Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory – The Times — I’m sure lab grown meat will keep the ethicists busy for a good while. It all seems pretty creepy but if its tasty and not hideously tainted, is it a better idea than killing animals for their flesh? Of course, its being sold as a solution to global warming.
SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish.
The advent of so-called “in-vitro” or cultured meat could reduce the billions of tons of greenhouse gases emitted each year by farm animals — if people are willing to eat it.
So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.
[...]
“You could take the meat from one animal and create the volume of meat previously provided by a million animals,” said Mark Post, professor of physiology at Eindhoven University, who is leading the Dutch government-funded research.Post and his colleagues have so far managed to develop a soggy form of pork and are seeking to improve its texture. “What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue,” Post said.
[...]
The Vegetarian Society reacted cautiously yesterday, saying: “The big question is how could you guarantee you were eating artificial flesh rather than flesh from an animal that had been slaughtered. It would be very difficult to label and identify in a way that people would trust.” Peta, the animal rights group, said: “As far as we’re concerned, if meat is no longer a piece of a dead animal there’s no ethical objection.”
One in the top section looks like a turd.
/can’t fool me
Um, I have doubts about the quality, flavor, and price of lab grown meat anytime in the next 10 years.
I also wonder just how eco friendly this really going to be when you add in all the processing lab type stuff that will be required. This is going to be a chemical plant.
#10 Ah_Yea said,”Bacon every morning would actually be good for you!”
You mean it’s NOT???
# 11 Guyver said, “Why would lab-grown meat be treated any differently than genetically-modified crops?”
For one thing, I assume it’s a cloning procedure, not a gene modification. In fact, it’s not technically even cloning: it’s a tissue culture which just means encouraging a piece of meat to grow into a larger piece of of meat. For another, it’s not going to get blown into a pig in the next field. It will take a massive and environmentally secure lab to grow such cultures. Also they’ll need to be electrically stimulated to contract and relax – sit-ups, if you will – to become muscular and texturally palatable.
The huge expenditure needed to do this on an industrial scale will probably make it much more expensive than real pork. So, like organic foods, many people will buy it to assuage their conscience and make it less frankenfood and more boutique food. All those PETA vegans will begin to enjoy their morning bacon, again. (They probably never stopped – just hid their addiction.)
But don’t worry. Just relax. The good folks at Viridian Dynamics have already tested this and found it wouldn’t work. And that’s that.
That’s a whole suitcase of phallic imagery! But not quite gross enough to make me a vegetarian.
From the article:
Post and his colleagues have so far managed to develop a soggy form of pork and are seeking to improve its texture. “What we have at the moment is rather like wasted muscle tissue,” Post said.
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Doesn’t sound very appetizing so far. I’m afraid deowll and Animby have it right — this will take a LOT of processing to have any taste, especially at first, and will be even more expensive than regular pork. Too bad. With some luck, though, and a lot of research and development, they may be able to turn out a nice low-cholesterol pork tenderloin. M-m-m!