Artificial Meat is Comming

[drifting pages]

http://www.economist.com/node/21548147

A QUARTER of a million euros is rather a lot to pay for a hamburger, but that will be the cost of the patty which Mark Post proposes to stick in a bun this October. The burger in question—not so much a quarter-pounder as a quarter-million-pounder—will be so expensive because it will be made from meat that has been grown from scratch in a laboratory.
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Producing meat in Petri dishes is not commercially viable, but Dr Post hopes to scale things up—first by growing the cells on small spheres floating in tanks and ultimately by using scaffolds made of biodegradable polymer tubes, which would both add the third dimension needed for a juicy steak and provide a way of delivering nutrients and oxygen to the steak’s interior.

The nutrients themselves could come from conventional crops, but Dr Post also has plans to use algae, which grow faster than vascular plants, to provide the necessary amino acids, sugars and fats. The upshot would be a world with fewer stock animals. Not only would that liberate land, it would reduce greenhouse-gas emissions (cattle are notorious sources of methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). Moreover, you do not even have to kill a cow to obtain stem cells from it. A biopsy will do. That might mean that vegetarians would be able to enjoy meat, too.
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Another Article

http://aaas.confex.com/aaas/2012/webprog...r6477.html

Traditional meat production through livestock is rapidly reaching its limits. Worldwide, meat consumption is projected to double in the coming 40 years (source WHO) and already we are using more than 50% of all the agricultural land for meat production. It has also become clear that livestock contributes appreciably to the emission of greenhouse gases such as methane and CO2. Last, the public objection against cruelty to animals will eventually favor a market for cruelty free meat. On the other hand, meat as we know it, is very likely to remain an important item in our food choices.
From all livestock, cows and pigs are the least efficient meat producers with a bioconversion rate of 15%. Through breeding and feeding, the bioconversion rate has reached its upper limit. This inefficiency provides us with a margin to improve meat production provided we move beyond the traditional boundaries of livestock.

Current stem cell technology and skeletal muscle cell biology present opportunities to grow meat in a laboratory “ex vivo” environment with a higher efficiency of converting basic nutrients into edible animal proteins. Already, we are capable of growing pieces of tissue that consist primarily of skeletal muscle from porcine stem cells, derived from muscle biopsies.

There is a tremendous amount of work ahead of us to eventually reach an efficient, cost-effective and high quality meat product, but most of these steps are of a technical nature. Given sufficient effort and resources these technical issues will be solved.

The versatility of the culture process may also result in alternative meat products that for instance contain healthier fatty acids, or are blends of various stem cell sources.

First and foremost however it is essential that a full proof of concept will be provided to attract larger resources to this promising endeavor. We are in the process of growing a first hamburger from bovine stem cells. An update of the state of affairs and of the challenges ahead will be provided.

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I myself welcome the day where i will be able to eat steak with low fat very rich tasty flavor and with no cow dead because of it.

[Diana]

Isn't this like feeding methodone to heroine addicts?

(Just a joke!)

I heard about this technology years ago. I'm all for it, as it eliminates the cruelty in commercial animal farming.

I will, however, continue to be vegetarian myself.

[Bring4th_Austin]

It's an interesting idea, but those articles paint a different picture than the one I read on CNN and the one I heard on NPR not too long ago. They both state that with unlimited resources, the technology to create a full serving size more efficiently than conventional livestock production is 10-15 years off. They also said that the meat contains no fat (no taste), so they would have to add it somehow. They also said that the meat itself would be a yellowish color instead of any sort of pink or red, which I think would be a very hard sell to the average consumer.

I'm skeptical but interested to see if they're able to progress it any further. However, this solves very little about our food production system. Conventional crops production is extremely harmful to the environment as well (and, if we're looking at the spiritual aspect, requires the murder of more 2D beings than meat production). For people who choose not to eat meat because of personal ideals, but still wish to eat it, this technology would be good, but I don't see it good for much else. Sustainable systems can easily produce meat and vegetable with nearly no environmental impact...lab-grown meat would help to eliminate conventional livestock production but it definitely wouldn't solve the crux of the problem. I think that the solution to our food production system problems is not in a laboratory, but in the field, where we need to start treating the Earth, the soil, and the animals properly. We also need to educate people on how their dietary choices affect the environment.

[TheEternal]

Aha I love how general of a word `meat` is...

[Ashim]

I went through a phase with meat substitutes - the product 'quorn' I found to be the best imitation. I only managed to get it in the uk and in luxembourg. The taste was pretty good but after a while I felt a little squeemish.

Since then I tend to stick to fish, fruit, nuts and plenty of water / beer.

I believe that replicating animal flesh for 3d populations is common and requires no slaughtering of 2d entities.
I once made the mistake of trying to force this type of thinking on my wife - with terrible consequences, so place take this as just my opinion.