What's behind the lab grown meat craze?

[Rafael Lao Wai]

I've not see anything indicating that Peat has any relevant expertise in climate science. I don't see a reason to treat him as an authority on this matter. (I don't go to climate scientists for info about reproductive hormones or dietary PUFAs or human physiology in general, either.)

And I haven't seen anything indicating that you need to be an "expert" in climate science to understand it.

Now here is something that I would like you to explain: you go for the experts when it comes the "pandemic" or climate change, looking for the consensus, and saying that anybody who doesn't agree with the consensus isn't serious or is in denial. Ray Peat didn't learn about the harmful effects of radiation/ PUFA/ estrogen/ serotonin/ neo- darwinism/ genetic determinism in college. It's quite an exception to be against these. Why do you think Ray is right about all those things I enumerated above? It certainly isn't the consensus, and people who have become experts following similar formal training as Ray believe that soybean oil is great for you, and that radiation is harmless. Where do you draw the line? How can Ray be on the polar opposite to the consensus in nutrition/ biology and be right? Is that not proof that the education that experts receive can be totally wrong? Or are you going to start consuming soybean oil now, saying that it is the consensus that something like PUFAs couldn't be bad?

 

[sweetpeat]

Just to be clear, 11kg (and 38kg) per person per year.

Yep, I got that.

11000g/365 is close to 30 g or just over 1 oz per person per day, if my maths is correct.

I was using the 38kg number in my figures. Just trying to get a realistic feel (if that's possible) for the amount of available animal protein.

World population. I think the estimates for vegetarians worldwide (including India) are of the order of half to one billion out of nearly 8 billion? So even if it were just the meat-eaters, it wouldn't increase all that much. Some populations are more selective about which animals they eat (eg some avoid pork, others avoid beef).

Discounting a billion vegetarians/vegans would bring it up to over 4 oz, and we still haven't included seafood. Babies and pre-schoolers would have less protein needs as well. And from what I've read, there is a lot of food wasted that ends up in land fills and some of that would be meat, but I'm not sure if that's statistically significant to this discussion.

I guess my point is that things can look more dire or less dire (if they're dire at all) depending on the data used.
Based on this discussion, it doesn't look like the lab grown meat craze is being driven by an actual lack of natural meat, although there may be a perceived lack.

 

[LA]

What is the purpose of broccoli?

It tastes good and I cannot ever eat starch so I add other things

 

[achillea]

There are too many people on the Earth for everyone to be eating beef and lamb every day. The land, water and atmosphere can't support it.
Beef is so cheap because the producers, consumers and middle-agents are not paying for the externalities, and in some places are being subsidised (grain subsidies for feeding industrial animal farming).
The externalities include the effect on the environment, including the atmosphere and climate, as well as water quality etc, deforestation, etc, depending on where and how it's grown.

I am not arguing for large scale cellular 'meats'.
There are limits to how much real meat one can eat without exceeding one's share on a finite planet.

James Ranch Goes Beyond regenerative

 

[Mito]

Bill Gates: America’s Top Farmland Owner | The Land Report

The co-founder of Microsoft and his wife make an auspicious debut on the 2020 LAND REPORT 100, as America’s largest private farmland owners.

landreport.com

 

[jondoeuk]

The whole point of this project has nothing to do with vegan but with the treatment and slaughter of animals. There are a great many people who don't eat meat because they are against killing sentient creatures. The lab meat thing can, possibly, provide a meat supply without the need to kill any creatures if, of course, it can be scaled up.

Also, it (lab grown) isn't as resource-intensive.

 

[Giraffe]

Also, it (lab grown) isn't as resource-intensive.

You need a lot of water, heating and electricity. You need hormones, antibiotics, nutrients (carbs, lipids, amino acids, vitamins) ... Have you read the articles I have linked?

When farmers understand their farms as ecosystems, they do not need that many ressources. Gabe Brown (no-till farming) is one of those who have figured it out how to do farming in a way that restores our most precious resource: the soil. Forrest farming, permaculture, holistic management agriculture... Lots of approaches that work with nature.

With lab grown meat you would replace an industrialised way of food production with one that is even more degenerated.

 

[Ritchie]

IF the meat produced in labs is bio-identical (meaning there is no difference between the meat produced in labs and the meat from a killed cow for example), and companies and tech can find a way to produce lab grown meat at an affordable price, with sustainable energy resources, then this would be a massive game changer. It would solve the environmental/land impact of animal agriculture, it would solve the issue of animal cruelty and animal suffering in factory farming and modern high production meat demand (and noone apart from a fringe really want to harm and cause animal suffering if they don't need to). It could also solve the supply and demand issue with meat globally. These factors alone should make it clear why lab grown meat is a large area of interest because IN THEORY it's brilliant.
Granted, there may be pragmatic reasons in the tech and production that these listed reasons cannot be achieved, however that is yet to be seen. For the time being it is being developed, researched and experimented with.

 

[lampofred]

It's not that different from lab produced thyroid if you think about it. If your cells can use it and it spares animals' lives then why not? But I am confused about the part of needing to use serum from fetal calves to produce it, which is the part that makes me think this might not be about protecting animals, more about poisoning everyone?

Unless you can extract that without aborting the calf.

 

[Ritchie]

It's not that different from lab produced thyroid if you think about it. If your cells can use it and it spares animals' lives then why not? But I am confused about the part of needing to use serum from fetal calves to produce it, which is the part that makes me think this might not be about protecting animals, more about poisoning everyone?

Unless you can extract that without aborting the calf.

It's more than just your cells being able to use it. The idea is that lab grown meat is literally bio-identical. So a lab grown steak will look the same, taste the same, smell the same, cook the same, have the same nutritional properties, literally be the same.. Except grown in a lab instead of cutting it out of a cow. Same with lab grown leather and so forth.

From what I understand they can take sample of cells out of one cow, for example, with maybe a small incision, then use this over and over to make as much meat as needed.

 

[LA]

James Ranch Goes Beyond regenerative

Thanks for the link. This is the historical way of raising food especially for those of us with ancestors, in the last 6 to 8 generations, who were born and lived in areas high in hills with long winters, on islands in the Baltic sea or other places in the world with short growing seasons if any.

 

[Giraffe]

The use of fetal bovine serum: Ethical or scientific problem?

To culture cells in vitro, culture medium is added to the cells for nurture. Usually, the medium contains fetal bovine serum (FBS) as FBS contains basic components, such as hormones and growth factors.

Origin of bovine fetuses
The bovine fetuses from which blood is drawn for (commercial) FBS production are obtained from pregnant cows which are sent to slaughter for reasons such as crippling lameness, or when slaughtering herds of extensively kept beef cattle.

Harvesting fetal blood
Bovine fetal blood is commonly harvested by cardiac puncture, because it minimizes the danger of serum contaminations with micro-organisms from the fetus itself, and its environment. The procedure requires specially trained staff. Fetuses should be at least 3 months old; otherwise the heart is too small for puncture. [...] The calf is removed quickly from the uterus and the umbilical cord is tied off, the fetus is cleaned from amniotic fluid, and is disinfected.

A cardiac puncture is performed by inserting a needle between the ribs directly into the heart of the unanaesthesised fetus and blood is extracted under vacuum into a sterile blood collection bag via a tube.

The amount of serum that is obtained depends on the size of the fetus, and thus on its age. As a rough estimate, about 50 % of serum remains after clotting. A bovine fetus of 3 months yields about 150 ml of raw FBS, at 6 months 350 ml and at 9 months (near-term) 550 ml. The global production per year of raw FBS is estimated to be around 500,000 litres (8-11). Hence, the number of bovine fetuses harvested annually should be greater than 1,000,000. A number of 2,000,000 has been mentioned (8).

Since the fetus is expected to be alive during blood collection, its possible suffering is considered. The described procedure may cause pain in the fetus, thus raising ethical questions.

 

[BRMarshall]

What is behind it?....basically evil!
Economically the cow was the backbone of the family farm and national solvency.
Remember wealth is prior to money!

 

[gaze]

View: https://youtu.be/sGG-A80Tl5g

 

[gabys225]

Sacred Cow

The Case for Meat: Nutrition, Sustainability, Ethics.

www.sacredcow.info

 

[Giraffe]

View: https://youtu.be/sGG-A80Tl5g

Thank you for posting the video. It helps to answer the question that made me want to look into the lab grown meat stuff in the first place: Why can't the soils support lab grown meat on a major scale? I heard a farmer saying this. (discussed here)

 

[Rafael Lao Wai]

View: https://youtu.be/sGG-A80Tl5g

Cool video!

 

[tara]

Economically the cow was the backbone of the family farm and national solvency.
Remember wealth is prior to money!

Remember the environment is the wealth that sustains the economy.
Used to be there were cows grazing on family farms, often rotated with and fertilising other crops, in numbers that did not threaten threaten forests, soil, water and climate. That's different from massive feedlots, and the vast numbers now.

 

[BRMarshall]

Remember the environment is the wealth that sustains the economy.
Used to be there were cows grazing on family farms, often rotated with and fertilising other crops, in numbers that did not threaten threaten forests, soil, water and climate. That's different from massive feedlots, and the vast numbers now.

yes I agree....but these folks want to destroy all cattle, except a few boutique farms for the billionaires....

 

[tara]

but these folks

Do they? Have they said that, or are you surmising?
Maybe some of them are aiming at more sustainable use of resources, in the interests of having a habitable planet in decades/centuries to come.