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Underground > Laboratory >

What are we eating?

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

14:23 / 28.03.06

I'd read about this in the Biotech Century, but soon enough, you'll be able to grow your very own Meat[tm] brand meat.
vat-grown meat.

I thought eating less meat was a good idea - it uses way more land per person than we urbanites can afford - but maybe eating more meat grown in a petri dish has been the answer all along.

Mind you, vegetarians tend to eat a disproportiate amount of soy as a meat substitute, which isn't any healthier either.

What are the elegant solutions to the growing stress we place on our planet in order to feed ourselves now and beyond the apocalypse? vat-grown meat and what else?

--Not Jack

julius has no imagination

06:52 / 06.04.06

I quite like the idea of vat-grown meat, not to mention that some vegetarians (such as my sister), who miss eating meat, but don't want to eat dead animal, would probably eat this.

However, I'm not convinced this would actually take vastly less resources to produce. You've got to get the nutrient solution from somewhere, and just like actual meat, there'd be some loss in the growth process. Of course, you'd lose less energy than with growing a whole cow, where you're growing and then throwing away all the bones, brain, all the stuff nobody wants to eat. (Or the waste products are ground up and fed to cows again - oh joy, BSE.)

So as far as preventing famine goes, I don't think this is the solution. As far as I know, it would be quite possible to feed all the world with current technology, even if we still eat meat (though perhaps less than today). The problem is just economics, isn't it?

07:58 / 06.04.06

The main reason for starvation at the moment is debt. Every nation is deeply in debt. This is partly due to the nature of the money we use, it is created as a debt at interest to a bank, and the money to repay that interest is not created at the same time, and partly due to loans and other forms of assistance being siphoned off my corrupt officials or wasted on war. War is an almost inevitable consequence of the need to expand the economy in order to somehow create the wealth to pay off the ever accumulating interest on our debt.

There's no doubt that were this all consuming debt not present, and as long as cheap energy (oil) is available and the climate remains relatively stable, it would be relatively simple to feed everyone. Unfortunately cheap energy and a stable climate seem both to be things of the past. In the future more and more people will die because we can no longer maintain the populations we could in the past. The main problem will increasingly become over-population, a global lack of resources.

I'm sure it will eventually be cheaper to produce meat in this way than in nature, so we will use it. I don't think it will be that much cheaper though. As julius says, the nutrition must come from somewhere. I don't see it as a solution for any of our major problems.

By the way, why do you use a term like "apocalypse" to describe the very real and well known problems we human beings must come to terms with in the immediate future, not jack? To me it sounds fatalistic, and pretentious. Do you have a secret knowledge that remains hidden from the rest of us?

intrepidlytrite

10:23 / 06.04.06

Regarding soy and the way it's produced, We Feed The World is a great documentary showing where our food is actually coming from, what it takes to get it to where we are, and what it does to the local population in the course of this. Very enlightening, and a definite eye-opener for me.

So, with the information I gathered from that film, I don't think soy is the solution to everything, rather in the contrary. Petri dish meat sounds good to me.

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

02:17 / 07.04.06

apocalypse as in "revelation" "discovery" "disclosure"

consider it a global shift in our means of interacting with one another, as elene pointed out, our current economic system prevents us from sharing the bounty that we possess - enough for everyone.

maybe locking up food in the first place wasn't such a good idea.

--nj

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

02:19 / 07.04.06

by the by

you are all welcome to my share of the world's vat-grown meat.

bon appetit.

--nj

07:29 / 07.04.06

Vat-grown meat's a damn good idea. Let's face it the current methods of supplying protein to the world's population are inefficient and damaging to the environment.

The things that need to be considered if it is to replace conventional protein sources is:

1) Cost: In terms of material and construction, the process needs to cost at least the same as current agricultural methods of protein production. People go for the cheaper option generally, so vat-grown would need to be able to compete with conventional protein sources economically.

2) Availability: Although the developing company will hold patents on the process, the technology would need to be widely disseminated in order to properly replace the worldwide food-animal industry. Initially it would be a massive effort to convince beef farmers in South America (for instance) to abandon their cattle herds and re-train to work in vatmeat production facilities.

The only way to replace the current industry is to assimilate it. That way you don't have the massed resistance to change under the banner of "taking our livelihoods".

More as I think of them.

Good thread Not Jack.

10:39 / 07.04.06

Initially it would be a massive effort to convince beef farmers in South America (for instance) to abandon their cattle herds and re-train to work in vatmeat production facilities.

What other consequences are there of this sort of retraining/re-use of land and resources? I have to say my knee-jerk reaction is a rather nostalgic and probably reactionary pastoral-type desire to protect the skills and, well, just the outdoorsiness of the beef farmers' way of life, and a disinclination to see them all shunted into big windowless factories. Now, I'm sure that's complete nonsense, based on a total lack of understanding of the way that meat farming and/or vatmeat production facilities work - but what are the actual likely consequences, both in terms of land use and in terms of people's lives, skills, working practices, relationship to global capitalism, etc?

11:36 / 07.04.06

I can totally see your point Deva. But the unfortunate problem is that beef farming, as it is now, is an intensive and extremely inefficient way of supplying protein for the human population. The damage that it causes on both a local and global level is not inconsiderable either.

I'm not necessarily suggesting an end to food-animal farming. But realistic alternatives to it should really be researched, and implemented, as part of an ongoing attempt to correct environmental damage. Stocks of beef cattle, etc, should be maintained. But at a much reduced level.

11:52 / 07.04.06

Evil Scientist, I find it a bit strange that you use beef and protein source interchangeably. There already are plenty of protein sources that are more efficient to farm than cows, not to mention more ethical but most people choose not to eat them because they like the taste of meat.

I would like to think that even meat-lovers would have to admit that it is ethically better to eat vat-grown meat than the real thing, assuming it tastes the same. In fact I find it a little disturbing that efficiency and the farmers' way of life are the first things that come to mind when considering a process that could prevent the needless killing of countless animals.

ONLY NICE THINGS

12:39 / 07.04.06

Well, either way, I think we can say with confidence that the amount of beef currently being produced is a bad thing - it takes a lot of space to raise a cow. So, if we're talking about the best way to provide a source of protein, vatmeat, because it presumably demands less space, less energy to produce and less time to raise than non-vatmeat beef, is presumably a more pragmatic alternative, and also a less cruel one, because the foodstuff is not produced at the cost of an animal's life.

However. I confess that for me the point at which you start growing beef in a petri dish in order to avoid the logistical, environmental and ethical issues of raising cattle for food is the point at which you really need to start thinking about alternative sources of protein. Is there really such a compelling case for eating any kind of meat, regardless of its provenance, or, if the intention is to provide protein, are there sources of protein that recommend themselves better?

13:33 / 07.04.06

Evil Scientist, I find it a bit strange that you use beef and protein source interchangeably. There already are plenty of protein sources that are more efficient to farm than cows, not to mention more ethical but most people choose not to eat them because they like the taste of meat.

Well, beef was the first food-animal that sprang to mind. It's one of the most common protein sources (alongside things like chicken and fish, etc). I also agree that there are other protein sources that could be used to replace meat.

In fact I find it a little disturbing that efficiency and the farmers' way of life are the first things that come to mind when considering a process that could prevent the needless killing of countless animals.

Well, efficiency and preventing environmental damage are my own personal priorities for the main protein source being changed. You've contributed to the animal rights threads over in Lab so you're aware that I'm not exactly fazed by the thought of an animal dying to feed me. But it's certainly a handy benefit for them.

Is there really such a compelling case for eating any kind of meat, regardless of its provenance, or, if the intention is to provide protein, are there sources of protein that recommend themselves better?

The general argument used to be that non-animal protein sources didn't provide some of the essential amino acids that humans need. However that's recently been shown to be untrue. The primary argument for including meat in a diet is that you need to eat less of it to be provided with your essential amino acids.

But I am uncertain as to whether that automatically means much more land would have to be given over to intensive farming to provide non-meat protein resources enough to supply the current demand (helluva lot of vegetarians in India and they seem to do okay with land). Is anyone else aware of other reasons given for continuing a meat-inclusive diet?

14:18 / 07.04.06

Is anyone else aware of other reasons given for continuing a meat-inclusive diet?

To spite Morrissey?

I don’t want to derail this thread into veggie propaganda (and not meaning to sound snarky in case it came across that way before), but I should think that the millions of vegetarians conspicuously not dying of a lack of amino acids would be evidence that vegetable sources of protein are perfectly adequate. And that doesn’t mean living on soya, nor does it mean eating kilos of lentils at a sitting to get enough protein.

Plenty of land is already being used to grow the crops to feed the cows, so even if we didn’t clear any more ground, just feeding the crops that are already being grown to people in the first place would already be a big step in the right direction. But I don’t know actual numbers on this sort of thing.

But maybe there is a broader question here. What if all food (animal, vegetable and mineral) could be produced in a lab? Would it be a good thing to free us from dependence on the weather and environmental catastrophes? Is it any more unnatural than half the things we do in the modern world? Why fly a kite when you can pop a pill?

Fritz K Driftwood

18:32 / 07.04.06

Bit of thread rot....

Not Jack, I hate to break it to you but Animal 57 has been available for at least a decade. "They" are growing it right now aboard the International Space Station. Everytime you go to a Taco Bell and get a "beef" taco, that "beef" is Animal 57. From what I am told, Animal 57 is formed in the shape of a cube for easier processing.

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

22:08 / 07.04.06

I'll have my animal57 with soylent green on the side.

I think that turning over a greater amount of urban space, including balconies and rooftops to agricultural use would be a step in the right direction.

i imagine the vat-process to be something like rennet in cheesemaking. It's not taken directly from its source (calves' stomachs, I believe), but from a maintained bacterial culture. Like sourdough.

since vat-grown is so unpalatable, how 'bout "sourmeats."

--nj

17:19 / 10.04.06

Is there a good reason why this tech/ethics thread isn't in the Lab?

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

19:32 / 10.04.06

not a good reason, grant, no...

=a malnourished brain=

feel free to shuffle it down the line.

--nj

09:42 / 11.04.06

Ahh, the good old Animal57 urban legend. I had forgotten about that one.

Assuming it were true though, would there be an ethical issue with eating Animal57? Effectively it been so heavily modified that it's nothing more than a form of tissue culture.

I want to know what happened to Animals 01 through 56? Which ones got the adamantium?

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

15:29 / 11.04.06

interesting point...

when is what we eat no longer really food? I think a trip to the local groceteria speaks for itself. Aside from the produce aisle, there is very little that is necessarily food. Lots of packages of processed edibles, but the overwhelming majority of items are sugar-salt-fat.

I suggest that much of what we eat isn't food, in terms of basic nutrients for the body, but are drugs (or at least consumed as drugs).

sugar, for example. Despite any nutritional benefits we may derive from refined sugar, it's a powerful stimulant, and the majority of the nutrients have been drained off to make molasses.

The difference between a factory farmed piece of meat and an organic/free-range/unmedicated piece of meat are very different in the end. We consume the stress of stressed out livestock, as well as hormones, antibiotics, etc...

so, what exactly do we get, besides the nutrients, from vat-grown meat-culture? What else is altered about the culture, and what interference on our part is necessary to keep it "edible?" Meat growing outside of its natural environment (ie a living body) is something new. But is it still food?

-nj

20:00 / 12.04.06

It's got to be theoretically possible to make food that's an exact simulation of what grows naturally (and what we've spent an eternity learning to extract nutriment from), but in the mean time we're going to be missing things and getting malnourished. It's monumental hubris to assume that we know what everything in the food we eat does for us. The sad fact is that the experimentation will take place on the poor, who will be kindly fed with the new bounty that science brings.

The best thing we can do is insist that the luxury food that we eat (and by that I mean meat, exotic produce, and modern, highly pallettable products) make minimum impact on the environment and reflect the true, long-term cost of production. It's a development of the last thirty years to expect to eat meat every day, and now everyone expects to eat chicken breast and sirloin steak every time without eating the rest of the animal. It's this kind of behaviour that means that vat-meat is an appealing prospect for producers. In a way, I think the kind of people who assume that meat arrived in a polystyrene tray in a fridge by magic might be happier that way. Frankly, give me sausages, chicken wings, calf's liver, lamb shanks and braising steak. They're the interesting bits.

10:24 / 13.04.06

The difference between a factory farmed piece of meat and an organic/free-range/unmedicated piece of meat are very different in the end. We consume the stress of stressed out livestock, as well as hormones, antibiotics, etc...

True. However the assumption should not necessarily be made that vatmeat would automatically be the same as factory-farm sourced meat. In fact, being as it would be tissue culture, it would be even less stressed than "organically" raised meat animals. A free-range animal will still experience stress depending on how it is killed. It is still capable of experiencing stress in it's life.

The arguement that organic foods are more nutritious than comercially produced foods does not necessarily apply here. Organic farming emphasises soil nutrition to a far greater deal than regular farming techniques. But vatmeat isn't created by farming methods of any kind, so obviously soil quality doesn't really apply.

so, what exactly do we get, besides the nutrients, from vat-grown meat-culture? What else is altered about the culture, and what interference on our part is necessary to keep it "edible?" Meat growing outside of its natural environment (ie a living body) is something new. But is it still food?

It is likely, however, that initial versions of vatmeat would have their growth encouraged using hormones, and that they would have to be protected from bacterial contaminants by antibiotic additives. So, from a food health perspective, it would be very similar to factory farmed meat (albeit with less stress toxins theoretically).

I will point out that you can do without both of these additives in a large-scale biofermenter if you like.

I would presume that there would also be concerns about adding genetically-modified food into the human diet. Although currently there is little evidence for there being any detrimental effects of consuming GM food that doesn't mean there aren't any. Large-scale studies would have to be undertaken before the food was okayed for use. A big concern with GM foods is a possible potential to trigger unsuspected allergic reactions.

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

16:01 / 13.04.06

concerns with GM:

1) viral vectors are used to insert genetic material
2) the cell's defenses are undermined to allow foreign genetic material into the cell
3) it's a very very very young procedure, and we have no clue what the potential side effects are (so much for the seven generations, eh?)

point 3) stands for vat-grown meat. We don't know enough about it, and it's still very young.

and shouldn't we be eating *less* meat instead of finding new sources for it???

--notorious jailbird

17:35 / 13.04.06

Why? While under present conditions you might be right, but if we found a way of producing meat without ethical or use-of-resource problems why should we reduce our meat consumption? That is of course assuming you're talking about meat as part of a healthy diet.

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

18:45 / 13.04.06

in terms of strain on our agricultural resources.

we have more people living in cities than outside of them, and land is at a premium. It takes longer to raise a cow to slaughter than to raise a field of vegetables. It takes more energy to feed the cow than it would to feed people with the equivalent resources.

we eat (North Americans anyway) way more meat in a serving than is healthy. The staple of MEAT and potatoes isn't what our digestives systems are designed for (else we'd likely have carnassial teeth like carnivores). Meat at every sitting. Meat as the main part of the meal. Meat as a snack in between meals.

too much too much too much. (I'm ignoring the ethical question here and just looking at the health issue).

I lived in Japan for a couple of years, and any serving of meat/fish there consists of thin strips. Not even close to as much as we eat.

why should we eat less? the same reason we should drive less. We can't sustain it, so why try with vat-grown technology?

--nearly jaded

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

18:49 / 13.04.06

sorry Mr Phox,
I don't think I answered your question very well.

but I'm wondering. If in our current environment, cutting down on meat consumption is a good idea for a host of health reasons. If we do this, what need do we have for vat-grown meat?

the only reason we're pursuing vat-grown meat is to feed our already disproportionate consumption. If we limit our meat intake, we don't need vat-grown meat.

--next joker

23:00 / 13.04.06

If we limit our meat intake, we don't need vat-grown meat.

If we limit our meat intake and switch to vatmeat then we don't need to kill animals for food.

It takes longer to raise a cow to slaughter than to raise a field of vegetables. It takes more energy to feed the cow than it would to feed people with the equivalent resources.

Depends how you do it. Factory farming doesn't.

Each cow contains much more energy (calorifically speaking) than a field of vegetables. The energy was gathered by consuming grass (in an "organic" farming situation). In fact the waste produced by cattle returns nutrients to the soil.

I agree entirely that the amount of meat consumed by human society (or rather Western society) needs to be reduced. I also agree that vatmeat isn't necessarily the auto-solution to our problems. However, our species is omnivorous, and meat is an efficient source of nutrition for us. I'm not convinced that moving utterly to a vegetarian lifestyle would be environmentally any better to do.

18:30 / 15.04.06

Britain now 'eating the planet'

BBC news report warns that The UK is about to run out of its own natural resources and become dependent on supplies from abroad, a report says.

It warns if annual global consumption levels matched the UK's, it would take 3.1 Earths to meet the demand.

20:24 / 17.04.06

Kelp farms making use of the sea to supplement our vatmeat.

Yummy!

Can you wait? I know I can't.