Lab-Grown Burgers: The Future?

[Synobun]

Article

“The patty will be much like a regular quarter-pounder — but with one big difference: This one will be created by growing bovine stem cells in a vat, transforming them into thousands of thin layers of beef muscle cells, mincing them into tiny pieces, then combining the bits with lab-grown animal fat to form a lump of meat the size of a golf ball,” MSNBC reports.

I like this news. Right now, it's not all that great but I'm sure with 5-10 more years of dedicated investment in this project, we could conceivably be seeing vat burgers in restaurants and fast food joints.

I've always wanted a time where herding massive amounts of creatures just to slaughter them was no longer a requirement, and you could get a safe equivalent via secure vats. It seems this will become the future, and I like it.

What are your thoughts on it, OT? Would you eat a lab-grown burger? If not, why?

(@mods: I originally was going to post this in Sci&Tech, but I decided that OT would be the best place as the application of this is mostly social and consumerism)

 

[Hitro]

I hope the will be tested on North American consumers first, given the higher degree of resistance towards those things in Europe and elsewhere.

If it turns out to be alright, then cool. It would mean the eradication of various species of animals made to serve humans, eco-radicals often overlook that, but that is fair with me. No more suffering for any kind of living being, still decent burgers, what would be wrong about that?

 

[sophie]

I don't like this because I feel like once it happens I'm going to go the purist route and say the meat still doesn't taste the same, although I do like this in that it would probably make ground beef generally much healthier (considering the kind of crapshoot it is these days, in that ground meats like sausages and patties are the ones you absolutely cannot afford to undercook), and, hopefully, with less risk of food poisoning.

 

[Synobun]

I don't like this because I feel like once it happens I'm going to go the purist route and say the meat still doesn't taste the same, although I do like this in that it would probably make ground beef generally much healthier (considering the kind of crapshoot it is these days, in that ground meats like sausages and patties are the ones you absolutely cannot afford to undercook), and, hopefully, with less risk of food poisoning.

The only difference is that with a vat burger, you don't slaughter an animal. If your meat only tastes good if you know the creature got slaughtered because of it, well... I'll leave it at that.

 

[bombshoo]

I'm all for it if possible. I imagine it will still be quite different though. Beef is an agricultural product and it will take a lot to give it all the fine nuances that the real product has. It is not just the slaughter of the animal (which if anything is usually a place where beef gets worse tasting), it's what the animal ate, drank, how it was raised, etc. Geography matters a lot as well. It would be mind-numbingly complicated to try to copy a particular type of beef.

 

[sophie]

I'm all for it if possible. I imagine it will still be quite different though. Beef is an agricultural product and it will take a lot to give it all the fine nuances that the real product has. It is not just the slaughter of the animal (which if anything is usually a place where beef gets worse tasting), it's what the animal ate, drank, how it was raised, etc. Geography matters a lot as well. It would be mind-numbingly complicated to try to copy a particular type of beef.

This. There's a reason people ask for a grass-fed rather than a corn fed cow.

 

[_random_]

I'm all for it if possible. I imagine it will still be quite different though. Beef is an agricultural product and it will take a lot to give it all the fine nuances that the real product has. It is not just the slaughter of the animal (which if anything is usually a place where beef gets worse tasting), it's what the animal ate, drank, how it was raised, etc. Geography matters a lot as well. It would be mind-numbingly complicated to try to copy a particular type of beef.

I could see it working reasonably well for fast food. Once you get to around Five Guys-level and up, the quality dissonance would become pretty apparent. I think I'd be fine with a lab-grown Whopper, but I'd like my ribeye to come from an actual grass-fed longhorn steer that lived a happy life and died a horrible death, ideally in my presence.

 

[Synobun]

I could see it working reasonably well for fast food. Once you get to around Five Guys-level and up, the quality dissonance would become pretty apparent. I think I'd be fine with a lab-grown Whopper, but I'd like my ribeye to come from an actual grass-fed longhorn steer that lived a happy life and died a horrible death, ideally in my presence.

:/ Is there any particular reason that you actually WANT to see a creature die a terrible death in front of your eyes or is it just your personality?

 

[GoodGame]

After they were able to make it on an economical scale, I bet it'd take them even longer to get the taste right. Interesting science though.

I don't think this will replace bovine agriculture, only supplement it.

 

[Glassfan]

Once they begin producing such a product, the FDA will regulate it and free market forces will come into play.

Such product will be disease-free - no H1N1 (ecoli) infection - so you can safely have a "rare" hamburger. It will probably come in a range of flavors (Angus?) and prices. It could be contolled for proteins, vitamins, minerals, calories and anti-oxidents.

And once there's a market and an industry, it'll probably be a lot cheaper than free-range beef.

 

[Oerdin]

I doubt this will be cost competitive with the old fashioned way of just killing a cow.

 

[LegionSteve]

I guess I have nothing against making food in this way. It wouldn't stop people killing cows though, unless we are also going to get rid of dairy farming. As I understand it you only need one bull for your dairy herd (any farmers here please correct me if I'm wrong). So what happens to all the other bullocks that are born? Farmers aren't going to keep them around and look after them until they die of old age. And if they are going to be killed anyway it would be terrible to waste all that meat.

 

[Synobun]

I guess I have nothing against making food in this way. It wouldn't stop people killing cows though, unless we are also going to get rid of dairy farming. As I understand it you only need one bull for your dairy herd (any farmers here please correct me if I'm wrong). So what happens to all the other bullocks that are born? Farmers aren't going to keep them around and look after them until they die of old age. And if they are going to be killed anyway it would be terrible to waste all that meat.

The idea is that this will take off a huge load for the future when it comes to the point that we have meat shortages. I don't think at any point live meat will be fully replaced as you yourself mentioned dairy farms and such, but the need for so many cow farms will be much lower while maintaining the same amount of meat.

 

[Glassfan]

I doubt this will be cost competitive with the old fashioned way of just killing a cow.

The most expensive part of range cattle agriculture is Land for the herds. $Thousands$ per acre, thousands or millions of acres. The Beef vats on the other hand can be processed in a small manufacturing facility.

 

[Synobun]

The most expensive part of range cattle agriculture is Land for the herds. $Thousands$ per acre, thousands or millions of acres. The Beef vats on the other hand can be processed in a small manufacturing facility.

This. The amount of land that this would free up would be magnificent for more farmland and reduce methane output by all the cows. We need more research like this in sectors of technology that will drastically improve our specie's well being.

 

[aronnax]

I don't like this because I feel like once it happens I'm going to go the purist route and say the meat still doesn't taste the same, although I do like this in that it would probably make ground beef generally much healthier (considering the kind of crapshoot it is these days, in that ground meats like sausages and patties are the ones you absolutely cannot afford to undercook), and, hopefully, with less risk of food poisoning.

A couple of months back we had a thread about artificially engineered diamonds which are chemically indistinct from natural diamonds. I asked a couple of girls about it and they all want the more expensive but 'natural' diamond even though an artificial one is not any less of a diamond.

So I'm not going to be 'such a girl about it' and just eat the genetically engineered beef, if it is cheaper.

 

[Oerdin]

The most expensive part of range cattle agriculture is Land for the herds. $Thousands$ per acre, thousands or millions of acres. The Beef vats on the other hand can be processed in a small manufacturing facility.

I'm saying the manufacturing process and cost of inputs is going to be much less efficient then the rate in which a old fashioned cow grows meat.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

I would eat it, if they can get the taste right. I eat meat now, and I don't think that makes me a bad person, but I am still aware that there are ethical and environmental issues that are raised by the meat industry, and if we can just avoid them entirely, that's great.

 

[Glassfan]

I'm saying the manufacturing process and cost of inputs is going to be much less efficient then the rate in which a old fashioned cow grows meat.

I recognize what you're saying Oerdin. But the principle cost to vat-beef is the research to perfect it. Once that's done, it will be a cheap industrial process, inexpensively reproducible all over the word - water and soy I'm guessing. Meanwhile vast tracts of land will be freed-up for other uses.

 

[warpus]

Yeah, if they can get this stuff to look, feel, and taste like real meat, I'm all for it, assuming that the environmental impact is less severe than what we are doing to acquire meat now.