm not. Have you been to Holland? Pigs everywhere.

It's a real problem.

[usrbs]

7. I've been a vegetarian for 8 years and still crave meat,

so, yes, I'd eat it.

[Ilsa]

33. That's interesting. Like me, I guess you were raised on meat.

I've been a veg for only two years, and most of the time the thought of eating certain meats makes me ill, as does the smell of alot of it. But recently I've had a couple of cravings -- the coating of fried chicken and barbeque beef. I haven't wanted any pork or ground meat.

[Codeine]

9. I've been a vegan for nearly twenty years

and I'd eat it; I'd eat the hell out of it. No harm, no foul -- and lab-grown "Frankenstein-y" stuff doesn't phase me.

[Posteritatis]

10. "eat the hell out of it" is my favorite phrase for today. (nt)

[anotherdrew]

26. a bobism...

Famous "Bob" quotes

* "Don't just eat that hamburger, eat the HELL out of it!"
* "You know how dumb the average person is? Well, by definition, half of 'em are even dumber than THAT."

http://www.subgenius.com/pam1/pamphlet_p1.html

[WillParkinson]

29. Ermm....

Shouldn't that be, "No harm, no fowl"?

[Codeine]

41. You slay me, sir. :D nt

[unpossibles]

12. I don't really crave meat, but I think it's a good idea

although I think it's personally amusing on several levels.

I don't eat a lot of faux meat, but I have noticed some of my very carnivorous Friends grossed out by the very idea of soy protein or wheat gluten, so I doubt they'd eat this for similar reasons: they would see it as too artificial.

I also find it amusing that the idea is even being presented, even though I think it is brilliant for health, animal rights, and for environmental reasons. I guess to me the easier solution would be for people to cut back on their meat consumption for similar results, but I also don't necessarily expect that to happen either.

So I would try it out of curiosity although part of the reason I first gave up meat is that it just got to me eventually from working with it daily. It grossed me out and I lost the craving for it.

Like I said, I think it's a good idea for the earlier mentioned reasons, plus could potentially be safer (parasites, disease, etc), and would likely reduce a huge environmental impact that the factory farms currently have. On the other hand, it is still obviously much more processed than just eating a diet with more produce and fresh foods in it.

Finally, the cynical sci-fi fan in me wonders about the 'soylent green' aspect - how do we know it's really lab grown SynthMeat, and not really... who knows what? Roadkill? Immigrants?? Dissidents?!? SOY?!?!!?

Maybe it's really some evil plot cooked up by the Soy Cartel that I'm always hearing about to get people to eat more beans....
:yoiks: :scared: :tinfoilhat:

[dave_p]

13. My meat craving passed

... but otherwise I'd certainly give it a try too. Like the guy said, there's not much natural to most "real" meat nowadays either. I still like my substitutes, but they're replacements for what was mostly flavored offal in the first place.

[Warren Stupidity]

15. They are excuses for buns and condiments.

I actually do not have a craving for meat either. I like to grill stuff though, and I like the style of burgers and dogs with lots of sides and lots of stuff to pile on them.

[Codeine]

19. Warren's got the right of it.

A burger is a condiment delivery system.

[dave_p]

27. Sausages are herb delivery systerms

... and pies are largely gravy-bulking systems. Yep, most of the things we "substitite" for were just adulterated veggie dishes to begin with. We're just restoring them to their true form.

[Stuckinthebush]

35. Mine too....all but for Slim Jim's

I know, I know....as my wife says, "Slim Jim's? GROSS!"

What can I say? My vegetarian heart still yearns for a Slim Jim.

[gravity]

17. If it taste good, I'll eat it

[Beartracks]

18. GROW meat? We've already done that...

It's called Spam. :silly:

[Name removed]

20. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Codeine]

21. What the fuck?

You're saying it's more respectful to eat dead animal meat than lab-grown meat?

And as for fat? Sorry buddy, I'm fit, trim, and vegan.

[srulifsonmiles]

22. I'm sure you are, so cute

"Fit and vegan", oh what a Cosmo answer.

Care to eat dogs? They're lean too.

Get real, what do you think a laboratory is? Bio-engineered throwbacks! (and please research)

Like some more mutants in your food, fit and vegan?

What's more important your 'fit'ness or eating from the bottom of a long black tube? Please get some perspective. THIS IS NOT ABOUT YOU!

Maybe it is about dogs in Korea. But it is not about you.

[Codeine]

24. What?

Are you high? That string of nonsense mystifies -- what's this about dogs in Korea? Bio-engineered throwbacks? Mutants?

[srulifsonmiles]

46. apparently just well read

[nodehopper]

30. seconded--are you high?

[srulifsonmiles]

47. repeat just well informed

enjoy eating your stretched mystoblasts, mmmmm

(and on soon to be on sale at walmart, can't beat that)

[originalpckelly]

44. To narrow this down a little, what are you high on?

[srulifsonmiles]

49. um, knowledge

[Matsubara]

55. Dude, there are a lot of meat-eaters here who won't eat that lab crap...

...but you're just plain incoherent.

Since you're so "well-read", maybe you should take a break from all the books and learn how to converse with living, breathing human beings.

[conscious evolution]

63. Didn't you get the word

You are NOT supposed to eat the brown knowledge!

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

69. Is that what they're calling it these days?

We used to call it "paint thinner."

[Javaman]

68. Provide a link to some info...

and perhaps we will take you more seriously, until then you are just spouting off.

[Ian David]

28. I look forward to having my own veal tree in my back yard.

And maybe a lobster patch as well.

[flvegan]

31. I wouldn't eat it.

From what I can see of it, it looks like a good alternative to raising animals for slaughter, so I'm not against it, per se. Personally, though, I wouldn't eat it as it's not vegan, and it's still crappy for your health.

Veganism isn't always about harm. It's part of it. Many are vegan for health reasons. Besides, it's still critter, feedlot or lab in creation.

[govegan]

34. The depravity of the human race never ceases to astound!

Can there be anything more useless? more depraved? more perverted?

At least the environmental impact of growing flesh to torture and masticate is mentioned, but only in a tongue in cheek, incidental sort of way.

Folks who like to call themselves civilized have long been in denial of the huge environmental impact their little mouthfulls of flesh have on the planetary ecosystems. It is so much easier to wring hands and fret and moan about those infernal combustion engines. That can so ease the mind and once again make one feel good about one's bad habits. After all, a cow is a cow is a burger or a steak.

Our society is very skilled at engineering dependence on the medical/pharmaceutical/industrial/military complex. Just think of the new drugs that could be designed to stave off the decaying of the human flesh after a little lab flesh.

Or . . . .

Human Health and Planet Health—Same Solution

An amazingly simple win-win opportunity stares us in the face: a global
switch to a plant-food-based diet will solve the diseases of overnutrition
and put a big dent in global warming with one U-turn—since the up-to-now
insatiable appetite for foodstuffs made from livestock (cows, sheep, pigs,
and chickens) are at the root of both disasters.

The human health crisis is pandemic with more than 1.1 billion people overweight
and 312 million obese, 197 million have diabetes, and 1 billion have
hypertension. One final and fatal result of these three chronic diseases is
18 million people die of heart disease annually. You would think by now
world leaders would have launched serious measures to reverse all this human
suffering by attacking the primary cause—eating meat and dairy products. from Dr. John McDougall's January newsletter

Don't take my word for it, read the report. It can be found at: http://www.virtualcentre.org/en/frame.htm

Read commentary here: http://www.harmonyearth.net/id110.htm

In Al Gore's 2006 Inconvenient Truth, there was not a single mention of the vast amount of environmental destruction that is being caused by the raising of the world's livestock. Yet, in November, just a few months after his movie was winning rave reviews for being so environmentally sound, the Food & Agricultural Organization of the United Nations released a report entitled Livestock's Long Shadow. After reading the Executive Summary of this 400-page report, this is how I summarized its findings as it relates to global warming, only one of the categories of environmental damage being caused by the livestock industry worldwide:

The worldwide raising of agriculture causes considerably more global warming, and other environmental problems, than all of the cars, trucks, buses, trains, ships and airplanes in the world.

Now, why do you suppose that this little tidbit was never mentioned on a single network's evening news? The report went on to say, and I quote verbatim:

"The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.
The findings of this report suggest that it should be a major policy focus when dealing with problems of land degradation, climate change and air pollution, water shortage and water pollution, and loss of biodiversity.
Livestock’s contribution to environmental problems is on a massive scale and its potential contribution to their solution is equally large.
The impact is so significant that it needs to be addressed with urgency.
Major reductions in impact could be achieved at reasonable cost."


:think:

[knitter4democracy]

37. Yeah, that's so great for the family farm.

Granted, most Americans don't buy from local family farms, but we should. Smaller family farms are better, and the meat is better. Pork prices are low enough, and the meat these days tastes awful in comparison to how it used to taste (the pork we raised when I was growing up tasted better--even with my stepmom doing what she could to ruin it).

[Codeine]

40. This probably won't appeal to your average carnivore,

however -- so it shouldn't really impact the normal channels of meat production, either the family farm or the factory farm. I see this as providing an alternative for people with ethical concerns about killing animals for food but who find it difficult to leave meat-eating behind, or vegetarians who'd like to eat a bit of guilt-free meat now and then. It could also have applications in the space-flight community.

[WindRavenX]

39. The Earth cannot support the amount of meat consummation as is, so this may help alleviate...

...the severe environmental crisis associated with such a high worldwide demand for meat.

I don't eat much meat, but when I do, I pay out the ass for humanely treated meat and eggs, so I don't know if I would buy this product.

But it sounds like there is potential here.

[MonkeyFunk]

42. I have never

consummated my pork. That's a vicious rumor.

[Codeine]

43. "Squeel like a pig! Sgueeeel! Squeeeell!" nt

[WindRavenX]

45. goddamn you spellchecker!

::shakes fists in anger::

And super--the edit period expired :lol:

Oh, :hi: to you MF--haven't been around much lately, but I always enjoy your posts!

[srulifsonmiles]

48. here's the recipe, stretched mystoblasts

mmm

maybe just maybe the porkers of the world could eat less? like as a society? like this one, ours, the most obese biological group to have ever appeared on the planet

===> oh yeah, where's the fetal calf serum coming from? <===

(read the link http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/europe/article1292346.ece )

and if you don't get the toilet paper bit, please go back to high school

:tinfoilhat: need one now

[Name removed]

53. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[govegan]

50. The stroke of good fortune -- how appropriate

“Right now we raise about 40 billion animals for food,” says Mr Matheny. “It does seem that in vitro meat is a better solution for getting our protein. We can solve all of these problems at one stroke.”

The whole human race about to have one massive stroke!! Indeed...check the ticker lately?

How does an average civilized glutton recognize protein? Is it buried beneath the ancient sands of Persia? beneath the Arabian Sea? If it clogged his royal rectum, if he could locate it, with both hands, would he recognize it?

Vladimir Mironov, a tissue engineer at the University of South Carolina, believes that mass production of cultured meat represents the next step in food production. “I believe it is inescapable,” he told The Los Angeles Times recently.

One couldn't make this stuff up!
:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

So if the meat is cultured, where comes the culture to the consumer?

:puffpiece:

"And in Ceylon I saw them slice blue fish,
fish of a pure yellow amber,
fish shining violet, phosphorescent skin.
I saw them sold, sliced while still alive,
and every living slice quivered
like royal treasure in the hand,
throbbing, bleeding along the blade
of the pale mercenary knife,
as if it wished still in its agony
to spill out liquid fire and rubies." -- Pablo Neruda from The Dishes on the Table

:donut:

[srulifsonmiles]

51. and where does the fetal calf serum come from?

see the recipe! (same board, separate post)

want some premarin in your cocktail?

mmm, stretched mystoblasts; maybe we need to lose about 3b folk anyway

ya know mom doesn't want you muckin with her, pay attention!

or educate yourselves... or both!

fetal calf serum... give me a break! anymore 'holistic' nightmares you wish to propagate?

[whopis01]

59. myoblasts, not mystoblasts. n/t

[karlrschneider]

54. When they come up with a T-bone steak that looks, smells & tastes like the real thing

I'll buy a truckload of 'em.
:D

[Phinitum]

56. And maybe they'll have us buying the whole farm

The "Yuck" response isn't just an emotional reaction, it is a message built from intelligence and information that you weren't aware you had (and in a lot of cases nobody else could have detected it either). There's a reason you don't like the smell of crap.

Do you really expect that the efforts to get down under the current $10,000 per kilo price and the lack of a structure or texture aren't going to involve significant changes to the nutrients in the 'product'? And where are the success stories from diets made up of artificial ingredients manufactured to what is assumed to be our nutritional requirements? They can't even manage to produce a pain killer without lethal side effects. Leaving aside the possibility that this will be a new breeding ground for a novel dangerous virus there are still plenty of chances for this to seriously depopulate the world. Oh wait, maybe we ARE for it.

I appreciate the ethical concerns of those who feel released to eat meat if nobody was killed to produce it. But how about waiting to learn just what the impact is of producing the feed-stocks going into those meat factories, and what has to be done to handle the waste products. Don't expect to see any great reduction in the ugly ratio between the amount of food going into the production of meat and the food value of the meat. Feedlots and poultry cages have reduced the losses to metabolism hugely, you can avoid the cruelty but not the waste. Our destruction of the environment could be greatly lessened if we weren't compelled to produce massive amounts of food to produce a relatively little animal protein, and to dump the animal wastes wherever we can't smell it.

[karlrschneider]

57. Uh, welcome to DU, I think. But I have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.

...?

[Phinitum]

62. The subject is lab-grown meat

You'll notice many of the posters mention their "Yuck" response, but dismiss it as emotional. I suggest there is more to it.

And I really can't see how you could have read the subject article and not understand the objections I raise. Disagree, sure! But first read the article then report what isn't clear to you still.

[GirlinContempt]

60. Capt Kirk ate his fucking synthesized meat, and he fucking liked it.

If it's good enough for The Shat, it's damn well good enough for you.

[LeftyMom]

61. Oh. Hell. No.

[cannabis_flower]

64. When I told my Republican coworker about this ....

He said "I would only eat it if it was spotted owl." I thought about it a bit. He was being funny, but this would allow people to eat all kind of endangered species without actually killing any of them. Whooping Crane, manatee, whale. Anything would be fair game if it could be duplicated in the lab.

[EnviroBat]

66. I have to wonder...

If this is "meat" in the current sense of the definition, don't they have to provide it with a metabolic support system to consider it a living substance and to make it thrive and grow? I would think it would require some oxygenated blood source to provide it with nutrients and such. At that point what do you call this substance? "Meatus-Loafus-Non-Descriptious"? I mean we grow vegetables to harvest for food all of the time, and those are definitely living things. So I don't know that I could eat some substance such as this if they aren't able to define if is a living substance vs. "Semi-Organic Goo". I would be nice to not have to kill animals for food, I think animals are treated horribly, and if they are to be sacrificed to end up between some McDonald's buns, they should be given a decent and abusive-free existence until the end. But synthetic meat? My head hurts...

[Javaman]

67. MeatFU (tofu) is Soylent Green!!!

pretty damn close anyway.

[Sapere aude]

70. Well I think that the idea that people are vegan because of eating meat harms animals is not too

popular among vegans. I am a vegetarian because of health reasons not because of animal slaughter.

[Megahurtz]

71. BLACH! That's Just Gross.

:puke: