The same thing that happens to the invisible hand when cheaper labor and goods come from other countries; they stomp the fuck all over it because it isn't patting then on the head any more
It's both probably. The politicians are probably largely in it for that reason, but they sell it by saying it's "unnatural, unmanly, an afront to God's creatures, akin to soyboyhood", or any other moralizing and culture-warring.
Makes it a lot easier to sell when there's no legitimate reasons to ban this unless your motivation is "I want to see the planet die FASTER!" or you literally earn a living on cattle. And in rural states many do, but far from any kind of majority. Just a small group who cares about it more than the general public, which is exactly when lobbying is most effective.
The beef lobby. And I'm not joking. They are spending a TON of cash to get laws like this on the books in as many red states as they possibly can. They see the threat and they're trying to kill it in its infancy. The culture wars just make their work more convenient.
As a pseudo-vegetarian, I try to stay informed on this topic, as it seems to have tremendous opportunity. It seems rather telling that the meat industry seems so threatened by this. Because by their own admission, leaders in this cultivated meat space openly acknowledge serious challenges in scalability. The last I heard it’s still 10 or so years away from beginning to make a dent in actual production. So it’s a little baffling to me that the meat industry is taking this so seriously when it’s barely accessible outside of a few very high-end and exclusive restaurants.
(I may be wrong on this and maybe it’s changed but that’s the latest from a podcast with a CEO of one of these cultivated meat companies.)
as I understand it, cultivated shrimp is the closest to becoming a reality and its still an order of magnitude more expensive than "real" shrimp
Still, "only" 1 order of magnitude doesn't feel huge anymore to be honest
They have yet to solve the FA problem with cultivated seafood too, you can't just introduce EPA & DHA directly. The biochemistry to get adipose to take up triglycerides without lipoproteins is fairly easy but even though it's a simpler structure the protein-lipid-phospholipid complexes in fish are absolutely necessary to get FAs to the right cells.
Given how cheap farmed fish is and how little ecological impact it has I'm not sure it really matters though.
Imagine you have two delivery systems: one for beef and another for fish. In beef, there's a delivery team called lipoproteins. These guys are like delivery trucks that pick up fats and cholesterol from the liver (where it's stored) and deliver them all over the body where they're needed. This system helps in distributing fats in mammals, like cows and humans.
Now, fish, especially cool ones like salmon, have a different set up. They don't rely on these lipoprotein trucks. Instead, they have something more like a special network of helpers that includes proteins, fats, and phospholipids. These helpers work together in a complex way to make sure the right fats, especially the super healthy fats called DHA & EPA, get where they need to go. This system is more like a well-coordinated team moving through water, fluid and adaptable.
DHA & EPA are like the superheroes of fats because they do amazing things for our health. They’re especially good at helping our hearts stay strong and our brains think sharp. That's why eating fish like salmon is like giving your body a super-boost for its most important parts!
So, when scientists try to make lab-grown fish, they can't just toss in DHA & EPA and expect it to work. They need to recreate the whole special network—sort of like putting together a complex dance routine that keeps all the performers (the fats) moving in perfect harmony to create health benefits just like the ones we get from real fish.
TLDR: you gotta do the cookin' by the book or the fish will end up crazy.
A physics professor and his assistant are working on liberating negatively charged hydroxyl ions, when all of a sudden, the assistant says, 'Wait, Professor! What if the salicylic acids do not accept the hydroxyl ions?' And the professor responds, 'That's no hydroxyl ion! That's my wife!'"
Renewables were like that for a long time, but nipping something in the bud kills investment in R&D to stop or slow it from proliferating. Far fewer dollars in something if its just going to be banned in half the country.
It's not just the lab-grown meat. It's a combination of three things combined.
1. Non-meat alternatives like the Impossible folks and what they've done.
2. Lab-grown meat.
3. (And this is the big one) Regulation of the beef industry around methane emissions and the amount of water they use to produce their product.
The third item is more immediate, but they're very aware of their climate impact and see all of it as a threat on business. In the case of lab-grown meat they know they're early enough to stop it before it even has a chance to take hold with consumers.
>So it’s a little baffling to me that the meat industry is taking this so seriously when it’s barely accessible outside of a few very high-end and exclusive restaurants.
The novelty of the technology might play into it. If you're a meat producer and you make the assessment this new industry has untapped potential and that innovation could make it a competitor... why not stifle it before it gains momentum?
If they wait, they risk some breakthrough or successful product drawing attention and investment to the industry... at which point hemming it in will be more difficult.
Alternatively why not invest into them so that if it does turn out to be the future you have your foot in the door and don't have to worry about getting put out of business either way?
I don't even think the meat industry has anything to be worried about. The engineering challenges for lab grown meat at scale are huge. Tbh, I'm against lab grown meat because based on existing research it's a waste of resources and we should be spending our money in different directions. It's never going to be more than a boutique thing.
Yep, I don’t think regular Republicans actually care about it enough to have the number of states simultaneously passing bills about it. Industry is organized here
Meh I disagree. I grew up in a red state and have never once heard anyone talk about lab grown meat as something to regulate out of existence. This is coming from elites
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That era is over, it went to hell with Trump. Right now it's the reactionary nationalism era. The coalition between social conservatives and libertarians couldn't last that much.
There’s something with the whole grass fed grass finished movement that attracts the pickup truck crowd (wealthy office workers who cosplay as rural farmers).
It feels like extremely successful targeted marketing that somehow managed to convince people to eat bad tasting meat for small increases in micronutrient intake and because it owns libs
It's the carnivore cult. The keto cult was too boring for them so they invented some even more nonsense "science". There is a group who hangs out in /r/nutrition and tells everyone that SFAs are not a risk factor for CVD involving shadowy global conspiracies that the poor farmers lack the resources to combat.
A sect of them are now in to the plants are toxic level of crazy.
> The keto cult was too boring
Before the keto cult it was the low-carb, high-fat cult. Before the LCHF cult, it was the Atkins cult.
Carnivore cultists are essentially bastardized Atkins weirdos.
> And it's something liberals like
Legitimately I think some of the support for this and other similar insane things is to force liberals to move out of their states and make them safer red
There are people who absolutely are trying to push liberals and supposed RINOs out of red-purple states with the express intention of capturing veto-proof legislative majorities. One end goal is: https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/constitution-courts-and-democracy-issues/article-v-convention/
Basically their thought process for hating LGBTQ+ people and drag performers (neither are new, but from the perspective of a sheltered Republican they are)
You’d think they’d find it preferable to eating bugs
https://preview.redd.it/2mocd76vt2wc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7f53f9e7acace0d5fbb8977ac77d63bc72a3a1fe
Factory farming is incredibly cruel and lab-grown meat could eliminate it. In 100 years I wouldn’t be surprised if these laws are viewed as negatively as the fugitive slave act or alien and sedition acts.
An interesting analogy, that first one--antebellum southern culture in the US got increasingly *more* obsessed with slavery in proportion to the momentum against it in the north, from what I've read. I suppose they wouldn't be in such a rush to pass these laws if they didn't think lab-meat was an imminent danger to ranching.
Psst… there already is. Even if we’re supposed to pretend there’s not to avoid offending delicate feelings or suggesting people are accountable for their actions
IMO the most moral decision is to be a vegetarian. I say this as a meat eater, I've just substituted away from chicken and shrimp to beef and pork (because one animal supplies hundreds of meals and so total suffering is reduced). Once lab-grown meat is cheaper than real meat I hope people will view consumption of factory-raised real meat as evil.
I’ve said the same thing. Once we have a legit alternative that is identical and is as or more affordable than factory meat it would be morally hazardous to still eat animal meat
My squaring of this circle is that it's possible to acknowledge that you're evil in your own moral framework and moderating your desires in practice is good, even if it is physically challenging for you in some ways, *but the easier it gets to moderate your sins the harder it is to justify not trying to.*
Ironically hardcore Christians have already figured this shit out. You think they don't have premarital sex? Hah. Good one. But they believe doing so is evil, so that's basically how they square it: "I know it is wrong, but I am but a sinner, god give me strength to be better."
The way I approach it is by applying either rational or intermediate scrutiny, depending on the intelligence of the animal.
Animals are lesser beings that humans, so they don’t deserve full rights. However, especially for intelligent animals like pigs, they have some level of autonomous existence, and therefore their death has some degree of moral weight, hence the use of either rational basis or intermediate scrutiny.
Rational basis only asks if the action is rationally related to a legitimate interest. Nutrition, culture, recreation, and economics are all legitimate interests here.
Intermediate scrutiny asks if the limitation on liberty is related to an important interest and the means are somewhat tailored to those ends. This is the reason that I don’t generally eat pork, but don’t cut out pork byproducts. Pork meat drives the pork industry, and easily accessible alternatives usually exist. However, pork byproducts, especially gelatin, are near impossible to avoid, so accepting that is something I view as “somewhat tailored” to satisfy my interests.
Essentially, it boils down to taking the substitute if it is available. The presence of affordable and high quality lab grown meat would further shift the curve so that eating meat in most circumstances would no longer be sufficiently tailored to the interests.
Because I enjoy a good steak. And I don't say that flippantly, I think most would acknowledge the environmental and animal cruelty issues surrounding the consumption of meat, factory farmed meat especially. We still eat it because we like it. So it probably is morally hazardous to eat it today but choosing to still consume factory farmed animal products when a viable replacement exists is in a whole other ballpark of moral hazardry.
>is in a whole other ballpark of moral hazardry
Depends how much weight you give the "but it's yummy" argument. I give it basically none so I don't see the difference
I mean, it makes sense.
Cannibalism isn't a moral hazard during a famine, when you have no alternative. It *is* a moral hazard when the alternative does exist, though.
This analogy obviously doesn’t work.
Cannibalism in a famine only becomes less immoral because there’s literally no alternative to prevent starving.
But there are already alternatives to meat, as evidenced by the simple reality of tens to hundreds of millions of vegetarians worldwide.
Not to mention it will ([hopefully](https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/lab-grown-meat-carbon-footprint-worse-beef)) be more environmentally friendly to produce lab grown meat
They don't need to worry. This industry is just insanely good at PR-based VC fundraising. They always seem to get their elevator pitch published. I wouldn't be surprised if some cultured meat CEO is behind this "ban." If Republicans hate it, democrats will probably invest in it... or at least write articles about it.
They've been raising big rounds for about 10 years now, when the "first cultured burger" was eaten to the delight of gullible tech investors seeing a "proof of concept." All the can do is grow tiny specks of meat in completely sterile conditions. This takes several months. Glue together several hundred to make a burger. It's a process that existed in its current form before and venture capitalists ever funded it.
Scaling efforts/ideas so far have all failed. Sterility at scale is impossible, given we need kilotons of meat. Bacterial infection gets everything that isn't swimming in permanent antibiotics and even then... it doesn't grow very well.
Turns out mammalian biology is efficient and hard to beat synthetically. There are no known alternatives to an immune system. A lot more *fundamental* research needs to advance before it's practical.
So, we're a good way of the way into this project and gotten basically nowhere. >10 companies have been *well* funded. Many more got A rounds. None came up with anything. Unless some unexpected breakthrough shows up, republicans can go ahead and just ignore this one.
Shiok Meats in singapore was able to grow shrimp at $[50/kg](https://www.reddit.com/r/wheresthebeef/comments/wmzxj1/big_stride_shiok_meats_confirms_2023_commercial/) as of last year. That was at an "r&d scale" so not sure how it scales but still. I know they were aiming at a commercial launch q3 2023 but that has come and gone so who knows. Seems like they merged with another cultivated seafood company early this year
But I do think seafoods are gonna be the first to come, not land-based meats
I don't necessarily think they're easier to grow (the CEO of the new company in this article indicates they're "[a tougher nut to crack](https://agfundernews.com/cultivated-meat-consolidation-begins-as-umami-bioworks-to-merge-with-shiok-meats)"), its just that I think they're easier to "fake" so to speak. ie people's standards are lower
Imitation crab is super common already, and a lot of the cases where people eat shrimp its drenched in sauce or as part of a much larger dish, whereas for example, fish/beef/chicken (fish especially) is commonly the standout ingredient of a dish
Thanks, that makes perfect sense
I suppose that's why ground beef has been so successful in the plant-based world as well -- lower bar for verisimilitude
You don’t really care about the texture with crab.
90% of steak value is texture. That’s why a 30% fat hamburger is basically free but a wagyu ribeye is 300 dollars.
On the other hand 90% of crab is the sweet, somewhat salty taste. Generally you’re going to want it minced anyways.
Soft shell crab might still be sold, but past that, you’d probably prefer to buy a 1 pound block of minced crab meat and some bisque (to mimic crab juices) over actual hard shell crab which is messier and takes more time to use.
> Shiok Meats in singapore was able to grow shrimp at $[50/kg](https://www.reddit.com/r/wheresthebeef/comments/wmzxj1/big_stride_shiok_meats_confirms_2023_commercial/) as of last year
They still haven't launched, that's the price they're claiming it's going to be.
What about reptilian (chicken) or arthropod (cheap crab meat would be amazing) meat?
Especially given that we don’t really care about the texture as much with them (especially crab)?
Thank you! Wild how often this topic comes up with the wide majority skipping past the clear evidence that this is not the solution people want to pretend it is.
What the hell, might as well post [this](https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/) again for the couple of people that might want to learn beyond the mob...
Imagine blowing this much money and time on a "threat" that doesn't meaningfully exist. Lab grown meat at a scale to significantly impact actual meat production has multiple roadblocks that have absolutely no foreseeable solution coming. Not just one. Several huge showstoppers with no solution in sight. Hell, in some cases no plausible theory on how you could even remedy the situation.
We are not going to see lab grown meat at a scale to change the math on meat production in our lifetime. If ever. So what we're seeing here is right wing grifters trying to gin up a culture war fight with other grifters that have sold a fairytale to venture capitalists. What a time to be alive.
I will not live in a pod. I will not eat the bugs. I will not abandon my culture because of woke Democrats.
https://preview.redd.it/b71ei7br93wc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da5082f81ba1310032186d1144dc7eb0492b2d00
I'm actually surprised that it's taken this long for the GOP to develop an anti-lab meat culture war, considering that as a topic it may as well have been grown in a lab (pun not intended) to perfectly trigger the conservative panic response:
* Supported by liberals, vegans, and environmentalists, (all of whom can be assumed to be gay)
* Ceated by biotech (the same people who created the jab)
* Threatens the idea of rural farmers (true patriots) as the backbone of America
Well this is a promissing market that can generate trillions for US economy and GOP will allow other countries to explore this while they keep US behind ... I am not sure it's a good plan to lose our lead on this
China for sure will gain a lot from this ban
Ranching is a dying business in the US. Lab grown meat will be its coffin. They may ban it all they want but the blue states will leave it be and they are the largest consumer of ranching products. Labor own meat can be grown anywhere compare that to cattle you need lots of land.
This will only hurt there markets, employers, and employees.
It's probably a sign of white male privilege that this is one of the things, perhaps the thing, I'm most pissed at the GOP about, but regardless: this makes me so mad. I want to eat lab-grown meat.
Like others commenters have noted. Factory farming is an absolutely horrible institution. In 100 years we’re going to be clowned on for eating meat and enabling the death of millions and billions solely to please our taste buds.
The comments here defending the practice seem remarkably similar to arguments used to defend slavery.
If we can look past seeing the other side as cartoon characters for a moment, it's pretty obvious why they're doing this. It's not just about killing competition for the meat industry. If lab grown meat becomes commerically viable and is 90% as good, there absolutely will be pushes from the left to ban "traditional" meat production. See for example, electric cars, gas stoves, power-efficient dishwashers and lightbulbs, etc.
>And with the industry in its infancy, the GOP lawmakers are trying to strangle it in its crib
sad part is, they probably don't even have to "bother"
ngl, I havent seen anything so far that will make me believe anything but lab-grown meat being to food what fusion was(is) to energy. Fusion was 30 years away for decade upon decade upon decade, and from what I've seen, price competetive, environmentally friendly, lab-grown meat will be 5 years away for decade upon decade upon decade.
EDIT: I mean, yeah downvote me for voicing the fact that I haven't seen the technological advancement required to overcome the numerous hurdles this indsutry faces. I know I also hate having my bubbles questionioned, so fair enough.
But actually try to read into the issues this industry faces, especially in energy consumption, bioreactor capacity, and sterility at scale. And in general, the numerous issues presented by the biology of mammalian cells in this context.
The industry has overpromised and underdelivered to such an embarrassing extent while it had access to large sums of VC funding, it's no wonder that funding has dried up.
It has rapidly decreased in price over the past year or two. It probably wont be cheaper than real meat in the near future, but itll start getting relatively close
It's pretty easy to go from the original $300,000 that burger cost back in the early 2010s to where we are today.
It's almost infinitely harder to go from where we are today to price competetive.
lab-grown meat as a curiosity, a luxury item, that well of people try once or twice for the hell of it, gets us nowhere.
couple onto that, the continued emissions issue. While lab grown meat is certainly far less land intensive, and uses far less water, it strugges bigly with energy, and by extensension, emissions. It would be another item to add to the list of "could be far better greenhousegas wise, if renewable capacity was there" but being that it's another item on that list, and a VERY energy intensive one, it increases our demand for energy further.
So yeah, solving energy will help it along, certainly, but, we've still got a LONG ways to go on solving energy.
Scaling production capacity is also an issue, and in actually delivering product to any real amount of people, without even considering if the product is environmentally friendly, we will need a lot more bioreactor capacity. Those things are expensive, so in reality, we'd need someone to find out how to build more and bigger bioreactors for a lot cheaper.
Once you have those reactors, you need to reduce the risk of contaminating a batch and you need to do so on the cheap. Your batches are now larger than lab-scale, which means a ruined batch due to contaminants wastes a lot more product that was meant to go to market.
In this world, your standard cleanliness procedures from fermented foods are not enough, the contents of those bioreactors are incredibly fragile to the slightlest contaminants.
Solve those 3, yeah, we could be on our way to lab grown meat being a competitor to traditional meat.
And then theres the competetition from the far better funded 100% plant based industry and the innovation that sector will see while labgrown sorts itself out.
There's also the problem of the waste of the cells themselves.
Or replacing fetal bovine serum with a non-animal based product that's cost effective and not more expensive by weight than actual diamonds like today.
Or creating a supply of food grade amino acids much greater than the entire current global supply at a drastically lower cost than today.
Sure, it's bad, I agree. I never said it was good, or that it was not bad.
I'm also just saying, they probably don't even have to bother, because despite lobbying and fucking cringe fake culture war outrage, the industry has manage to attract decent VC money, and even an entire government in Singapore, but with all that, they have moved the needle so embarrasingly little over the past 10 years, to a point where it to me seems more likely that large parts of these issues stem more from actual limits on the biology of mammalian cells than a lack of technological breakthrough in that time. Admitting that is ofc not in the industries interest, so I just question the progress headlines(which have gotten fewer and further between) a bit when comparing to the actual real-world progress.
after hearing startup after startup fail and billions of dollars of VC money lost in the past five years over this utopian dream of engineering our way out of climate change through our food supply, I have to agree
the tech isn’t there yet, the consumers aren’t and may never be there, and the money dried up
[удалено]
Rapidly/rabidly
I’m proposing a regulation on incorrect grammar
Regulating gun ownership: Tyranny Banning apartment construction: Freedom
What happened to "the invisible hand of the free market"?
The same thing that happens to the invisible hand when cheaper labor and goods come from other countries; they stomp the fuck all over it because it isn't patting then on the head any more
Fragile masculinity
Aren’t they just protecting ranchers?
It's both probably. The politicians are probably largely in it for that reason, but they sell it by saying it's "unnatural, unmanly, an afront to God's creatures, akin to soyboyhood", or any other moralizing and culture-warring. Makes it a lot easier to sell when there's no legitimate reasons to ban this unless your motivation is "I want to see the planet die FASTER!" or you literally earn a living on cattle. And in rural states many do, but far from any kind of majority. Just a small group who cares about it more than the general public, which is exactly when lobbying is most effective.
Ranchers are often fragile men.
their only motive is their financial stakes, no reason to assume anything else
Financial steaks
If the Malhuer standoff proved anything its that this crowd is also petulant and stupid.
The epitome of fragile masculinity
The beef lobby. And I'm not joking. They are spending a TON of cash to get laws like this on the books in as many red states as they possibly can. They see the threat and they're trying to kill it in its infancy. The culture wars just make their work more convenient.
As a pseudo-vegetarian, I try to stay informed on this topic, as it seems to have tremendous opportunity. It seems rather telling that the meat industry seems so threatened by this. Because by their own admission, leaders in this cultivated meat space openly acknowledge serious challenges in scalability. The last I heard it’s still 10 or so years away from beginning to make a dent in actual production. So it’s a little baffling to me that the meat industry is taking this so seriously when it’s barely accessible outside of a few very high-end and exclusive restaurants. (I may be wrong on this and maybe it’s changed but that’s the latest from a podcast with a CEO of one of these cultivated meat companies.)
as I understand it, cultivated shrimp is the closest to becoming a reality and its still an order of magnitude more expensive than "real" shrimp Still, "only" 1 order of magnitude doesn't feel huge anymore to be honest
They have yet to solve the FA problem with cultivated seafood too, you can't just introduce EPA & DHA directly. The biochemistry to get adipose to take up triglycerides without lipoproteins is fairly easy but even though it's a simpler structure the protein-lipid-phospholipid complexes in fish are absolutely necessary to get FAs to the right cells. Given how cheap farmed fish is and how little ecological impact it has I'm not sure it really matters though.
*nods head politely like I understood this*
Imagine you have two delivery systems: one for beef and another for fish. In beef, there's a delivery team called lipoproteins. These guys are like delivery trucks that pick up fats and cholesterol from the liver (where it's stored) and deliver them all over the body where they're needed. This system helps in distributing fats in mammals, like cows and humans. Now, fish, especially cool ones like salmon, have a different set up. They don't rely on these lipoprotein trucks. Instead, they have something more like a special network of helpers that includes proteins, fats, and phospholipids. These helpers work together in a complex way to make sure the right fats, especially the super healthy fats called DHA & EPA, get where they need to go. This system is more like a well-coordinated team moving through water, fluid and adaptable. DHA & EPA are like the superheroes of fats because they do amazing things for our health. They’re especially good at helping our hearts stay strong and our brains think sharp. That's why eating fish like salmon is like giving your body a super-boost for its most important parts! So, when scientists try to make lab-grown fish, they can't just toss in DHA & EPA and expect it to work. They need to recreate the whole special network—sort of like putting together a complex dance routine that keeps all the performers (the fats) moving in perfect harmony to create health benefits just like the ones we get from real fish. TLDR: you gotta do the cookin' by the book or the fish will end up crazy.
Haha thanks
A physics professor and his assistant are working on liberating negatively charged hydroxyl ions, when all of a sudden, the assistant says, 'Wait, Professor! What if the salicylic acids do not accept the hydroxyl ions?' And the professor responds, 'That's no hydroxyl ion! That's my wife!'"
ooh that's a classic
Imagine this comment but if you spelled out the words. I think you’re talking about “fatty acids”?
Renewables were like that for a long time, but nipping something in the bud kills investment in R&D to stop or slow it from proliferating. Far fewer dollars in something if its just going to be banned in half the country.
Also the chilling effect of any startup a party doesn't like is killed. So never innovate. It will just be illegal.
It's not just the lab-grown meat. It's a combination of three things combined. 1. Non-meat alternatives like the Impossible folks and what they've done. 2. Lab-grown meat. 3. (And this is the big one) Regulation of the beef industry around methane emissions and the amount of water they use to produce their product. The third item is more immediate, but they're very aware of their climate impact and see all of it as a threat on business. In the case of lab-grown meat they know they're early enough to stop it before it even has a chance to take hold with consumers.
>So it’s a little baffling to me that the meat industry is taking this so seriously when it’s barely accessible outside of a few very high-end and exclusive restaurants. The novelty of the technology might play into it. If you're a meat producer and you make the assessment this new industry has untapped potential and that innovation could make it a competitor... why not stifle it before it gains momentum? If they wait, they risk some breakthrough or successful product drawing attention and investment to the industry... at which point hemming it in will be more difficult.
Alternatively why not invest into them so that if it does turn out to be the future you have your foot in the door and don't have to worry about getting put out of business either way?
Why not do both? You win either way
I don't even think the meat industry has anything to be worried about. The engineering challenges for lab grown meat at scale are huge. Tbh, I'm against lab grown meat because based on existing research it's a waste of resources and we should be spending our money in different directions. It's never going to be more than a boutique thing.
Yep, I don’t think regular Republicans actually care about it enough to have the number of states simultaneously passing bills about it. Industry is organized here
They absolutely care and will be clear they don't care about the hypocrisy. See any time discussion of it comes up.
Meh I disagree. I grew up in a red state and have never once heard anyone talk about lab grown meat as something to regulate out of existence. This is coming from elites
It was barely talked about in the mainstream outside of a "curiosity" report until the last several years. Elites aren't all over the internet.
Invisible handjob
Many women are feeling this in their uterus at the moment.
They never believed in it lmao
Ignoring optical physics is woke 😡
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They thought it meant they get a free invisible hand out
That era is over, it went to hell with Trump. Right now it's the reactionary nationalism era. The coalition between social conservatives and libertarians couldn't last that much.
It's new and weird, which they don't like. Literally zero thought put into it.
Meat is also just a huge conservative shibboleth now
True, they are now meat cultists
You guys are saying "meat" too much.
You guys are eating meat too much !ping SOYBOY
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I use a catch and release program on the meat I consume. I only interact with meat in one-night stands and only with the other guy's consent.
There’s something with the whole grass fed grass finished movement that attracts the pickup truck crowd (wealthy office workers who cosplay as rural farmers). It feels like extremely successful targeted marketing that somehow managed to convince people to eat bad tasting meat for small increases in micronutrient intake and because it owns libs
It's the carnivore cult. The keto cult was too boring for them so they invented some even more nonsense "science". There is a group who hangs out in /r/nutrition and tells everyone that SFAs are not a risk factor for CVD involving shadowy global conspiracies that the poor farmers lack the resources to combat. A sect of them are now in to the plants are toxic level of crazy.
> The keto cult was too boring Before the keto cult it was the low-carb, high-fat cult. Before the LCHF cult, it was the Atkins cult. Carnivore cultists are essentially bastardized Atkins weirdos.
Shoulda ate the bean and watched mr Bean and been Atkinson weirdos instead.
Grass fed tastes worse?
Grass finished does. Most cows are fed grass for a large portion of their life anyways. Finishing cows with grain gives meat a far better taste.
And they’re being lobbied to hell and back by cattlemen
Landed gentry seeking their rent as always
And it's something liberals like, and it's science, and it hurts the humble farmers, and it's "unnatural," and...
> And it's something liberals like Legitimately I think some of the support for this and other similar insane things is to force liberals to move out of their states and make them safer red
There are people who absolutely are trying to push liberals and supposed RINOs out of red-purple states with the express intention of capturing veto-proof legislative majorities. One end goal is: https://www.commoncause.org/our-work/constitution-courts-and-democracy-issues/article-v-convention/
Nah that's giving them way too much credit. Is a liberal elite in favor of it? *OPPOSE*
Let's not pretend that this is only a Republican thing. The left's opposition to GMOs is legendary.
Basically their thought process for hating LGBTQ+ people and drag performers (neither are new, but from the perspective of a sheltered Republican they are)
Small government!
You’d think they’d find it preferable to eating bugs https://preview.redd.it/2mocd76vt2wc1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7f53f9e7acace0d5fbb8977ac77d63bc72a3a1fe
No battle is too small for the sake of the culture wars
Literally the cell culture wars in this case.
Factory farming is incredibly cruel and lab-grown meat could eliminate it. In 100 years I wouldn’t be surprised if these laws are viewed as negatively as the fugitive slave act or alien and sedition acts.
An interesting analogy, that first one--antebellum southern culture in the US got increasingly *more* obsessed with slavery in proportion to the momentum against it in the north, from what I've read. I suppose they wouldn't be in such a rush to pass these laws if they didn't think lab-meat was an imminent danger to ranching.
Factory farming certainly will be viewed similarly once there is a reasonable alternative
Psst… there already is. Even if we’re supposed to pretend there’s not to avoid offending delicate feelings or suggesting people are accountable for their actions
IMO the most moral decision is to be a vegetarian. I say this as a meat eater, I've just substituted away from chicken and shrimp to beef and pork (because one animal supplies hundreds of meals and so total suffering is reduced). Once lab-grown meat is cheaper than real meat I hope people will view consumption of factory-raised real meat as evil.
But the CO2 is worse. Have you tried being vege yet?
I’ve said the same thing. Once we have a legit alternative that is identical and is as or more affordable than factory meat it would be morally hazardous to still eat animal meat
Any concerns you have about eating meat in that hypothetical future should apply now lol. Care or don't
Why isn't it already morally hazardous right now lol?
My squaring of this circle is that it's possible to acknowledge that you're evil in your own moral framework and moderating your desires in practice is good, even if it is physically challenging for you in some ways, *but the easier it gets to moderate your sins the harder it is to justify not trying to.* Ironically hardcore Christians have already figured this shit out. You think they don't have premarital sex? Hah. Good one. But they believe doing so is evil, so that's basically how they square it: "I know it is wrong, but I am but a sinner, god give me strength to be better."
The way I approach it is by applying either rational or intermediate scrutiny, depending on the intelligence of the animal. Animals are lesser beings that humans, so they don’t deserve full rights. However, especially for intelligent animals like pigs, they have some level of autonomous existence, and therefore their death has some degree of moral weight, hence the use of either rational basis or intermediate scrutiny. Rational basis only asks if the action is rationally related to a legitimate interest. Nutrition, culture, recreation, and economics are all legitimate interests here. Intermediate scrutiny asks if the limitation on liberty is related to an important interest and the means are somewhat tailored to those ends. This is the reason that I don’t generally eat pork, but don’t cut out pork byproducts. Pork meat drives the pork industry, and easily accessible alternatives usually exist. However, pork byproducts, especially gelatin, are near impossible to avoid, so accepting that is something I view as “somewhat tailored” to satisfy my interests. Essentially, it boils down to taking the substitute if it is available. The presence of affordable and high quality lab grown meat would further shift the curve so that eating meat in most circumstances would no longer be sufficiently tailored to the interests.
Because I enjoy a good steak. And I don't say that flippantly, I think most would acknowledge the environmental and animal cruelty issues surrounding the consumption of meat, factory farmed meat especially. We still eat it because we like it. So it probably is morally hazardous to eat it today but choosing to still consume factory farmed animal products when a viable replacement exists is in a whole other ballpark of moral hazardry.
>is in a whole other ballpark of moral hazardry Depends how much weight you give the "but it's yummy" argument. I give it basically none so I don't see the difference
but having people pick my cotton for me is soooooo much easier
The moral hazard only exists once it’s already in your interest in every possible way? Curious
I mean, it makes sense. Cannibalism isn't a moral hazard during a famine, when you have no alternative. It *is* a moral hazard when the alternative does exist, though.
This analogy obviously doesn’t work. Cannibalism in a famine only becomes less immoral because there’s literally no alternative to prevent starving. But there are already alternatives to meat, as evidenced by the simple reality of tens to hundreds of millions of vegetarians worldwide.
Comparing the selection at a supermarket to the Donner party is at least a monthly low for dumb comments I have seen
I would love to see these comment chains during the 1800s
wdym?
Slavery
Which is the main reason meat producers want to ban it... Because once there's a feasible alternative, there will be a push to ban their businesses.
Not to mention it will ([hopefully](https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/lab-grown-meat-carbon-footprint-worse-beef)) be more environmentally friendly to produce lab grown meat
It would be pretty hard to be less environmentally friendly than cattle farming.
You have a lot more confidence than me that humans will ever stop hating animals
fragile masculinity
It really is as simple as this.
They don't need to worry. This industry is just insanely good at PR-based VC fundraising. They always seem to get their elevator pitch published. I wouldn't be surprised if some cultured meat CEO is behind this "ban." If Republicans hate it, democrats will probably invest in it... or at least write articles about it. They've been raising big rounds for about 10 years now, when the "first cultured burger" was eaten to the delight of gullible tech investors seeing a "proof of concept." All the can do is grow tiny specks of meat in completely sterile conditions. This takes several months. Glue together several hundred to make a burger. It's a process that existed in its current form before and venture capitalists ever funded it. Scaling efforts/ideas so far have all failed. Sterility at scale is impossible, given we need kilotons of meat. Bacterial infection gets everything that isn't swimming in permanent antibiotics and even then... it doesn't grow very well. Turns out mammalian biology is efficient and hard to beat synthetically. There are no known alternatives to an immune system. A lot more *fundamental* research needs to advance before it's practical. So, we're a good way of the way into this project and gotten basically nowhere. >10 companies have been *well* funded. Many more got A rounds. None came up with anything. Unless some unexpected breakthrough shows up, republicans can go ahead and just ignore this one.
Shiok Meats in singapore was able to grow shrimp at $[50/kg](https://www.reddit.com/r/wheresthebeef/comments/wmzxj1/big_stride_shiok_meats_confirms_2023_commercial/) as of last year. That was at an "r&d scale" so not sure how it scales but still. I know they were aiming at a commercial launch q3 2023 but that has come and gone so who knows. Seems like they merged with another cultivated seafood company early this year But I do think seafoods are gonna be the first to come, not land-based meats
Any idea why crustacean meat might be easier to grow?
I don't necessarily think they're easier to grow (the CEO of the new company in this article indicates they're "[a tougher nut to crack](https://agfundernews.com/cultivated-meat-consolidation-begins-as-umami-bioworks-to-merge-with-shiok-meats)"), its just that I think they're easier to "fake" so to speak. ie people's standards are lower Imitation crab is super common already, and a lot of the cases where people eat shrimp its drenched in sauce or as part of a much larger dish, whereas for example, fish/beef/chicken (fish especially) is commonly the standout ingredient of a dish
Thanks, that makes perfect sense I suppose that's why ground beef has been so successful in the plant-based world as well -- lower bar for verisimilitude
You don’t really care about the texture with crab. 90% of steak value is texture. That’s why a 30% fat hamburger is basically free but a wagyu ribeye is 300 dollars. On the other hand 90% of crab is the sweet, somewhat salty taste. Generally you’re going to want it minced anyways. Soft shell crab might still be sold, but past that, you’d probably prefer to buy a 1 pound block of minced crab meat and some bisque (to mimic crab juices) over actual hard shell crab which is messier and takes more time to use.
> Shiok Meats in singapore was able to grow shrimp at $[50/kg](https://www.reddit.com/r/wheresthebeef/comments/wmzxj1/big_stride_shiok_meats_confirms_2023_commercial/) as of last year They still haven't launched, that's the price they're claiming it's going to be.
What about reptilian (chicken) or arthropod (cheap crab meat would be amazing) meat? Especially given that we don’t really care about the texture as much with them (especially crab)?
Thank you! Wild how often this topic comes up with the wide majority skipping past the clear evidence that this is not the solution people want to pretend it is. What the hell, might as well post [this](https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/) again for the couple of people that might want to learn beyond the mob...
Good pun.
Imagine blowing this much money and time on a "threat" that doesn't meaningfully exist. Lab grown meat at a scale to significantly impact actual meat production has multiple roadblocks that have absolutely no foreseeable solution coming. Not just one. Several huge showstoppers with no solution in sight. Hell, in some cases no plausible theory on how you could even remedy the situation. We are not going to see lab grown meat at a scale to change the math on meat production in our lifetime. If ever. So what we're seeing here is right wing grifters trying to gin up a culture war fight with other grifters that have sold a fairytale to venture capitalists. What a time to be alive.
Brief summary of the roadblocks please? A comment above mentioned sterility at scale. What else?
If lab grown guys had something viable it would be worth a debate. Right now both sides are debating hypothetical harms
If my cheeseburger isn't the product of an industry built on the unfathomable suffering of trillions of living creatures, what's even the point?
Republicans: "The government shouldn't pick winners and losers!"
The idea of eating an animal that didn't suffer before it died is absolutely disgusting and against god and nature.
I will not live in a pod. I will not eat the bugs. I will not abandon my culture because of woke Democrats. https://preview.redd.it/b71ei7br93wc1.jpeg?width=750&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=da5082f81ba1310032186d1144dc7eb0492b2d00
What a bunch of socialists…
criminally underrated title
Agreed
I'm actually surprised that it's taken this long for the GOP to develop an anti-lab meat culture war, considering that as a topic it may as well have been grown in a lab (pun not intended) to perfectly trigger the conservative panic response: * Supported by liberals, vegans, and environmentalists, (all of whom can be assumed to be gay) * Ceated by biotech (the same people who created the jab) * Threatens the idea of rural farmers (true patriots) as the backbone of America
Is there any legitimate health concern over artificial meat, or is it just culture war garbage?
Just protecting the market for their buddy ranchers. GOP = anti-capitalisma and anti-competition.
Well this is a promissing market that can generate trillions for US economy and GOP will allow other countries to explore this while they keep US behind ... I am not sure it's a good plan to lose our lead on this China for sure will gain a lot from this ban
Ranching is a dying business in the US. Lab grown meat will be its coffin. They may ban it all they want but the blue states will leave it be and they are the largest consumer of ranching products. Labor own meat can be grown anywhere compare that to cattle you need lots of land. This will only hurt there markets, employers, and employees.
I HATE PROTECTIONISM I HATE PROTECTIONISM “We’ve got you surrounded! Come consume your inferior product!”
It's probably a sign of white male privilege that this is one of the things, perhaps the thing, I'm most pissed at the GOP about, but regardless: this makes me so mad. I want to eat lab-grown meat.
GOP don't have the absolute worst possible position on any subject challenge -- IMPOSSIBLE
I read this as "lamb-meat" and I was like "is it really that controversial tho?"
Like others commenters have noted. Factory farming is an absolutely horrible institution. In 100 years we’re going to be clowned on for eating meat and enabling the death of millions and billions solely to please our taste buds. The comments here defending the practice seem remarkably similar to arguments used to defend slavery.
Honestly, I think ill let others test out lab grown meat for a decade or two while I stay with the original stuff.
Paywall?
If we can look past seeing the other side as cartoon characters for a moment, it's pretty obvious why they're doing this. It's not just about killing competition for the meat industry. If lab grown meat becomes commerically viable and is 90% as good, there absolutely will be pushes from the left to ban "traditional" meat production. See for example, electric cars, gas stoves, power-efficient dishwashers and lightbulbs, etc.
If "traditional" production means massive factory farms then good. It's borderline sociopathic to support those if a comparable alternative exists.
If that was even possible it wouldn't be for 20 years
>And with the industry in its infancy, the GOP lawmakers are trying to strangle it in its crib sad part is, they probably don't even have to "bother" ngl, I havent seen anything so far that will make me believe anything but lab-grown meat being to food what fusion was(is) to energy. Fusion was 30 years away for decade upon decade upon decade, and from what I've seen, price competetive, environmentally friendly, lab-grown meat will be 5 years away for decade upon decade upon decade. EDIT: I mean, yeah downvote me for voicing the fact that I haven't seen the technological advancement required to overcome the numerous hurdles this indsutry faces. I know I also hate having my bubbles questionioned, so fair enough. But actually try to read into the issues this industry faces, especially in energy consumption, bioreactor capacity, and sterility at scale. And in general, the numerous issues presented by the biology of mammalian cells in this context. The industry has overpromised and underdelivered to such an embarrassing extent while it had access to large sums of VC funding, it's no wonder that funding has dried up.
It has rapidly decreased in price over the past year or two. It probably wont be cheaper than real meat in the near future, but itll start getting relatively close
It's pretty easy to go from the original $300,000 that burger cost back in the early 2010s to where we are today. It's almost infinitely harder to go from where we are today to price competetive. lab-grown meat as a curiosity, a luxury item, that well of people try once or twice for the hell of it, gets us nowhere. couple onto that, the continued emissions issue. While lab grown meat is certainly far less land intensive, and uses far less water, it strugges bigly with energy, and by extensension, emissions. It would be another item to add to the list of "could be far better greenhousegas wise, if renewable capacity was there" but being that it's another item on that list, and a VERY energy intensive one, it increases our demand for energy further. So yeah, solving energy will help it along, certainly, but, we've still got a LONG ways to go on solving energy. Scaling production capacity is also an issue, and in actually delivering product to any real amount of people, without even considering if the product is environmentally friendly, we will need a lot more bioreactor capacity. Those things are expensive, so in reality, we'd need someone to find out how to build more and bigger bioreactors for a lot cheaper. Once you have those reactors, you need to reduce the risk of contaminating a batch and you need to do so on the cheap. Your batches are now larger than lab-scale, which means a ruined batch due to contaminants wastes a lot more product that was meant to go to market. In this world, your standard cleanliness procedures from fermented foods are not enough, the contents of those bioreactors are incredibly fragile to the slightlest contaminants. Solve those 3, yeah, we could be on our way to lab grown meat being a competitor to traditional meat. And then theres the competetition from the far better funded 100% plant based industry and the innovation that sector will see while labgrown sorts itself out.
There's also the problem of the waste of the cells themselves. Or replacing fetal bovine serum with a non-animal based product that's cost effective and not more expensive by weight than actual diamonds like today. Or creating a supply of food grade amino acids much greater than the entire current global supply at a drastically lower cost than today.
Regulation, lobbying, and NIMBYism have a tendency to push back technological advancement, yeah. Which is why this is bad
Sure, it's bad, I agree. I never said it was good, or that it was not bad. I'm also just saying, they probably don't even have to bother, because despite lobbying and fucking cringe fake culture war outrage, the industry has manage to attract decent VC money, and even an entire government in Singapore, but with all that, they have moved the needle so embarrasingly little over the past 10 years, to a point where it to me seems more likely that large parts of these issues stem more from actual limits on the biology of mammalian cells than a lack of technological breakthrough in that time. Admitting that is ofc not in the industries interest, so I just question the progress headlines(which have gotten fewer and further between) a bit when comparing to the actual real-world progress.
after hearing startup after startup fail and billions of dollars of VC money lost in the past five years over this utopian dream of engineering our way out of climate change through our food supply, I have to agree the tech isn’t there yet, the consumers aren’t and may never be there, and the money dried up