this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2024
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As a thinking experiment, let us consider that on the 1st of January of 2025 it is announced that an advance making possible growing any kind of animal tissue in laboratory conditions as been achieved and that it is possible to scale it in order to achieve industrial grade production level.

There is no limit on which animal tissues can be grown, so, any species is achieveable, only being needed a small cell sample from an animal to start production, and the cultivated tissues are safe for consumption.

There won't be any perceiveable price change to the end consummer, as the growing is a complex and labour intensive process, requiring specialized equipments and personnel.

Would you change to this new diet option?

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[–] Openopenopenopen 61 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

In a heartbeat. Although I’d prefer meat alternatives to lab grown meat. Like impossible burgers.

I don’t eat a ton of meat, and I’d like to eat even less. this option would help me feel like I’m not making animals suffer just so I can survive.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago (9 children)

There's tons of plant based proteins already. Having already added more vegan meals to my diet I think this would just be another option for me and one more for novelty than anything else

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago (4 children)
[–] Thekingoflorda 21 points 1 week ago

Rimworld player found

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

For clarification, human meat or humane?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The answer I was hoping for!

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 week ago (4 children)

You really thought I'd eat inhumanly sourced meat?

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[–] baronvonj 6 points 1 week ago

Negative. It is a meat popsicle.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 1 week ago

Definitely. I see no downsides.

I don't eat very much meat as it is. But if I could drastically reduce the suffering inflicted when I do I would not hesitate.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 week ago

As long at it wasn't even more destructive than normal cultivation (very much tbd), absolutely.

I had no qualms about switching to Beyond Meat either.

If we could figure out how to make a decent ribeye out of peas and seed oils, I'd prefer that to lab-grown too.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago

I'll move to it in a second. Protein with no need to slaughter animals would be so fantastic for the animals, the earth, and people.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I don't really care about lab grown meat. Haven't eaten meat for years, don't really miss it that much since the plant based alternatives have gotten so good.

Give me lab grown dairy.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Reminder that the meat you buy at the grocery store is as also as human modified as it gets and NOTHING like the wild game that our ancestors ate or even the farm animals from 100 years ago. The animal itself is probably GMO, spends its entire life in a steel cage standing in its own shit and piss and is given specialized processed feed to optimize how much meat it produces (or just has a tube down its throat so we don't have to worry about it eating fast enough). Not to mention tons of antibiotics that are given to the animal just to ensure it survives the hell we put them through which definitely makes it into the meat and therefore into you as well. And they're slaughtered and butchered by underpaid overworked factory workers who have to balance fulfilling brutal quotas with carefully extracting the meat and not getting it contaminated with shit from the animal's guts or the myriad other disgusting things around the meat that you wouldn't want to eat (you can guess how well that usually goes).

Animal cells (without the animal itself and also no central nervous system to experience suffering) growing in a clean, well controlled lab in tanks of sterile cell media doesn't sound so bad in comparison.

Additional reminder that nearly all of the worst infectious diseases in history have been caused partially or completely by animal agriculture: the plague, spanish flu, smallpox, whooping cough, swine flu, bird flu, covid, etc. So if you're worried about the long term health implications of lab grown meat, you should be ten times more worried about long term the health implications of regular meat, to the point where you should be worried even if you don't eat meat.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 week ago

once it’s affordable, yeah almost immediately i reckon. i already go for plant based meats whenever i can find them for a reasonable price!

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (3 children)

protein isn't the issue, it's all the bio-available vitamins and healthy fats that have already been converted.

if it's a 1 for 1 replacement, depending on how we deal with the massive and now useless animal populations, I would totally switch.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Yes, absolutely. No risk of virus or bacteria, or worse...

Grown to the size you want...

Of the shape and type you want...

No fat (maybe?)....

What's not to like.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago (2 children)

What kinda idiot would want no fat?

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sup. No need to keep doing it the old way at that point.

Hell, you could have boneless meat, so it's even better.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (2 children)

But the bones are how you make banging soups....

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[–] bruhduh 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

hell yeah. soon as its not way more expensive than normal meat, i'm down. your proposed technology also sounds like it should mean lab grown replacement organs with zero chance of rejection, which would be amazing.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Impossible Burgers already exist and are fucking delicious.

But, sure, if I can have pastrami or corned beef again without requiring a cow experience a life full of torment, emit a cow's lifetime of methane, or have any of that happen where a forest should instead have been left untouched, I'd try it!

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

How does it taste?
How much does it cost?
What’s the true environmental impact?

If it’s the same, less and less, sure I’d be all for it.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Its the only way I would eat meat again. But don't think it will ever become a normal part of my diet again. The plant-based meat options are just as good and are healthier. They will only get better too.

[–] bblkargonaut 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

As long as it scaled to reasonably the same price as current meat, I'd absolutely do it unless there were some significant downsides like it somehow being even worse for the environment.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago

This ^

If it's better for the environment and doesn't involve the industrial scale poor treatment and wanton slaughter of animals, AND it tastes just as good, I'd be on-board instantly. Even with a premium price hike for consistency.

Roll on quality facon, wagu beeef, and octo-chi k en drumsticks.

I do think that flora missed a trick with vegan, fake meats though...

"I can't believe it's not bacon/ burger/ chicken" they would have slaughtered that ad campaign

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

You haven't mentioned if there are any ethical concerns with this new meat; e.g. environmental cost of the production process, what kind of human labour is required to create it, who is providing that labour and under what conditions are they working.

Provided I had no ethical concerns with it, sure, but a lot of modern innovations tend to have these issues and I assume lab-grown meat would have these issues too.

Edit: Also, I'm opposed to animal captivity, so if there's an ongoing need to collect samples from captive livestock then no, I wouldn't. If it's a "collect it once then it keeps reproducing from the lab samples forever" type of thing then sure.

[–] johannesvanderwhales 7 points 1 week ago

If it were indistinguishable from other meat sources, and priced similarly (preferably less!), then of course. I expect it will take a very long time to get to that point, though.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago

Kind of depends on if it's good, tbh.

If it's just mediocre, I might try and work it in some meals where I'd use lower quality meat (e.g. sauces, sausage, burgers, etc). Then I'd just get a good real steak from a local ranch a few times a year to scratch that itch.

If the difference is not really perceivable or better, then hell yeah. Easy choice. I might even venture into other meats that I wouldn't eat otherwise like lamb, dog, horse, or even human.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

I would be wildly optimistic, but very cautious.

I'd want to see multi-year randomized control trials comparing the bioavailability of not only protein, but also vitamins and minerals from the synthetic meat and liver, to natural meat and liver.

Assuming the RCTs show no issues, then I would happily move over.

Modern meat products are on a spectrum as well, it's not just having the meat, it's what the meat ate before it became me that's important. Grass-fed, versus grain fed for beef. Insect, and protein for chickens, grain fed for chickens etc. antibiotics, hormones being supplemented into the feed to improve yields.

One massive problem the industry globally suffers from is overpromising. Just like multivitamins, which are very poorly bioavailable, and mostly peed out, they promise a lot but don't deliver much.

Factors I would look for:

  • can somebody sustain life eating only the synthetic meat for multiple years?
  • oxidative stress, and oxidation in the synthetic food?
  • The temptation to engineer sugar, and carbohydrates, directly into the meat to increase sales yields.

Green sustainability:

  • can the synthetic meat be produced globally?
  • Will poor farmers in the middle of nowhere be improved or hurt by this? Will they have access to the synthetic meat?
  • in the event global logistics fail, like an a war, will moving over to synthetic meat severely hurt critical infrastructure and ability to feed populations?
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (12 children)

If it was healthy, affordable, and tasty, then yes.

If it isn't all three, then Veganism can continue to go fuck itself.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 days ago

Veganism is already healthy, affordable, and tasty. Ever heard of a bean? And only doing the ethical thing when it is also the easiest thing to do is just extreme egotism. I'm not saying anyone has to be a saint, but they should at least put more consideration into their actions than "How does this affect me personally?"

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Only if I could put my own DNA in it so I could eat my own ass

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

The only thing I'd wait for is for the process to be refined enough to be more eco friendly than just eating real meat. I'd do it, but until there's proof of it being more sustainable and won't tank my blood thin/thickness levels (blood thinners sometimes suck), I would be down to try it at the very least.

Though I would receive resistance in changing my diet until either my dad changes his eating habits or I move out on my own because my dad absolutely refuses things like plant based meats, so I know he'd most likely resist lab grown meat as well. It's also hard for my mom and I to switch to a healthier dinner diet since both my dad and older brother wouldn't dare change their diets to something like a Mediterranean or some other healthier because they can be picky eaters (especially my older brother).

[–] Psythik 5 points 1 week ago

Yes, of course. I'll be among the first in line to try it. Anything to reduce our dependence on livestock is a good idea in my book. It would save me the trouble of having to go vegan. Plus I bet guilt-free meat tastes so much better.

[–] njm1314 5 points 1 week ago

If I could afford it yeah of course

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago

Absolutely. I'll take grown meat over slaughtered. Last i heard they basically just need to make the equipment cheaper to have it be viable. I'm awaiting it.

The day it's on the shelf is the day I'll buy it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (10 children)

I would sooner argue for eating insects vs. lab-grown protein made by a corporation. I have no trust for corporations to produce safe and emergent solutions to the problems we face as a species and world. They have no incentive to do the right thing and put the brakes on when things are looking bad.

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