Lab grown meat approved for use in the UK

EricTheWeary

WYNIR0 said:

Assuming that the requisite safety tests are completed I'd be perfectly happy to eat lab grown meat. Ethically and ecologically I see it as a very good thing indeed.

One question I have yet to get a clear answer to. Can Vegetarians and Vegans eat Lab grown meat?

You need live cells to begin with so I'd say it isn't vegan.


The article is talking primarily about pet food. As quite a bit of that is slurry anyway (mushed up connective tissue, mechanically reprocessed meat,etc) I'm not entirely sure that lab grown slurry is going to be any worse. 
Meat for pets is arguably a significant environmental issue, although because so much of what is fed to pets is bits not eaten by humans I don't know if that's quite how it works. If you drastically reduced human consumption of meat but didn't reduce the number of cats and dogs then lab grown meat would look like more of a necessity I guess. 

monquixote

EricTheWeary said:

WYNIR0 said:

Assuming that the requisite safety tests are completed I'd be perfectly happy to eat lab grown meat. Ethically and ecologically I see it as a very good thing indeed.

One question I have yet to get a clear answer to. Can Vegetarians and Vegans eat Lab grown meat?

You need live cells to begin with so I'd say it isn't vegan.


The article is talking primarily about pet food. As quite a bit of that is slurry anyway (mushed up connective tissue, mechanically reprocessed meat,etc) I'm not entirely sure that lab grown slurry is going to be any worse. 
Meat for pets is arguably a significant environmental issue, although because so much of what is fed to pets is bits not eaten by humans I don't know if that's quite how it works. If you drastically reduced human consumption of meat but didn't reduce the number of cats and dogs then lab grown meat would look like more of a necessity I guess. 

Think this is an important point. 

People might be thinking about the difference between a lovely grass fed steak and horrible science meat, but the first uses for this technology will likely be to replace ready meals and burgers which currently are full of ground up bones, connective tissue, blood and other horrible stuff and of course pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics as well as being mixed with emulsifiers and gelling agents. I'd rather have lab grown meat that something like that.

Benm39

Watching "You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment" on Netflix firmly convinced me of the need to return to a mostly vegan diet. Much healthier for you and the planet,  and the insights into the reality of intensive farming are truly shocking and enough to put you off ever wanting to eat meat,  fish and chicken again unless you know the exact provenance. 

ESBlonde

The monster question we should be asking relates to people. The world population is huge and mainly poor (by our western standards). They all want to improve their lot and give their families better food, housing, white good, cars etc. as their standards rise the drain on resource is stretched. Who are we to tell them they can’t eat meat twice a week now they can afford it?

The moral point only applies to the few middle income westerners. The rich don’t care and will eat whatever they want and the poor are poor.

GoFish

TTony said:

GoFish said:

Yes, but there's a difference between new knowledge and extravagant claims. No one was out there claiming that asbestos would prolong life or anything. Though they were prescribing ciggies for kids and claiming 7 up was better than breastmilk for newborns. It was a wild time out there, in the past.

We'll all live pretty much all of our lives in the past.

Well that how we've done it so far. But I live in the present and hope to start living in the future imminently - until I no longer live, that is.

Adey

What we really need is, instead of eating artificial meat, 25% of the world population should become cannibals.

This will solve the food problem, reduce the ridiculously high population, slash the collective world's carbon footprint and provide a market for new and novel cookbooks.

GoFish

Adey said:

What we really need is, instead of eating artificial meat, 25% of the world population should become cannibals.

This will solve the food problem, reduce the ridiculously high population, slash the collective world's carbon footprint and provide a market for new and novel cookbooks.

That's a modest proposal.

Adey

I think it's a sure fire winner.

sinbaadi

Adey said:

What we really need is, instead of eating artificial meat, 25% of the world population should become cannibals.

This will solve the food problem, reduce the ridiculously high population, slash the collective world's carbon footprint and provide a market for new and novel cookbooks.

Might not help with the potential impending population crash though. 

Adey

It will absolutely help with a population crash I think you'll find....

Hoof

Too many people, not enough food. We all know the solution. Trouble is, nobody wants to BE the solution.

ICBM

TheMarlin said:

I won’t even eat Quorn (bleached mould grown in a chemical slurry), not a chance in hell I’ll ever eat that fake lab grown meat. 

I’ve been a Vegetarian for over 40 years.  

I’m seriously allergic to Quorn. I doubt I would be to artificially produced meat, if it’s genetically identical to the real thing, and I would eat it if it tasted good.

It is an interesting question for those who are vegetarian or vegan for moral reasons - is meat which has never been an animal acceptable? If, or if not, why? (Genuinely curious.)

We really do need to drastically reduce the amount of livestock farming - especially beef - worldwide, so even an initial step in that direction is a good thing in my opinion.

CavemanGrogg

And no of my dogs will get within a hundred yards of this shit, yet alone be fed it.

ICBM

It does surprise me how many people will happily eat food crammed full of chemical additives, but run scared from eating - or even feeding their pets with - something far more natural in terms of its actual constituents.

digitalscream

CavemanGrogg said:

And no of my dogs will get within a hundred yards of this shit, yet alone be fed it.

It's an odd one, now that I think about it.

I'd eat lab grown meat (subject to being convinced that safeguards were in place throughout the production process), but I wouldn't feed it to my dogs.

Mainly because if I became ill as a result, I'd be able to communicate that something's wrong. My dogs wouldn't.

CavemanGrogg

ICBM said:

It does surprise me how many people will happily eat food crammed full of chemical additives, but run scared from eating - or even feeding their pets with - something far more natural in terms of its actual constituents.

Have you seen the documentaries ''Resident Evil'', and what happened to the dogs in it?  I sure as hell don't want that happening to any of my dogs, even Hamish, well especially Hamish - we're still not too sure if he like us yet.

crunchman

Would the lab grown meat have all the nutrients?

Vitamin B12 is made by micro-organisms in a cow's gut.  If the meat is just lab grown muscle cells, will it contain the same amount of vitamin B12.  Will that meat have the mineral content of a cow fed on grass?

digitalscream

ICBM said:

TheMarlin said:

I won’t even eat Quorn (bleached mould grown in a chemical slurry), not a chance in hell I’ll ever eat that fake lab grown meat. 

I’ve been a Vegetarian for over 40 years.  

I’m seriously allergic to Quorn. I doubt I would be to artificially produced meat, if it’s genetically identical to the real thing, and I would eat it if it tasted good.

Me too. I've never felt so close to death as the time I decided to try the wife's Quorn chili. It's quite hilarious, though, the fact that she's the vegetarian and we have to spend more time protecting my food from being contaminated with hers than the other way round.

I'm totally cool with trying artificially-grown meat - and, while there are concerns about the extinction of livestock, that can't actually be allowed to happen since (as far as I'm aware) we'd still need the genetic templates from a healthy population of donors for production to be sustainable.

I haven't seen any calculations on it, but I'd imagine that the massively reduced livestock population would also mean freeing up an awful lot of land for housing, renewable energy production or even (shock, horror) crops.

VimFuego

so, this lab meat, have they said what animals it will be mimicing? I mean, I guess they'll do the obvious suspects; pork, beef, chicken etc. But will there be more, um, exotic flavours available? It's just my usual source of, um, exotica, in Royston Vasey is getting oversubscribed. 

BillDL

I have some pressing questions:

1. Will the "Red Tractor Logo" for traceability and assured good standards be replaced by the "Green Test Tube" logo and allow us to track the product right back to the laboratory source where the food product was manufactured?

2. Will they be substituting the bones in these fake steaks with Tusq, Newbone, or similar composite materials?

3. When all the cows, sheep, pigs, llamas, ostriches, yaks, water buffalo, etc are gone from the fields, how quickly will those fields be repolulated by high density housing?