
Startup claims to have created first test tube meatball - Trisell
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3428438/First-test-tube-MEATBALL-revealed-Startup-claims-lab-grown-meat-shelves-three-years-says-raising-animals-eat-soon-unthinkable.html
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ziszis
I am excited to see start-ups tackle new forms of food production. However, I
am worried that it is going to be similar to how the diamond industry has been
able to defend themselves from manufactured/synthetic diamonds.

You can see the arguments being very similar here with animal cruelty, purity
of the food and pathogens, etc. Synthetic diamonds don't have the flaws of
regular diamonds, much less expensive, don't have the same toll on humans and
our planet. Yet, the diamond industry has positioned them as not real and most
people will gladly pay more for the "real deal".

I am optimistic that there is an inevitability to this market, but the first
generation of start-ups are going to bear the additional cost of being the
educators. It may be decades until the "educator tax" has been paid. From a
product perspective this makes for a very unattractive market. The opposite
dynamics of network effects. Where the early entrant has significantly higher
barriers to entry than later entrants.

~~~
gabemart
>However, I am worried that it is going to be similar to how the diamond
industry has been able to defend themselves from manufactured/synthetic
diamonds.

I think the difference is that diamonds are inherently a luxury good.

I don't think that Michelin-starred restaurants or families who buy organic
grass-fed beef are going to switch to synthetic meat anytime soon.

But, unlike diamonds, the vast majority of the meat market is cheap, price
sensitive, and commodified. I think a two dollar synthetic meat burger is a
much easier sell than a twenty thousand dollar synthetic diamond.

A huge amount of change is possible even if synthetic meat gets zero traction
at the premium end of the market.

~~~
ziszis
Maybe.

However, You can see the same debate being played out around genetically
modified foods. Fear is being created about the products. As opposed to
diamonds that are worn on the outside, these are things being put in your
body. I think it is fair to expect that the PR campaign from entrenched food
companies will be significant here.

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xkcd-sucks
...using tons of FBS (fetal bovine serum) in the process.

FBS is essentially a magic mix of animal growth factors, and no good serum
replacement exists for cell culture.

~~~
toufka
That is _the_ issue. Not only is it essentially a magic mix made of meat, but
it's also extraordinarily (and irreducibly) expensive compared to every other
component/process. Whoever fixes the 'FBS Problem' will do well - but until
then, these unfortunately seem to be fancy, expensive experiments.

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0xcde4c3db
The bottom line, so to speak:

> As of right now, it costs about $18,000 to produce one pound of Memphis
> Meats' ground beef, compared to the $4 a pound in most US grocery stores,
> according to the US Department of Agriculture.

These figures are obviously a little fuzzy when not broken down to account for
subsidies, equipment/research costs amortized over different
populations/periods, etc., but that's a pretty big gap to cross.

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nickhalfasleep
If you make anything in a testing laboratory, it's going to be extreme. It's a
whole other process (even profession) to make industrial quantities of
something for production. I think the market demand will be considerable for a
tasty protein source.

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Someone
Meatballs is relatively easy; the challenges are in producing something with a
meat-like bite at a competitive price.

For the first, I think [http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Plant-
based-meat-...](http://www.foodnavigator.com/Market-Trends/Plant-based-meat-
that-matches-steak-for-texture-The-technology-is-unique-in-the-world)
(research group at [https://www.wageningenur.nl/en/newsarticle/Steak-from-
vegeta...](https://www.wageningenur.nl/en/newsarticle/Steak-from-vegetable-
proteins.htm)) is a lot more advanced.

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jbandela1
Looking at all the controversy surrounding GMO foods, many of which have had
decades of scientific study, it does not portend well to getting the general
population to accept this. In addition, if you do get this accepted, any food-
borne illnesses related to this (even if not the fault of the producer) or
allergies will result in tons of bad publicity.

As some posters have already mentioned, this is not a field where you want to
be the first.

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merrywhether
Ironically, while at least some of the motivation for this is to prevent
animal suffering, once we figure out how to grow meat directly, we will have
little use for many livestock species and this could actually cause them to
greatly decrease in numbers if not disappear entirely. I'm interested to see
what we do with pigs, etc if we aren't going to eat them.

~~~
cbd1984
The comic you just thought of: [http://www.smbc-
comics.com/?id=3105](http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=3105)

The actual vegan response: [http://ethicalvegan.net/read/will-animals-go-
extinct-if-the-...](http://ethicalvegan.net/read/will-animals-go-extinct-if-
the-world-becomes-vegan)

It comes down to "Stop thinking about extinctions when the factory ranching
system is a bunch of concentration camps."; that is, they never deny that
their policies would lead to extinctions, they just insist that ending the
cruelty is a more important way to frame the debate.

Subsidiary question: Is it really extinction if the gene line is preserved,
but never allowed to ramify into an actual organism?

~~~
xbmcuser
Farming takes up a huge amount of land. If all that land is allowed to go wild
thousands of species not just domesticated ones will have a chance to come
back if they are already not extinct. So decrease of domesticated animals does
not automatically mean it will be bad for the animal kingdom or earth as
whole.

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Sir_Cmpwn
I showed this article to a coworker who pointed out an interesting idea - that
this technology could be used to produce meat in Space, or on Mars.
Interesting thought.

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cfontes
It will be in your MacDonalds burger as soon as they manage to make it produce
1 kilo of meet for a dollar.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Is that bad?

~~~
cfontes
I don't think so...

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maindrive
Should be first tested rather than tasted. If it is safe for health or just
another MacDo-KFC like....

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bovermyer
$18,000 is a hefty chunk of change for something I'm gonna throw in my
crockpot for 8 hours.

