
Meet the startups racing to reinvent the meal - khuknows
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/apr/30/lab-grown-meat-how-a-bunch-of-geeks-scared-the-meat-industry
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jmull
The idea of finding ways to make animal food products without the moral issues
and environmental impact is pretty interesting.

But there’s a much simpler way to avoid the moral issues and environmental
impact of eating animals and animal products... eat vegetarian foods. Or
simply, make a larger proportion of your diet vegetarian.

And don’t waste time trying to simulate animal products (veggie burgers, faux-
turkey, etc.) It’ll never measure up in the end and distract from the really
good and tasty vegetarian (or mostly vegetarian) stuff.

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rpedela
Abstinence has never worked whether it is sex or environmental sustainability.
We have to find solutions that factor in human nature. Humans, as a species,
will not stop having sex nor will they stop eating meat.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
That's like saying humans will never stop raping and murdering because of
human nature so we have to be realistic and find solutions that don't involve
just not raping and murdering people.

~~~
kurthr
I'm confused, there have never been a large group of people who would rape and
murder. I'm not convinced it's even an order of magnitude lower now than it
was 1k years ago (or 10k). The largest majority have also been omnivores (I'd
include insects, eggs, and fish) for almost the entirety of that time.

It doesn't look like we're going to either solve omnivorism or perfect non-
violent world peace any time soon. On the other hand, I suppose a Matrix-like
utopian hellscape could bring us both.

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CoffeeDregs
Interesting that Soylent did not get mentioned since they once seemed to be
the poster child for this movement. Are they still a player?

~~~
glup
I think the bout of people getting sick in late 2016 / early 2017 dampened
enthusiasm significantly.

~~~
aphistic
They're just not the "latest and greatest" any more. They've been around for
awhile and it's just business as usual. They still have a number of consumers
and they just started selling in brick-and-mortar stores (I believe it was
WalMart).

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nategri
This seems like a classic case of what a good coder would call "premature
optimization."

Nutritional science, is far, _far_ from settled. It's not even clear that _is_
such a thing as a baseline, universally-applicable nutritional paradigm. For
instance, there could be potentially large deviations based based on genetic
and epigenetic factors.

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everdev
It's amazing there isn't more disruption here:

\- Everyone has to eat, but it takes a good amount of time to prep, cook, set
a table, eat, clear the take and wash dishes

\- There seems to be broad awareness of what makes a healthy diet, yet lots of
difficulty adhering to one

\- People have different tastes and given the choice will rarely choose the
same food as those eating with them

Eating out satisfies the variety problem, but not always the time or health
one.

A meal in a box somewhat helps the time problem (little prep) and maybe the
health one, but not the variety.

There is no 10x solution yet, but it's not hard to think of one like meals in
Star Trek that are custom and ready at the press of a button.

~~~
contingencies
I had the same realization in 2015 and doubled down.

We have just spent 2.5 years developing automated robotic systems for
personalized food preparation, cooking, packaging and retail. Custom hot meals
from your smartphone, ready in minutes, actually cooked from fresh
ingredients, to personalized orders. Full nutrition breakdown. Model is a
wholly owned and operated network, which lets us extract additional
efficiencies from a modern logistics network. We simultaneously solve for
convenience and choice (plus consistency and availability, with the option to
compete effectively on cost if we choose). Series A opens in less than two
weeks.

~~~
everdev
Nice, congrats! Care to share a link to your company?

~~~
contingencies
[http://8-food.com/](http://8-food.com/)

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tjr225
Lab grown meat would be a real game changer I think. I would gladly be as
early of an adopter of it as possible - and I very rarely adopt anything early
on.

~~~
stefantheard
Same here, I would instantly become a "vegan" if this were an option. I really
enjoy food (it's a massive part of my culture, family, and childhood) and have
been indoctrinated with all the flavors of meat. Although intellectually I
feel avoiding unnecessary suffering of animals is a good thing it is very
difficult to divorce myself from consuming meat for all the previous reasons.

Lab grown meat would leave me no real excuse to support the animal farming
industry because I would be able to keep everything I love about it and get
rid of the stuff I don't. I could have my meat and eat it too.

Edit: This sounded more phallic than intended, going to leave it in though
haha.

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contingencies
Some crystal balling: A lot of these alt-proteins are going to encounter
distribution issues.

Why? People aren't going to just go out and say "hey, give me some tofurkey, I
watched a PETA documentary last night" and becoming hooked regular alt-protein
consumers.

Also, given that in many other parts of the world (South America, Africa,
India, China, Middle East) people just eat vegetables and don't need to
pretend it's meat to enjoy them - lentils, chickpeas, soybeans/tofu, nuts,
seeds, etc. - in terms of health, production cost, familiarity, appearance and
overall consumer acceptance, alt-protein faces an uphill battle outside of the
new, growing, and high margin western meat replacement market ... but that
market is capped, and the real profits for this industry lie in mass consumer
acceptance, which will basically be defined by solid inroads in to megacities
(most of which are in Asia). These markets could be exceptionally hard to win.

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godshatter
Hopefully they will be careful not to accidentally make the obesity or cancer
epidemics worse in a push to rid us of the problems of global warming sometime
farther down the road.

~~~
trophycase
Spoiler alert: They won't be.

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JBReefer
I hope this doesn't go anywhere, to be honest. People need more human
connection, not less, and the rituals of preparing food, eating together,
cleaning etc are one of THE fundamental things that makes us human.

Replacing fast food with healthy food is good, but we should all be trying to
cook more, and be with our loved ones (or hell, even roommates) _more_, not
less.

~~~
josephpmay
I hate to be that guy, but did you read the article? It had nothing to do with
the rituals of meals and was about lab-grown animal products

~~~
rauhl
An alternative point of view would be that lab-grown 'animal' products and
factory-farmed animal products alike are dehumanising, and that people should
kill & butcher their own meat.

I'm a huntsman, and I can report that I feel most like I'm being true to my
natural self when I'm stalking birds across a prairie. It's a communal effort:
my friends are arrayed in a line to either side of me, and often we have a dog
or two running back and forth before us. Each of us helps & supports the
others, driving through the field, helping cross fencelines, contributing
thoughts on how best to approach a particular stretch of land. And yet it's
also intensely individualistic: you walk forward, gun in hand, eye halfway to
the horizon & ears tuned to a few yards ahead, ready for the rustle which
indicates there's a bird in the brush.

You think — or at least _I_ think — that this must be how our primitive
ancestors felt: together, and yet apart, each doing his own best and each
supporting the others in the common cause of getting something to eat.

Compared to that, buying a piece of meat or a piece of pseudo-meat in the
supermarket is nothing.

