> Then, suddenly, the nausea hit... The problem was not the flavor, not the texture, but the knowing. The Knowing. Knowing about the fat tank, about the sticky white substance...
I feel like squeamish people are probably not the best ones to write about novel meat products...
I'm pretty sure it's just the taste of meat that the author didn't like. My half-sister don't eat most meat for taste reasons, and the nausea after tasting beef the author describe sound exactly like her reactions.
"Our Daily Bread" is a very interesting documentary on modern industrial agriculture, just shows what happens, no commentaries whatsoever.
The last part shows the slaughterhouse process (at least live cow to half beef carcass anyway), fair warning you can't unsee that but imo more people should know how their burgers are made.
From the "Dirty Jobs" TV serie: "Custom Meat Processor" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1788060/ that includes some self censorship to be able to show it in TV.
Disclaimer: I'm not a vegetarian, but I dislike wasting meat. Something like "eat what you kill" but with in the supermarket in the middle.
I’ll be honest, I’d lie my ass off if I was the author.
I don’t eat meat for ethical/health/climate reasons. You bet your ass I’m singing the praises of lab grown meat if I had that kind of platform. Instead, they used their voice to say how icky pretend meat is. It honestly pisses me off lol.
That's just plain lying. And when people actually tasted the meat they'd call your bluff. In fact I have to assume that many have tasted it and have noped out.
It used to be that kids as young as five year old were made to kill small animals like bunnies and chickens as a learning experience, but a bunch of people found this problematic so it isn't as common anymore.
I've seen plenty of videos from slaughter houses, mostly ones activists use to point at the cruelty going on inside, but it never made me feel uncomfortable.
And it's so stupid honestly. Why is this making them queasy, but not the slaughterhouses, the industrial farms, the cattle pumped with antibiotics to prevent infections from the open wounds inflicted by their terrible environment, etc. I'd take cells grown in a vat over dead animals everyday.
This is such a stupid line, it makes me wonder if this article just wasn't paid for by a meat industry lobby. Meat industry who we know for a fact is already putting a lot of energy into fighting alternatives, like impossible meat.
Because, as the arcticle states, the author comes from the position of whether to eat meat at all, so no meat vs. lab meat, not lab meat vs. slaughterhouse meat, as you imply.
it is sad how the lobbying of old evil industries like tobacco and animal-killing can convince the politicians and the public to outlaw and demonize their less-evil competition like vaping and lab-grown meat to make sure to hold on to the status quo.
but why write more than 7000 words to communicate a simple point (lab-grown meat was promised 1-2 decades ago but failed to arrive and won't arrive in the foreseeable future)?
you've never purchased something, then had someone question that purchase? the reflex to defend yourself, even knowing an action is morally wrong, is very strong, and we need to find a better way to help these people divest without losing "face"
Is it just pure lobbying or perhaps also consumer preference? Because there’s plenty of money to be made across the entire agriculture and food and production spectrum in the processing of the goop that goes into these types of products. I think a lot of people honestly would rather eat a real vegetarian diet (Indian, etc) than the ultra processed soy beans and various chemical binders wearing a meat Halloween costume.
> the ultra processed soy beans and various chemical binders wearing a meat Halloween costume.
This reads like propaganda. Take tofurkey for example, it's just seitan and tofu and the same "chemical binders" you'll see in every other product in the freezer aisle.
And tofu is only as "ultra-processed" as cheese or bread is.
Yeah, tofu is not even in the same class as the synthetic burgers. Take a second and go read their ingredient lists. I’m gonna go with the Indian or falafel meal, which happens to be delicious. Which I think is the choice consumers are making.
I dont think people who would consider a full vegetarian/vegan diet without supplementary products that look like "meat" are the target consumer base for these products. The money is in a consumer base that does not want to fully commit to a certain diet, know that the meat industry is bad for the planet and is unsure on how to go about it.
Personally I'd rather eat highly processed soy beans over parts of a dead animal.
Eating is something one does several times a day every day of their lives. It must be done regardless of how broke or in how much of a hurry you are. I applaud anyone who chooses to add this stress to their daily lives voluntarily till the end of their days, but I'm not going to demonize someone for choosing to reject the time-intensive thing in favor of an alternative that's completely normal, cheaper, and faster.
I'm a bit surprised that we got disembodied intelligence before we got deathless meat. If you'd told me in the year 2000 that one of these would happen, I'd have put my money on the meat.
Because there is much less demand for deathless meat. Milk + eggs + legumes are good enough for many vegetarians. They're even cheaper than real meat in most places. On the other hand, human intelligence, by definition, can't be affordable for someone on a middle income.
Also we still don't really know what we mean by intelligence, even though we've now invented a version of it. You'd have thought that question would need some more investigation before we could build it, but here we are.
I had long given up on lab-grown meat. It started feeling like fusion, always around the corner, but never there (or at least not in an affordable way).
What replaced almost all ground beef (except in burgers) for me, was Jackfruit. More specifically, the combination 90% pea protein, 10% jackfruit. Granules that can be rehydrated with boiling water in 2 minutes, price competitive with discounter mince, no extra ingredients, no high carb count. It has a good texture and tastes mostly like whatever you season it with.
For me I eat similar thing from eatplanted.com, when they have discounts, otherwise it's still too expensive, but if price was lower I'd eat it all the time, it's that delicious.
You should specify an example of what you're talking about maybe? I see a lotao brand jackfruit 'mince' - not sure there's a US equivalent with those macro characteristics.
Lotao is the one I use, DM has a house-brand with the same percentages. I thought the US would have something similar, but at least ChatGPT didn’t find anything.
Would it make the meat industry more ethical if happy drugs were made available to animals? If I had to choose between a meaningful (even if I didn’t know it when living), blissful unnatural life and none at all, I’d choose the former.
It’s the negative affect and suffering (stress, pain, boredom etc) that is the bad part of eating animals.
(I think— I know others have thought more than I on this topic)
It just seems like an easier tech solution might be promising
What I find interesting about this whole discourse is that the lived experience of animals matters to people. At all.
Just a hundred, two hundred years ago we made the Elephant rifle, because a normal gun couldn't bring it down, but it was a fun sport to go out and kill just for the heck of it. No one cared about the animals.
It seems like we are living in an age of suicidal empathy and I'm not sure how we got here.
I too could, theoretically be thrilled to be drugged to the gills when I'm killed. I however, can consent. Animals cannot. But we know that animals can think. Regardless of debating the ethics of consuming them, this adds an additional ethical quagmire of is it ethically sound to drug non-consenting, thinking species.
Not really. Similar to giving drugs to lower class people so they can bear the unbearable life. For an indiviual, sure, life probably feels better in a narrow sense, but is it more ethical? No.
Interesting, the question for me is why eat ultra-processed meat simulacra, that don't taste particularly nice, like impossible and beyond burgers? It is possible to home cook far healthier and more delicious veggie burgers with seitan, mushrooms, lentils, etcetera. Ultimately, this whole meat substitute market is targeting a niche that doesn't exist at anything like the scale envisioned, because it competes with low cost meat on the one hand and low cost plant-based burgers on the other, and is worse than both on all relevant metrics.
Like, they're close enough for a vegetarian/vegan to get something that reminds them of the taste, but for a frequent meat eater it's not even close sadly. I keep trying from time to time.
As for why, it's much easier to replace the product than it is to replace the need.
I never understood exactly who is the target audience.
If I were a vegan/vegetarian for ethical or religious reasons I don’t think I would want food that reminds me of meat.
As an occasional meat eater that also enjoys the many natural options for plant-based protein, why would I want something that replicates taste/texture of something I can already eat?
Those are pretty good in their own right, but they really aren’t much like meat in my opinion. They’re similar, but they are quite obviously not meat within the first few bites.
What about the health nastiness that comes along with ultra processed food? Why not just go full blown veggie or vegan? Theres some amazing recipes out there that are healthy as well.
It's unfair competition, they've had hundreds of millions of years to learn to grow tissues efficiently, while VC attention span lasts until The Next Big Thing.
People have fetishized animals so much that creating synthetic goop in the form of flesh somehow got billions in founding. Omnivores eat meat, even herbivores do it sometimes, get over it.
Eh, I eat meat almost daily (chicken breast) and I'm fully aware of what entails the butchering of animals. Even had a pet rabbit at my grandfather's when I was a kid, that one day disappeared and the next day we ate rabbit meat. Just like when I cleaned up the squirrel that was torn in half by my cats, I see it all as a part of life.
Doesn't mean that I'd prefer if it all came from grown meat, rather than the entire industry that we have now. If the taste, texture and looks are the same, why shouldn't we switch (if those 3 factors are the only important ones)?
(This reminded me why I stopped reading magazines: they have low information density. They are more creative writing, journaling rather than terse and factual)
My take away on the answer to the headline question is:
Currently the lab grown meat is too expensive and not good tasting enough to compete with real meat and plant based alternatives exist so - not it’s time yet.
There might not be much of a market for it. Vegetarians and vegans are used to industrially processed protein substitutes but most of them don't really want meat and its flavor. In contrast, many non-vegetarians want natural high-quality products from real animals, they don't want to eat industrially processed lab meat. A market would have been low-cost ultra-processed meat products but for that it seems that lab grown meat is too expensive.
This can still change though, if the products of animal farming were to become more expensive and with higher mandatory quality standards, as they in my opinion should be.
I eat meat and like it, but I also feel kind of sorry for cows, sheep, pigs, chickens etc.
I was initially positive about lab grown meat, but then you realise that Kraft Foods or someone will get hold of it and turn it into the most unhealthy slop you could imagine.
There are plenty of things to dislike about beef, but the hunks of it found at the meat counter are one of most unaltered, natural state food items in the store. The sea salt wins that competition but not much else does.
I feel like squeamish people are probably not the best ones to write about novel meat products...
Farmer Neighbor (not the one with the cows): “oh, no that’s just when they take the calves away for veal”
As a parent I feel worse about dairy than beef…
The last part shows the slaughterhouse process (at least live cow to half beef carcass anyway), fair warning you can't unsee that but imo more people should know how their burgers are made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbkKITF_7SE&t=5196s
Disclaimer: I'm not a vegetarian, but I dislike wasting meat. Something like "eat what you kill" but with in the supermarket in the middle.
I don’t eat meat for ethical/health/climate reasons. You bet your ass I’m singing the praises of lab grown meat if I had that kind of platform. Instead, they used their voice to say how icky pretend meat is. It honestly pisses me off lol.
Per the article, all the other folk seemed to enjoy the lab grown meat just fine
Yeah I said that.
If we made it so before one could eat meat of the animal, it had to personally kill and watch the animal die, we’d eat less meat.
It should be a requirement
I do like what they did for example:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/world/europe/norway-schoo...
I've seen plenty of videos from slaughter houses, mostly ones activists use to point at the cruelty going on inside, but it never made me feel uncomfortable.
This is such a stupid line, it makes me wonder if this article just wasn't paid for by a meat industry lobby. Meat industry who we know for a fact is already putting a lot of energy into fighting alternatives, like impossible meat.
but why write more than 7000 words to communicate a simple point (lab-grown meat was promised 1-2 decades ago but failed to arrive and won't arrive in the foreseeable future)?
So at this point it's not even clear that anyone is actually losing their grip on the status quo...
This reads like propaganda. Take tofurkey for example, it's just seitan and tofu and the same "chemical binders" you'll see in every other product in the freezer aisle.
And tofu is only as "ultra-processed" as cheese or bread is.
Personally I'd rather eat highly processed soy beans over parts of a dead animal.
I would consider a vegetarian diet, but I can't eat lentils, hummus and beans every day without getting sick (ant my case is quite mild)
Eating is something one does several times a day every day of their lives. It must be done regardless of how broke or in how much of a hurry you are. I applaud anyone who chooses to add this stress to their daily lives voluntarily till the end of their days, but I'm not going to demonize someone for choosing to reject the time-intensive thing in favor of an alternative that's completely normal, cheaper, and faster.
What replaced almost all ground beef (except in burgers) for me, was Jackfruit. More specifically, the combination 90% pea protein, 10% jackfruit. Granules that can be rehydrated with boiling water in 2 minutes, price competitive with discounter mince, no extra ingredients, no high carb count. It has a good texture and tastes mostly like whatever you season it with.
Planted: 10 ingredients, 5.6g/100g carbs in the finished product
Pea/Jackfruit granules: 2 ingredients, 1.9g/100g carbs in the dry product (so roughly 0.8g/100g in the finished product)
It’s the negative affect and suffering (stress, pain, boredom etc) that is the bad part of eating animals.
(I think— I know others have thought more than I on this topic)
It just seems like an easier tech solution might be promising
Just a hundred, two hundred years ago we made the Elephant rifle, because a normal gun couldn't bring it down, but it was a fun sport to go out and kill just for the heck of it. No one cared about the animals.
It seems like we are living in an age of suicidal empathy and I'm not sure how we got here.
(A smaller problem is that humans will start using the drugs if the distribution is not tightly controlled.)
Like, they're close enough for a vegetarian/vegan to get something that reminds them of the taste, but for a frequent meat eater it's not even close sadly. I keep trying from time to time.
As for why, it's much easier to replace the product than it is to replace the need.
If I were a vegan/vegetarian for ethical or religious reasons I don’t think I would want food that reminds me of meat.
As an occasional meat eater that also enjoys the many natural options for plant-based protein, why would I want something that replicates taste/texture of something I can already eat?
To me, the progress vegan meat has made is an absolute godsend.
I used to eagerly anticipate the lab-grown meat revolution, but with the quality of current vegan alternatives, it just seems no longer necessary.
Bugs for chickens, grasses/grains for cattle and omnivorous pigs are their own kind of bio-reactor…
Cows can be treated nicely, given a field to romp in, fun toys, and then euthanized quickly without causing them fear.
But that means leaving wide open space that’s not making the shareholders enough extra money and therefore we don’t do it. Instead, we torture them.
Doesn't mean that I'd prefer if it all came from grown meat, rather than the entire industry that we have now. If the taste, texture and looks are the same, why shouldn't we switch (if those 3 factors are the only important ones)?
[1] see https://www.daniel-suarez.com/changeagentsynopsis.html
My take away on the answer to the headline question is:
Currently the lab grown meat is too expensive and not good tasting enough to compete with real meat and plant based alternatives exist so - not it’s time yet.
This can still change though, if the products of animal farming were to become more expensive and with higher mandatory quality standards, as they in my opinion should be.
I was initially positive about lab grown meat, but then you realise that Kraft Foods or someone will get hold of it and turn it into the most unhealthy slop you could imagine.