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swiftcoder 38 minutes ago [-]
> 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...
ForHackernews 29 minutes ago [-]
Need to make these people visit a slaughterhouse.
CalRobert 14 minutes ago [-]
Me, having recently moved to rural Ireland: “the cows were mooing and wailing horribly last night, were they being slaughtered?”
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…
FranzFerdiNaN 27 minutes ago [-]
So a tank is problematic, but a slaughter house is fine?
vlan0 6 minutes ago [-]
Nah, these are the same folks that have never watched earthlings.
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
OroPla 25 seconds ago [-]
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.
lukan 1 minutes ago [-]
Depends how it is done, but can also have the opposite effect of making people more used to cruel behavior.
I guess it depens on the preson. The author claims they haven't eaten meat since 2007.
jkahrs595 47 seconds ago [-]
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.
OroPla 3 minutes ago [-]
Honestly speaking, yes.
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.
boxed 23 minutes ago [-]
Yea.. like.. look into the sheeps eyes as you cut it's throat and then tell me again how a lab is "icky".
thrance 24 minutes ago [-]
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.
atwrk 7 minutes ago [-]
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.
lordnacho 33 minutes ago [-]
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.
stephbook 28 minutes ago [-]
Hardware is harder than software.
falcor84 8 minutes ago [-]
But "disembodied" intelligence is also built on top of massive amounts of hardware advances and infrastructure investment.
dinkblam 50 minutes ago [-]
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)?
Brendinooo 25 minutes ago [-]
It doesn't seem like there's this finished product ready to go that's just cost-prohibitive because of malicious regulation.
So at this point it's not even clear that anyone is actually losing their grip on the status quo...
cpursley 37 minutes ago [-]
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.
Cpoll 33 seconds ago [-]
> 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.
sevenzero 27 minutes ago [-]
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.
anthonj 21 minutes ago [-]
Not that simple, about 5% of the world population has G6PD deficiency and can get sick or die from a diet based on many kind of beans.
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)
sevenzero 19 minutes ago [-]
So they could just buy supplements and other vegetables?
probably_wrong 6 minutes ago [-]
"Just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
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.
Semaphor 32 minutes ago [-]
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.
plazma 27 minutes ago [-]
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.
Semaphor 20 minutes ago [-]
Planted has the issues most meat replacements have, a lot of ingredients, and a higher carb count. Not an issue for everyone, but it is for me.
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)
WaxProlix 7 minutes ago [-]
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.
dr_dshiv 28 minutes ago [-]
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
cik 4 minutes ago [-]
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.
amelius 17 minutes ago [-]
The problem is that the happy drugs will, in some detectable concentrations, end up in meat.
(A smaller problem is that humans will start using the drugs if the distribution is not tightly controlled.)
emaro 7 minutes ago [-]
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.
pitchlatte 22 minutes ago [-]
solve the land use problem for growing cattle feed if you want it to be maximally ethical.
throwfaraway135 9 minutes ago [-]
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.
jagged-chisel 5 minutes ago [-]
It’s not the meat eating that’s the problem. It’s the industrial farming that we’ve instituted in the last 75 years.
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.
c048 1 minutes ago [-]
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)?
truekonrads 32 minutes ago [-]
Why eat meat at all is the big question? Impossible and Beyond satisfy the taste and craving without the nastiness.
Emma_Goldman 21 minutes ago [-]
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.
torben-friis 29 minutes ago [-]
They really don't.
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.
my-next-account 9 minutes ago [-]
These statements remind me of fitness influencer's showcasing their healthy brownies which "totally taste like the real thing".
Kurtz79 17 minutes ago [-]
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?
tomtomtom777 6 minutes ago [-]
I am a meat lover that understands that eating real meat is way too large a drain on our planet's resources.
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.
stephbook 26 minutes ago [-]
Costs more, tastes worse and is ultra-processed.
nkrisc 29 minutes ago [-]
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.
cpursley 29 minutes ago [-]
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.
shrubble 27 minutes ago [-]
Turns out that nature is a lot more efficient at producing meat; I don’t think this will change for a while, if ever.
Bugs for chickens, grasses/grains for cattle and omnivorous pigs are their own kind of bio-reactor…
musha68k 13 minutes ago [-]
To a large extent it's probably explainable through meat industry lobbyism and shadow campaigns over the years.
TabTwo 47 minutes ago [-]
I was hoping for Deathless Meat [1]
Looks like this does not happen anytime soon.
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.
gadders 34 minutes ago [-]
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.
avhception 4 minutes ago [-]
I think like you, but they have managed to turned non-lab grown meat into unhealthy slop, too.
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…
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 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.
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
(A smaller problem is that humans will start using the drugs if the distribution is not tightly controlled.)
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)?
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…
[1] see https://www.daniel-suarez.com/changeagentsynopsis.html
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.