[Closed] Lab grown meat is now a reality.

I heard about this on the radio when driving my 12 year old daughter to school this morning.

I asked her if she would eat it and she replied "Urrgh! I don't like the sound of that!".

I then added the point about it being good for the environment and her response changed completely and she said that she would be willing to try it.

There is hope.

Good thing it avoids this problem too https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/dec/01/farm-animals-antibiotics-data-raises-post-brexit-trade-fears

Lost a 38 year old friend to sepsis, and both me and my partner have had bacterial infections that were only brought under control with antibiotics (my partner required 2 weeks in hospital).

Over using antibiotics just so food producers can make meat cheaper seems crazy! It's not like "chlorinated chicken" either, which you could avoid the problem by not buying it. If antiobiotics become less effective we're all stuffed!

Great stuff.

it being good for the environment

Not so sure that'd hold true.
Feels like we should be able to live harmoniously, sustainably and respectfully alongside everything we share this rock with.

This doesn't feel like that.
😶

This doesn’t feel like that

but it’s a step in the right direction though.

Do you need a license to shoot it?

Feels like we should be able to live harmoniously, sustainably and respectfully alongside everything we share this rock with.

I agree, but in practice it doesn't seem to be working out so well. 🙁

They wouldn't be able to open the hatch in the incubator tank. Plus if it is good enough steel they might shoot themselves with the ricochet

Feels like we should be able to live harmoniously, sustainably and respectfully alongside everything we share this rock with.

Not if 6 billion (or a small fraction of that in reality) want to eat a meat based diet. It's impossible, there isn't enough land on the planet. The only solution is the mass production of non-livestock produced meat, and this is a step towards that.

There was an article published by George Monbiot last summer (I think) about lab-grown meat, and he was on the JV show talking about it. His argument was that, due to population/space issues, the days of farmers providing cheap meat for everyone were numbered, and (when the cost came down, as it will) lab-grown meat will take over, purely because it'll be much more cost-efficient to produce. The UK farmer who was on at the same time was not happy about this, but couldn't or wouldn't seem to see that GM's point wasn't that he WANTED to force the farmer out of business, but that was inevitable, due to economics.

(Actually, he wasn't even arguing that farmers would be forced out, just that "real" meat would become a luxury product - with high welfare - which actually I think would be a very good thing)

Surely replacing cheap, industrially farmed meat with (eventually) cheaper lab-grown meat is a good thing, both for welfare and quality reasons? Binner's cheap steak-bakes are mainly arseholes anyway and other barrel-scrapings, at least this is going to be proper chicken breast/steak or whatever!

Anyway, this is a great step forward, could see a potential confusion if they start selling "Eat Just" meat in the UK though... 🤔

Chicken Little. Predicted by Fred Pohl in the early 50s. Sounds great!

Hopefully this lowers the cost of actual meat if demand falls and the hipsters take up their fake virtue signalling lab grown diet.

I'd accept cheaper steak and burgers for some impressionable folk eating highly processed fake rubbish.

#fake moos

I doubt it will make normally produced meat cheaper. More likely now expensive as 'real meat' becomes a premium product as farms can't beat the labs in the race to the cheapest.

Hopefully this lowers the cost of actual meat

Interesting to see what the carbon footprint of this is. I went vegan 11 months ago due to the environmental and ethical impact. I'd probably try this out of curiosity but can't say I miss chicken nuggets.

I would advocate a different approach. Reduce meat consumption to a level where decent farming practices can supply demand.

I think it's a good thing, and as mentioned proper meat will become a luxury item and as such have better welfare and better farming methods to go with it and a reduction in food miles.

I'm sure not everyone will want it but even if it was used in all low grade chicken application think processed nuggets takeaways ect the sheer reduction in dead animals would be huge.

Look where your chicken comes from in your premade meals I'll bet it's from some where like Vietnam or Thailand.

Your saying that animals had good quality of life? Never mind the huge food miles its racked up to wind up in your mouth.

Hopefully this lowers the cost of actual meat if demand falls and the hipsters take up their fake virtue signalling lab grown diet.
I’d accept cheaper steak and burgers for some impressionable folk eating highly processed fake rubbish.

I'd expect the total opposite, Real animal meat, requiring more land/equipment/time/labour will become a more expensive 'luxury' choice... you'll be battling those hipsters for access to genuine cow chunks while the plebs get on chewing their lab grown mystery meat cubes...

It's always pricier being a snob whether it's fashionable or not...

Once lab grown meat is nigh on indistinguishable from regular meat, i'll be switching and not going back. There's literally no reason to ever eat normal meat again once that is a reality. The environmental savings from habitat loss and climate change alone is worth it.

^

Look where your chicken comes from in your premade meals I’ll bet it’s from some where like Vietnam or Thailand.

Look closer to home.

https://plantbasednews.org/culture/severe-animal-suffering-chicken-farms-tesco-mcdonalds/

Chicken is our most popular meat, with 20 million birds slaughtered every week in the UK. The vast majority (86%) of industrial-sized farms are in the poultry sector, with 1,534 industrial-sized farms. Previous research from 2017 found seven out of the 10 largest farms in the UK housed more than 1 million birds.

@airvent

Hopefully this lowers the cost of actual meat if demand falls and the hipsters take up their fake virtue signalling lab grown diet.

Weirdest take on this?

Didn’t so-called hipsters go crazy for ‘prime’ bacon IIRC?

Not if 6 billion (or a small fraction of that in reality) want to eat a meat based diet. It’s impossible, there isn’t enough land on the planet. The only solution is the mass production of non-livestock produced meat, and this is a step towards that.

Well, apart from the other solution of fewer humans of course, but we're not allowed to think that are we... 😉

#fake moos

I feel that this has gotten less applause than it should have so 👏😂👏

I’d accept cheaper steak and burgers for some impressionable folk eating highly processed fake rubbish.

Highly processed rubbish? Where do you think burgers come from, freshly harvested from burger trees in Kent?

... or a ham-bush.

A couple of points....

1. Unless this can be churned out cheaper than industrially farmed protein then it will not get a foothold in the market other than as a niche. As such it will likely be sold as an environmentally friendly option, thus reducing the demand for true high welfare, environmentally friendly/organic farmed meat. So far from improving the lot of farmed animals, it could potentially reduce relative standards.

2. This stuff is not somehow magiced out of the ether. Newtons law says energy cannot be created or destroyed, but merely passed from one form to another. The effects on the environment may not be as visible as herds of cattle grazing where rain forests once grew, but the actual environmental balance aint going to be that different when all things are considered. You cannot get something for nothing.

3. If it does help reduce factory farming then I am all for it. But the scale of what is grown that way currently vs. the scale on which this stuff will need to be produced to replace it in a meaningful way is staggering. This isn't going to be done in a couple of units on an industrial estate in Slough.

Just be careful what you wish for.

I’d accept cheaper steak and burgers for some impressionable folk eating highly processed fake rubbish.

Unless this can be churned out cheaper than industrially farmed protein

I'm guessing you have a little bit of a bias there, user named 'welshfarmer'.

2. This stuff is not somehow magiced out of the ether. Newtons law says energy cannot be created or destroyed, but merely passed from one form to another. The effects on the environment may not be as visible as herds of cattle grazing where rain forests once grew, but the actual environmental balance aint going to be that different when all things are considered. You cannot get something for nothing.

Of course it's not coming from nothing but anything, anything would be a more efficient way to produce meat than what we have at the moment. Also:

The actual environmental balance aint going to be that different when all things are considered

Unless you're part of the development and production of this lab grown meat, how the hell would you know? Sounds like you're just pulling stuff like this out of nowhere?

[strong]tetrode[/strong] wrote:

I’m guessing you have a little bit of a bias there, user named ‘welshfarmer’.

You got me there. However, 20 years of producing meat to the highest possible standards of welfare and to probably some of the highest levels of environmental sustainability in the country would give me a fair reason to question the future of my business model. I would welcome you to my farm to see how it can be done if you were genuinely interested.

[strong]tetrode[/strong] wrote:

Unless you’re part of the development and production of this lab grown meat, how the hell would you know? Sounds like you’re just pulling stuff like this out of nowhere?

I will admit to a bit of educated guesswork here. But I may well now be a farmer, but prior to that I spent a decade working as a scientist gaining a PhD along the way, which kind of gives me a bit of background into understanding how these things really work.

a ham-bush

There's a top-quality dad joke in there, something about mugging people for pork products.

Unless this can be churned out cheaper than industrially farmed protein then it will not get a foothold in the market other than as a niche

I would fully expect it to be a niche product for a good while, but the sky's the limit after that.

Unless you’re part of the development and production of this lab grown meat, how the hell would you know? Sounds like you’re just pulling stuff like this out of nowhere?

Of course you could say the same about anyone claiming that lab-grown meat is (or is going to be) more environmentally efficient than animal grown meat. As welsh farmer says the laws of physics aren't changed... one way or another you are effectively taking energy from sunlight, CO2 and O2 from the atmosphere, some source of nitrogen and water and turning it into palatable protein and a bunch of byproducts. If we've managed to make an approach which is better than millions of years of evolution and hundreds of years of selective breeding then that's quite impressive. Its quite likely though that it just shuffles around who or where the problem rests. I'd suggest the burden is on the new tech to prove it is actually better...

and as mentioned proper meat will become a luxury item and as such have better welfare and better farming methods to go with it and a reduction in food miles.

You mean like diamonds are only dug up in the best of work places, furs are only sourced from ethically to reared animals as they die of old age and so on?

I hate to be the one to break it to you but that ain't the way the world works. Increased demand for luxury alternatives will see standards of production in most of the market drop not increase and the premium value of your luxury product will vanish long before trickle down to production, you might end up paying £5k for an 8oz steak but you can bet your bottom dollar that disappears into the profits and shares of "luxury beef Inc" not organic production.

(also bear in mind the upsurge in meat consumption in recent decades is exactly because it *is* a luxury in much of the world where largely vegetarian diets were /are things of necessity not choice)

In regards to the actual product I'd be intrigued to know how it tastes. Given the flavour of meat depends so much on so many things from diet, to how long it's hung, how the fat is distributed etc I can't see lab grown meat being much more that TVP made of meat.
To that end the aforementioned arsehole abroad eyelids used in pasties etc are likely to get replaced with it, but things we'd consider "real" meat probably won't. I can't see that as an environmental good, since you end up with the same animal production, more waste and additional lab production on top to satisfy the demand for fake steak in place of cheap cuts.

There's a reason they're producing chicken nuggets not kobe steaks.

kayak23
Well, apart from the other solution of fewer humans of course, but we’re not allowed to think that are we…..

There's work in progress on that.

Our govt has a decades long program of culling darker skinned people in distant lands.

More locally there's a programme to get the denser members of our society to self-cull in Anti-mask, anti-lockdown, anti-vacc demonstrations.

Then there's our govts Eugenics policy to remove the dependent members of society - it's disguised as Universal Credit.

Ye Gods! That was written tongue in cheek, but...

Nah, they can't organise Brexit, so they haven't a hope of a carefully crafted conspiracy.

Meanwhile, I recommend viewing Solyent Green. 🙂

As welsh farmer says the laws of physics aren’t changed… one way or another you are effectively taking energy from sunlight, CO2 and O2 from the atmosphere, some source of nitrogen and water and turning it into palatable protein and a bunch of byproducts.

Sure - but we already know that the process of turning sunlight into food to feed warm-blooded animals so they can be slaughtered is highly inefficient. I'd be staggered if synthetic meat, when produced at scale, isn't substantially better in that regard.

With the current process of converting plants to meat, you are actually making a whole animal (of which a fair bit isn't eaten). In a vat you are only making the stuff that you want to eat.. It should make it more efficient.
I want to see animals raised in the way Welshfarmer does. I don't want to see the massive feed lot animal production. It's part of the reason we are reducing meat content of our meals

Don't get me wrong welshfarmer I have a lot of respect for farmers, I can't imagine how tough of a job it is. I just can't see how lab grown meat would be in any way less efficient than how we do it now.

I will admit to a bit of educated guesswork here. But I may well now be a farmer, but prior to that I spent a decade working as a scientist gaining a PhD along the way, which kind of gives me a bit of background into understanding how these things really work.

Unless your PhD is in the kind of biology or chemistry that directly relates to this kind of science I don't see how it's relevant honestly. I have a degree in Marine Biology but it doesn't mean that I know anything about any other science related field.

With the current process of converting plants to meat, you are actually making a whole animal (of which a fair bit isn’t eaten)

Ah now you know there is only one part of the pig which isn't eaten?

I want to see animals raised in the way Welshfarmer does. I don’t want to see the massive feed lot animal production. It’s part of the reason we are reducing meat content of our meals

Completely agree. As meat eaters (for those of us who are) the best thing we can do is reduce our meat consumption considerably and get it from a reputable butcher who sources it from the likes of welshfarmer.

I hate to be the one to break it to you but that ain’t the way the world works. Increased demand for luxury alternatives will see standards of production in most of the market drop not increase and the premium value of your luxury product will vanish long before trickle down to production, you might end up paying £5k for an 8oz steak but you can bet your bottom dollar that disappears into the profits and shares of “luxury beef Inc” not organic production.

Winner of today's massive fanciful assumption award.

This stuff is not somehow magiced out of the ether. Newtons law says energy cannot be created or destroyed, but merely passed from one form to another. The effects on the environment may not be as visible as herds of cattle grazing where rain forests once grew, but the actual environmental balance aint going to be that different when all things are considered. You cannot get something for nothing.

You're correct, but very selective with the science.

You're taking CO2 and N2 from the air and turning it into proteins.

Plants do that by fixing nitrogen into the soil and photosynthesis. Animals then eat the plants. Remember that animals cannot fix nitrogen, we can synthesize amino acids into protein chains, but we cannot produce protein.

This is where "synthetic" protein is going to be a winner. A Lamb has to run around expending the vast majority of the energy it consumes leaving very little to go on up the food chain. Something in a lab won't do. There's a stat that even with our climate and geography being almost ideal for rearing animals, 80% of Soy imported into the country goes into animal feed, who then burn it off and it's largely wasted. So if you feed your lambs anything, then it's probably linked to burning rainforests.

https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/analysis-discovery/2019/10/09/the-bbc-reveals-a-shocking-fact-about-the-uks-complicity-in-brazilian-forest-fires/

Personally, I wouldn't have it, I don't see the point. I'm veggie and trying out lots of new stuff. I had some fairly generic-looking "soy chunks" from an Indian shop the other day, looked like dry dog biscuits but I was curious. TBH I've had cheap chicken with less flavor and texture. And this stuff was cheap, I had about 30p worth and was stuffed!

Ok as someone who works for an animal feed company that has invested in lab grown meat there are a couple of assumptions mentioned on this thread. The major advantage of lab grown steak is the fact that it is only the muscle or fat cells (if it’s a printed meat) that you culture. No bones or brain or superfluous tissue. The current life cycle assessments indicate that lab grown meat will initially have a much larger footprint but in theory economies of scale should kick in eventually. The key question is what will the lab grown products be fed on. Currently it is media from lab supplies but the industry needs to change that to ‘normal’ raw materials to make it cost effective. There are a number of technological barriers to that happening which need to be addressed before it will be a significant part of the food supply chain.

Sure – but we already know that the process of turning sunlight into food to feed warm-blooded animals so they can be slaughtered is highly inefficient. I’d be staggered if synthetic meat, when produced at scale, isn’t substantially better in that regard.

I just can’t see how lab grown meat would be in any way less efficient than how we do it now.

How many chemical plants have you guys walked round (scaled up lab grown meat is basically going to be a big biochemistry facility)? Energy to heat stuff up, energy to cool stuff down, raw materials purified with huge quantities of water and consequently lots of waste-water with pollutants in it (either directly entering the environment or going through an AD plant producing CO2 etc), raw materials shipped around the globe. Water and chemicals to clean and disinfect everything between production runs. Staff to maintain it all - who all drove to work, lighting all over the place, big tanks and vats all made from stainless steel, welded together and with specialist treatment chemicals to manage corrosion etc. That's rather different to an cow, pig or sheep which is largely autonomous in production.

Then add in, with no animal manure, as a by-product from meat production you are looking at more synthetic fertiliser. With no leather and wool as a by-product from meat production you are looking at more synthetic fibres, with the consequential environmental impact. Unless there is a market for the by-products of lab-grown meat then you've got a waste stream not a useful product.

Now there may be questions about the efficiency of imported feedstock but labelling "lab-grown" as better than "farmed" but measuring farmed on the worst possible efficiency and the lab-grown on speculation of how efficient it might one day be is rather nonsensical. If the aim is simply to improve the eco-friendliness of meat stop making fake meat and invest the same effort in improving farming practices (eg. using the Aussie seaweed that is reported to reduce CH4 emission massively; financial incentives for UK sourced feeds etc). The people in the fake meat business are predominantly not in it to save the planet - they are in it for £££ (or more often $$$).

Staff to maintain it all – who all drove to work, lighting all over the place, big tanks and vats all made from stainless steel, welded together and with specialist treatment chemicals to manage corrosion etc. That’s rather different to an cow, pig or sheep which is largely autonomous in production.

That’s rather different to an cow, pig or sheep which is largely autonomous in production.

It's interesting that you described the wastefulness of industrial-scale production without noting that exactly the same applies to the feeding, rearing, slaughtering and distribution of meat. And the livestock you claim to be autonomous is busy wasting about 90% of its inefficiently-produced food through the production of heat.

There's enough BS in this thread to cultivate a fair bit of synthetic meat, eh?

You don't really believe what you're saying do you Poly?

eh? So a lamb chop goes straight from the farm to a packet in the supermarket?

plus the year it spent running around a field burning energy and breaking wind.

https://www.newscientist.com/lastword/mg24332431-300-beef-with-tofu-is-local-beef-better-for-the-planet-than-tofu-imports/

Gram for gram meat is 73x worse than tofu (other vegetarian protein sources are available).

A kilo of beef protein is roughly equivalent to flying to New York!

"Lab grown meat" is kind of emotive. It conjures up some weird notions - synthetic protein is probably better.

Like a fair chunk of us I eat meat most days, but aside from the Sunday chicken (always free range, they taste better) the meat i'm eating could really be made of anything.

If artificially produced "chicken breast" cooked and tasted like chicken breast from a real chicken then I'd be all for it. When I make a curry or chicken fajitas I don't really care if its "meat" I just want it to have a texture and flavour I'm familiar with.

So if this "synthetic protein" delivers on that and is actually easier on the environment then its a good thing. Add in to the equation the fact that having viable alternate food sources can't do any harm when you are living on a planet with a growing population and rapid environmental change.

Winner of today’s massive fanciful assumption award

I assume you're of the impression the world is a wonderful place populated solely by people of good intentions, pure thoughts and benevolent action?

Can you give an example of how demand for a product (as opposed to a method of production) has led to better production practices and limited supply? (edit: ethically better,in opposition to ethically worse production and higher volume)

plus the year it spent running around a field burning energy and breaking wind.

Yes, I hadn't even considered methane emissions from ruminants: CH4 is 25x more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas.

I assume you’re of the impression the world is a wonderful place populated solely by people of good intentions, pure thoughts and benevolent action?

Can you give an example of how demand for a product (as opposed to a method of production) has led to better production practices and limited supply?

Don't you cringe reading that back?

I'm quite curious and not a little disturbed at the people here who are questioning the efficiency or suggesting that it's bad because it will require large industrial plants. What can be less efficient than fencing off a significant portion of the world's available land, and destroying habitats which keep the planet alive in order to manufacture a product which we don't really need? If a farm isn't a biochemistry facility what is it? What's worse is that these 'natural' facilities are allowed to empty their waste across the land and into our water sources almost unchecked. Far better to have fewer strategically located and massively productive facilities than lots of unproductive ones taking up all the land. I'm thinking something similar to oil refineries and chemical plants.

For the record I doubt I'll be eating any lab-grown chicken. I'm happily vegan and will continue with the plant based alternatives, for no other reason than I'm used to not liking the taste and texture of real meat.

What’s worse is that these ‘natural’ facilities are allowed to empty their waste across the land and into our water sources almost unchecked.

In the UK there are quite big restrictions on what is allowed to enter water courses be that from farms or industrial complexes. Of course other parts of the world have other standards, some significantly lower. High standards are expensive though so if you're going to produce cheap (real or synthetic) you tend* to need to do so in places with lower ones.

*of course the cost of physical production isn't the only cost of getting a product to market so it's not always the case that it's cost effective.

In the UK there are quite big restrictions on what is allowed to enter water courses be that from farms or industrial complexes

Farming pollution is a serious and recurring problem in the UK, so the restrictions don't seem to be working too well.

Feels like we should be able to live harmoniously, sustainably and respectfully alongside everything we share this rock with.

Nope. Far to late for that. Exploitation of our planets animals is one of the reasons there are too many of us present to achieve your above wishes.

Farming pollution is a serious and recurring problem in the UK, so the restrictions don’t seem to be working too well.

Its enforcement thats the problem. The Environment Agency is culturally weak on enforcement, and chronically under resourced.

(scaled up lab grown meat is basically going to be a big biochemistry facility)?

It’ll be more like a biologics facility, single use bioreactors - no need for as much steel and piping.

Recyclable single use bioreactors are also in development.

Nope. Far to late for that. Exploitation of our planets animals is one of the reasons there are too many of us present to achieve your above wishes.

There’s not too many people, there’s just too many westerners.

There’s not too many people, there’s just too many westerners.

China is catching up.

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2018/07/the-chinese-are-eating-more-meat-than-ever-before-and-the-planet-cant-keep-up/

A 2014 study published in Nature by researchers at the University of Cambridge and the University of Aberdeen stated that to keep up with the demand for meat, agricultural emissions worldwide will likely need to increase by up to 80 percent by 2050—a figure that alone could jeopardize the ambitious plan to keep planetary warming below the 2-degrees Celsius benchmark set under the Paris climate accord.

Pretty sure the average Chinese person still puts out half to a third of the co2 that westerners are responsible for.

Blaming population is just a convenient way to scapegoat the global poors/peasantry. As soon as UKIP latch on to that argument and synthesise nativism with conservationism/environmentalism we’re all ****ed.

But yeah....oh noo Chynahhhhs coming to get us

Blaming population is just a convenient way to scapegoat the global poors/peasantry.

Population is a red herring. We can easily feed all the people on earth, and a lot more, just not on a western style meat based diet. It's ironic that the reason there's not much space is because huge amounts of it are taken up by livestock farming. In a world where livestock farming doesn't exist there'd be a lot more land available for settlement without negatively impacting wildlife habitats and green space.

It’s ironic that the reason there’s not much space is because huge amounts of it are taken up by livestock farming.

That needs a bar chart

[url= https://i.postimg.cc/vTg5H3Ly/676955-F6-85-CF-4827-BCA0-FC7-D8-E72-FCAE.pn g" target="_blank">https://i.postimg.cc/vTg5H3Ly/676955-F6-85-CF-4827-BCA0-FC7-D8-E72-FCAE.pn g"/> [/img][/url]

I don’t know how accurate that is tbh

Blaming population is just a convenient way to scapegoat the global poors/peasantry.

Nice strawman.

I was referring to a continent whose population increasingly adopts similar consumer/meat-obsessed fatty habits to that of the Western/US-style culture. You can read whatever you want into such a fact, but I don’t appreciate the projecting/assumption of ‘scapegoating’. Flat wrong.

You don’t really believe what you’re saying do you Poly?

Well, I certainly think the questions need asked and the assumptions challenged. It's very unlikely that is more efficient today. I often hear people make wild assumptions about process efficiency scale-up, most of which are not based on science or experience but just a gut feel that we'll be able to make this better. The entire argument here seems to be "well the current process is so bad we must be able to do it better", not "well we've genetically engineered this enzyme to be 10x more efficient than the natural one". I genuinely don't think most people who see a flask of stuff growing in a lab have any idea how many kg of crop or hectares of field went to making its content.

Recyclable single use bioreactors are also in development.

So there's a huge amount of plastic waste in single-use bioreactors - hopefully, the PR people will keep that out the press, cos it doesn't fit with the eco arguments! FWIW I don't think you can scale up to replacing a substantial part of the UK diet with little bioreactors - it's not a few hundred milligrams of pharmaceutical per person we are talking about.

eh? So a lamb chop goes straight from the farm to a packet in the supermarket?

No, although the "best" (environmentally speaking) real meat might well be going farm > local abattoir > local shop -- I very much doubt that any fake meat manufacturer is thinking about having a dozen factories in the UK to "keep it local". This is back to the argument that people are comparing the worst with the best - the George Moinboit article falls into the same trap, he links to the Nature article he is writing about but it shows nearly a whole order of magnitude difference between different farming systems used in Brazil, and no acknowledgement that much less intense (and possibly environmentally more positive) farming systems are used in other parts of the world.[1]

I've not read this [2] in full, but at a glance after a quick google it seems to suggest on almost every metric lab-grown meat is a long way from being "better" for the environment, and soy, eating insects and mycoprotein (e.g. quorn) are more sustainable.

I’m quite curious and not a little disturbed at the people here who are questioning the efficiency

So you think it's sensible that we all blindly follow the commercially led arguments that this is what's good for us? Is questioning not, in fact, the healthy option - which forces the debate and evidence of the claims to come out and counter-arguments to be considered?

Remember, tobacco companies used to claim it was good for you?

or suggesting that it’s bad because it will require large industrial plants. What can be less efficient than fencing off a significant portion of the world’s available land, and destroying habitats which keep the planet alive in order to manufacture a product which we don’t really need?

But that's my point - just because there won't be animals wandering in fields doesn't mean that we won't need fields - they'll just get used to grow the crops which feed the bioreactors (probably after multiple intermediate processes), and fed with chemical fertilisers. Lab-grown meat isn't a miracle that produces something from nothing. Indeed it doesn't even do it without actual animal cells (something which if often glossed over when promoting the concept to veggies/vegans) [3].

Far better to have fewer strategically located and massively productive facilities than lots of unproductive ones taking up all the land. I’m thinking something similar to oil refineries and chemical plants.

And ship raw material around the world to feed the equipment and the output back to feed people? Putting countries who invest in plants at an economic and strategic advantage over those who do not?

[1] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.3184/003685017X14876775256165
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-015-0931-6
[3] https://philpapers.org/archive/ALVLMA.pdf

No thanks, I will stick to real meat. I would rather eat less than some lab thing.

Quorn Nuggets are not bad. We shouldn't be waiting for lab grown meat to sort out animal welfare and the environmental impact of the meat industry.

I wish all farmers were like 'WelshFarmer' - yes meat would be more expensive, yes we'd eat less of it but it would be more sustainable and less cruel.

So there’s a huge amount of plastic waste in single-use bioreactors – hopefully, the PR people will keep that out the press, cos it doesn’t fit with the eco arguments! FWIW I don’t think you can scale up to replacing a substantial part of the UK diet with little bioreactors – it’s not a few hundred milligrams of pharmaceutical per person we are talking about.

Single use bioreactors are still better for the environment as you aren’t using a **** tonne of energy and chemicals during campaign cleans.

I can quite easily see them replacing battery farming methods.

Shipping materials around the world can in some circumstances be cleaner than sourcing locally as well. Especially if it means more land can be rewilded, without having to extra sites/supply that’s not actually needed.

So you think it’s sensible that we all blindly follow the commercially led arguments that this is what’s good for us? Is questioning not, in fact, the healthy option – which forces the debate and evidence of the claims to come out and counter-arguments to be considered?

If commercial business listened to the proles we’d all be driving around in v8 gas guzzlers with no seat belts. It’s not the public that’s driving the move to more economical and safer cars, it’s the business and political classes.

If commercial business listened to the proles we’d all be driving around in v8 gas guzzlers with no seat belts.

I'm not sure its useful, helpful or intelligent to suggest that the differences of opinion are based on the class of the decision maker. The implication is that you think you are better than those who disagree with you, which is rarely a good way to win over the opposition.

It’s not the public that’s driving the move to more economical and safer cars, it’s the business and political classes.

mmm... but that's another area where there isn't universal agreement on the best solution. Whilst clearly we are heading to an electric world, digging up a finite resource to make Li batteries is not necessarily environmentally or strategically a perfect solution. Political intervention means we have this weird situation where its financially attractive for some company car owners to buy hybrids that will be used in a really inefficient way. There's a significant number of people who think the government should be investing in (or encouraging business to invest in) hydrogen rather than lithium... Who's been lobbying to electric vehicles I wonder? would it be electric vehicle makers, lithium battery makers etc? Similarly a lot of the things that make it safer to sit in the car don't necessarily make it safer for us cyclist on the outside, so don't assume car makers are interested in what's best rather than what they can sell you, any more that a food producer.

I've been vegetarian for almost two years now. The only thing I miss is the texture of meat in things like curry or chilli. I chucked a packet of Quorn mince in a slow cooked bean chilli yesterday out of curiosity, and it worked quite well.

I'm not deluding myself that I'm saving the world, though. A lot of the veggie (and especially vegan) diet relies on heavily processed foods with a ton of miles embedded. The argument that locally sourced meat, ethically produced on poor quality land, is more sound than processed soya products shipped halfway round the world seems valid.

Ultimately, though, we're ****ed, and it's just a question of timescale and how many species and ecosystems we take down with us.

diet relies on heavily processed foods

Out of curiosity, do you have some examples?

I am conscious that I’ve taken the whole avoiding processed foods a few steps further than most. E.g. we make from scratch Tofu, Oat Milk, Butter, cheese. But I am still curious as to what the average veggie is eating that’s heavily reliant on processed goods.

Out of curiosity, do you have some examples?

I am conscious that I’ve taken the whole avoiding processed foods a few steps further than most. E.g. we make from scratch Tofu, Oat Milk, Butter, cheese. But I am still curious as to what the average veggie is eating that’s heavily reliant on processed goods.

When I've read the ingredients list of colourful packets boldly claiming to be vegan usually the contents sound more like a shampoo! My gut feel is anything that boldly claims on the packaging to be "plant based" and bears no resemblance to vegetables is likely to be heavily processed.

Presumably the ultimate example is the Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll... I'm guessing not too many Greggs customers are making their own tofu, vegan butter and vegan cheese?

I was referring more to veganism than vegetarianism. I'd defer to my sister on this, who's been veggie (definitely NOT vegan) for 35+ years and knows her subject. She got very interested in healthy diet while steering her GP husband through five years of terminal pancreatic cancer.

mmm… but that’s another area where there isn’t universal agreement on the best solution. Whilst clearly we are heading to an electric world, digging up a finite resource to make Li batteries is not necessarily environmentally or strategically a perfect solution. Political intervention means we have this weird situation where its financially attractive for some company car owners to buy hybrids that will be used in a really inefficient way. There’s a significant number of people who think the government should be investing in (or encouraging business to invest in) hydrogen rather than lithium

Again it's not really the public who are leading calls for hydrogen, they are the political and business classes - just a different group of them. The general public don't drive opinion making, those two classes and the media do. And whenever something sensible comes along like vaccines, seat belts, self-driving cars and cleaner energy forms - there are always, always members of the general public who resist it just because they skim read and regurgitate an article in the Daily Mail or infowars.

Current li cars have an average lifetime co2 output of 125g/km - fuel cells have about 120g/km. Fuel cell emissions will only drop when hydrogen production is cleaner.

Presumably the ultimate example is the Greggs Vegan Sausage Roll… I’m guessing not too many Greggs customers are making their own tofu, vegan butter and vegan cheese?

A little searching will save a lifetime of exciting assumptions and false equivalence

Quorn Foods products may now be part of a booming industry of meat alternatives – but that has not stemmed criticism that they are heavily processed and a far cry from natural, plant-based diets.

“We use the age-old process of fermentation to grow our mycoprotein and then create the textures people enjoy simply by cooking and freezing.” Finnegan says. “To say that this is somehow ‘highly processed’ is not to be treated fairly in the debate. Mycoprotein is a complete protein, high in fibre, low in saturated fat and contains no cholesterol.”

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/may/17/how-quorn-makes-the-filling-for-greggs-vegan-sausage-rolls

It’s processed. As are pork sausage rolls. As is most ready-cooked food. Most pork is raised on processed soy from halfway across the world. Before the pig itself is processed. And then pulped into those highly processed pastry cases.

I wonder if the Gregg’s vegan sausage roll was instead called a ‘potato and mushroom’ roll (ie the filling is largely mycoprotein and potato) whether it would attract the same type of tabloid attention?

I rarely visit Gregg’s (maybe a handful of times in a lifetime) but I tried their vegan sausage roll once (think left a review on STW). It was OK in a crappy sausage roll way, but prefer the Linda McCartney ones you cook at home. Again, I eat them a few times a year. Maybe once every three months. As a vegan household we cook most of our meals from scratch. The tofu we eat is made in Yorkshire from organic beans. Our lentils are dried or canned, just like baked beans or dried beans that meat eaters eat. The vegetables are the same vegetables that meat-eaters buy, although we try to buy local.

I think what I’m trying to say is that global consumption of junk food is not exclusive to vegan junk food. In fact a tiny portion of the UK population choose a plant-based diet (maybe 1%) and I don’t know how many of that 1% eat a primarily highly processed diet, but they do seem in these discussions to get most of the flack for consuming processed food/junk food while the other 99% presumably also consume junk food in addition to processed animals that are fed on processed soy.

I was referring more to veganism than vegetarianism.

So was I tbh, but we rarely go near the veggie/vegan freezer section.

When I’ve read the ingredients list of colourful packets boldly claiming to be vegan usually the contents sound more like a shampoo! My gut feel is anything that boldly claims on the packaging to be “plant based” and bears no resemblance to vegetables is likely to be heavily processed.

It’s either Vegan or it’s not. If the packaging is miss leading you should report it to trading standards.

Inspired by Poly’s wonderings I just compared the ingredients of a (Vegan) processed meal I have in our freezer with a meat version

A Chicago Town BBQ jackfruit takewaway style frozen pizza.

Ingredients:

Wheat Flour (with Calcium, Iron, Thiamin (B1), Niacin (B3)), Tomato Puree, Dairy Free Mozzarella Alternative (10%) (Water, Vegetable Oil (Coconut), Modified Potato Starch, Sea Salt, Flavouring, Colour (Beta-Carotene), Antioxidant (Olive Extract), Vitamin B12), Water, BBQ Seasoned Jackfruit (6%) (Jackfruit, Water, Brown Sugar, Grilled Onions, Salt, Herbs and Spices, Garlic Puree (Water, Dehydrated Garlic, Concentrated Lemon Juice, Salt), Acidity Regulator (Citric Acid)), Vegetable Oils (Palm, Sunflower), Red Peppers (2%), Green Peppers (2%), Red Onions (2%), Yeast, Sugar, Salt, Modified Potato Starch, Barley Malt Extract, Emulsifier (E 472e), Thickener (Guar Gum), Herbs and Spices, Garlic, Acidity Regulator (E 341), Smoke Flavouring, Garlic Powder, Acid (Citric Acid), Flour Treatment Agent (Ascorbic Acid), Flavouring, Colour (Beta-Carotene)

Let’s compare with the Chicago Town Chicken and Bacon Melt takeaway style frozen pizza ingredients:

Wheat Flour (with Calcium, Iron, Thiamin (B1), Niacin (B3)), Tomato Puree, Mozzarella Cheese (10%), Water, Roast Chicken Breast (5.5%) (Chicken Breast, Brown Sugar, Vegetable Oil (Sunflower), Corn Flour, Modified Maize Starch, Salt, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Flavouring, Stabilisers (Diphosphates, Triphosphates), Dextrose), Streaky Bacon (5%) (Pork, Salt, Antioxidants (Extracts of Rosemary, Sodium Ascorbate), Stabiliser (Diphosphates), Preservative (sodium Nitrite)), Vegetable Oils (Palm, Sunflower), Mature Cheddar (2.5%), Yeast, Sugar, Salt, Modified Potato Starch, Barley Malt Extract, Emulsifier (E 472e), Thickener (Guar Gum), Garlic, Herbs and Spices, Acidity Regulator (E 341), Flour Treatment Agent (Ascorbic Acid), Flavouring, Colour (Beta-Carotene)

(Assumedly the processed soy used to raise the chicken and pork is not listed in the ingredients)

I’m trying to figure out what it is about the plant-based one which would possibly make it so much more worthy of comment than the meat one? It’s the jackfruit?

its interesting, and i'm hopeful its the future. My OH is vegi, so most stuff we eat is vegi. Quorn chilli is fine, but its not beef. If a product can replace the "beef" flavor without the impact of growing a cow (on both the environment and the cow) then i'm onboard.

i tend to eat very little meat, but when i do, once in a blue mooon i try go higher welfare, or at the very least British grown (not due to any patriotic duty, just because our welfare standards are higher than others (i think))
I bought a chicken a few months ago, how can you buy a whole chicken for less than 3 quid! 'sgusten. even a fiver seemed far too cheep (budum) to me.

Having said that, i wouldn't want this to move forward and mean we only ate the finest steaks of "real meat".
the whole carcass should be used, and if that means pressure washing the remenants off to mulch up into sausage rolls, then thats fine by me.

I wish we had a better understanding of where our food comes from.
Much like we have the health guides on food, You could put a QR code on every packet, that takes you to a website that details the process involved in making that food. From the source of the raw materials provided to farms, through the animals life, right through to plate.

I imagine that would be as riveting and well utilized as that government website that outlined where your taxes end up.

Quorn chilli is fine

bleughy! Here, you can thank me later

(It freezes and reheats fine and (like all chillies) tastes even better the day after cooking)

. If a product can replace the “beef” flavor without the impact of growing a cow

https://www.businessinsider.com/impossible-burger-cooking-meat-sauce-at-home-how-to-2019-9?r=US&IR=T#in-every-other-capacity-impossibles-beef-more-or-less-perfectly-mimics-real-ground-beef-in-a-meat-sauce-4

I bought a chicken a few months ago, how can you buy a whole chicken for less than 3 quid!

Indeed. I remember as a kid a roast chicken on Sunday was a very special treat. My butcher bought chickens are several quid more but at least they taste of chicken.