Vat grown meat vegan steak anyone?

[Callie]

Tissue culture is fairly common place in many labs actually. Although not with steak cells

Many viruses are identified by their effects on cells grown in culture

Cell culture is however a very tricky business, cells dont always like to grow (although most tumour cells love it!), they need very specific requirements and cultures are very easily contaminated and therefore become useless.

If you wanted to grow a steak surely you would need cow cells? I dont think vegans/vegetarians would like that

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Tissue culture is fairly common place in many labs actually. Although not with steak cells

Many viruses are identified by their effects on cells grown in culture

Cell culture is however a very tricky business, cells dont always like to grow (although most tumour cells love it!), they need very specific requirements and cultures are very easily contaminated and therefore become useless.

If you wanted to grow a steak surely you would need cow cells? I dont think vegans/vegetarians would like that

Don't you just need the DNA, which you could get from cow spit?

 

[Callie]

Yeah you could do it that way. Introduce the cow DNA but then you need to work out how to get the cell to differentiate into steak rather than say oxtail and you'd need a suitable host cell (which would would end up keeping some of the DNA for I think). You could make a dolly chop while youre at it probably

If youre gonna start messing with genes its gonna be ever more difficult. To do it on a commercial scale and make any profit is not going to be an option imo.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Yeah you could do it that way. Introduce the cow DNA but then you need to work out how to get the cell to differentiate into steak rather than say oxtail and you'd need a suitable host cell (which would would end up keeping some of the DNA for I think). You could make a dolly chop while youre at it probably

If youre gonna start messing with genes its gonna be ever more difficult. To do it on a commercial scale and make any profit is not going to be an option imo.

If they can grow an afghan hound from a cell, like they just did, they should be able to grow a nice Porterhouse steak.

 

[Callie]

Yeah but if it takes them 20 years to get it right I bet it'd be one expensive steak

 

[tobyjug]

I suspect vat grown meat would taste like shit.

 

[D]

I wonder if they'll be able to grow it in the shape of a steak, or if it will just look like a big, undifferentiated, cancer-ball.

Oh, how that made me laugh!

 

[subversplat]

I wonder if they'll be able to grow it in the shape of a steak, or if it will just look like a big, undifferentiated, cancer-ball.

Apparently current technology means they can make "highly processed" meats like chicken nuggets or economy burgers. Err, yay . Those sorts of things have already been pretty well covered by meat substitutes anyway.

 

[Col_Buendia]

Off topic but there's something I can't get my head around. Monsanto make weedkillers. How does that tie in with their involvement with GM? I'm sure it's really simple and I'm just missing the point

Err, I think it's dead simple. Their weedkiller affects lots of plants, not just weeds. They want to genetically engineer weedkiller-resistant tomatoes (for example) so that they can then sell 5 times as much weedkiller to each farmer, cover the earth with a deluge of Roundup, kill every single growing thing except their GM matotes and hey presto... errr everything costs more and the environment has been permanently fucked. But they'll make a buck or two before the ship goes down, mark my word...

 

[billy_bob]

If it turned out exactly like an 'ordinary' steak, why would anyone have a problem with it? Who finds test tube babies disgusting?

Personally I wouldn't touch it, but that's because everything about meat makes me feel nauseous, not just the cruelty to animals thing.

 

[Roadkill]

a big, undifferentiated, cancer-ball.

Such a delightful image.

 

[Callie]

If it turned out exactly like an 'ordinary' steak, why would anyone have a problem with it? Who finds test tube babies disgusting?

Erm I think a few people have problems with test tube babies. They probbaly don't find them disgusting though because they arent planning to eat them

 

[billy_bob]

Erm I think a few people have problems with test tube babies.

Is the problem with artificially-induced steaks a moral one then?

 

[Louloubelle]

scientists are already breeding animals with more meat, shorter legs, etc through selective breeding, all they need to do is to keep going until you get an animal that has no legs and a tiny head and is 90% rump steak.

simple

 

[tobyjug]

Is the problem with artificially-induced steaks a moral one then?

Not with me, they would taste like shit, is the problem I have with the idea.

 

[Roadkill]

scientists are already breeding animals with more meat, shorter legs, etc through selective breeding, all they need to do is to keep going until you get an animal that has no legs and a tiny head and is 90% rump steak.

This is true.

Intensively farmed chickens are bred to be much heavier and have much larger thighs and breasts than 'normal chickens.' They also contain a pint of fat and minimal protein, cannot walk properly and therefore spend most of their lives sitting in their own shit, and the meat is tasteless and poor quality.

Rather than fucking about with 'artificial' meat and intensively farmed rubbish, we'd be much better off if all of us reduced our meat intake and ate only good-quality, organically-farmed, free-range stuff. Much healthier, tastier and in the long run cheaper. IMO.

 

[Callie]

Is the problem with artificially-induced steaks a moral one then?

It could well be - youd have to ask someone who has a problem with it

 

[billy_bob]

Not with me, they would taste like shit, is the problem I have with the idea.

How do you know?

 

[iROBOT]

according to the indy. scientists are playing around with the idea of vat grown meat the stable of science fiction novels.
basically you take meat cells and grow them in a petri dish its a bit more complex than that but you get the idea.
hey presto veggie meat.
apart from annoying vegans and upsetting the animal rights types I can't really see the point behind this but crack on

have you missed the whole point of being a veggie or vegan? It's not in opposition to anyone eating meat but the suffering it causes in producing that meat.

Therefore the communities that you think will be anti it will probably be well up for it.

 

[Callie]

Not if the reason for being veggie/vegan is because they just don't like meat. Also just because animals arent directly killed to produce this product it doesnt mean that the whole process will be 'meat free' and therefore suitable for veggie/vagen consumers

 

[bluestreak]

well, it's the cruelty side of things that made me stop eating meat, and after a dozen meat-free years meat actually nauseates me now, so i can't imagine wanting to eat it. urk.. but morally i think why the fuck not?

 

[iROBOT]

Not if the reason for being veggie/vegan is because they just don't like meat. Also just because animals arent directly killed to produce this product it doesnt mean that the whole process will be 'meat free' and therefore suitable for veggie/vagen consumers

point taken, I've never eaten meat and (it) just does not scan as food to me.

But I knnw of a few veggies who crave meat, it would be good for them at least.