
Artificial meat: UK scientists growing 'bacon' in labs - kimsk112
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47611026
======
tmh79
I think lab grown meat will radically change how we as humans consume food and
its going to taste way better than any animal grown meats we eat today. Animal
breeding and husbandry right now is so crude, and there are so many inputs and
outputs to optimize, and while meat taste is part of the equation, others
factors are meat yield, byproducts, animal health itself (all factors that are
important, but are often times in conflict with making the "tastiest" meats).
Stage 1 is going to be recreating crude meats like ground beef or sausage,
stage 2 will be recreating true single flesh meats like a chicken breast, or a
steak, and stage 3 is going to be "designer" meats like a kobe beef
recreation, and stage 4 will be "meat insanity", creating "meat like" foods
that nature would never be able to produce but that taste incredible (steak
balloons, cotton candy like fried chicken, foie gras & tuna marble). Imagine
going to a sushi like restaurant where the food is all nigiri style small meat
cuts but the meat is all this wild bespoke artificial meats that no animal
could ever product, but are wildly tasty.

~~~
eqtn
when there are 1000s of companies out there that produces fake meet, I don't
think it will be tasty or safe as regular meat and if later killing animals
for meat gets banned, people won't have anything to compare it to.

~~~
brogrammer5
What about hunting for meat as a method to responsibly manage deer populations
for example? Austin, Texas is having a huge wild boar population explosion
because the county instituted a no-kill policy. Also, hunting is a big part of
some cultures. Why does one person outside that culture get to decide that's
wrong?

~~~
thefounder
People don't hunt to eat today. They hunt for sport!

Some people had a culture of eating other people. Do you think that's wrong?

~~~
ir0nivey
We pull two deer a year if we're lucky on my farm, we don't grip and grin but
we relish in the ability to eat something that shares the land around us.

------
gdubs
Meat production is such a big contributor to climate change that I’m all for
this kind of research. But, I also think more people will simply go some form
of mostly vegetarian / vegan in the coming years (optimistically).

I stopped eating meat about four years ago. Like cutting out anything, it was
hard for a few weeks but no longer. I have no desire for meat anymore and
fully enjoy my diet. I’m technically pescatarian, but only very occasionally
because overfishing is a huge problem as well. I also have gained muscle, and
leaned out at the same time. Lots of factors at play, like exercising more,
stressing less, etc — but I mention it because a lot of people think that
being vegetarian or vegan means giving up on fitness goals like getting more
muscular.

If there’s some aspect of you that wants to try cutting down on meat, give it
a shot. Give it a few weeks, and go easy on yourself.

Addressing climate change will likely involve making personal choices about
how best to decrease your footprint. If you can switch to a vegetarian diet,
you’ll be making a pretty substantial move towards that goal — and there’s the
bonus of not contributing to the morally questionable system of industrial
slaughterhouses.

~~~
Fezzik
I still think meat vs not meat is the wrong approach when addressing the
climate: is eating a chicken you raised on your land worse for the environment
than consuming the equivalent number of calories from fruits and vegetables
imported from another continent? My hunch is no. You can be an environmentally
conscious omnivore or an not-so environmentally conscious herbavore. The
meatiness of what you eat has absolutely nothing to do, necessarily, with your
actual environmental impact.

The ethical issues of consuming animals are another can of worms.

Exit: spelling.

~~~
bunderbunder
> is eating a chicken you raised on your land worse for the environment than
> consuming the equivalent number of calories from fruits and vegetables
> imported from another continent?

Out of the universe of possible alternatives one could present, this pair
seems rather carefully chosen.

~~~
amanaplanacanal
Not really.

I live in a temperate zone. During the colder months there are not a lot of
options for local plant based foods. They are for the most part shipped long
distance from somewhere else. Local animals are available year round though.

~~~
markstos
I attended year round "local food" potlucks in Indiana. People had local food
available year around. During the winter it kept in cool storage (like
onions), or had been frozen, dehydrated, canned, or grown in a greenhouse.

If year-round local plant-food was more of a priority for people, more could
be produced.

Besides, where are the local animals getting their food during the winter? The
options are basically the same: either they have local food that's been
preserved or their food is getting shipped in too, making a rather inefficient
way to deliver calories to humans.

~~~
krageon
I was with you until your position that animals eat the same food humans do
(because if people can't find local food, how can animals?). This is very,
very wrong - even in pretty bad climates where nothing edible will grow for
humans it isn't impossible to raise some sort of cattle that grazes. That's
more or less the point of cattle: to take a thing you cannot eat and turn it
into something you can.

~~~
bunderbunder
This isn't entirely unrelated to how many marginal ecosystems are currently
being destroyed by domesticated grazing animals, which are typically invasive
species that will overpopulate the area either because of lack of predators or
because humans are protecting them from predators.

This maybe wasn't such a big deal centuries ago when natural forces also
placed stronger limits on the size of the human populations in those areas.
Nowadays, though, I think we very much have to think about the possibility
that, regardless of any romantic notions about traditional ways of life, using
livestock to live in places we otherwise couldn't is not something we do to
respect nature, it's something we do that's destroying it.

~~~
krageon
This is the sort of black and white rhetoric that I think does not do a
service to the reality involved. Of course you are correct that overgrazing is
a problem, but to go from that to "using livestock to live in places we
otherwise couldn't is something we do to destroy the environment" is plain
wrong. I would instantly concede your point if you could moderate it to "we
need to stop overdoing things", which I think is compatible with what we both
see and still has merit.

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orblivion
As fake meat gets better, I have to do more double-takes as a vegetarian at
restaurants. Are they pulling one over on me? Once it's lab-grown I'm not sure
what I'll do, unless it's a vegetarian restaurant.

~~~
naravara
> Once it's lab-grown I'm not sure what I'll do, unless it's a vegetarian
> restaurant.

As a religious person I've been curious to read up on what religious scholars
of various faith traditions with dietary restrictions have to say about lab-
grown meats. Sadly, very few seem to have very settled opinions about it. And
it's really only the Catholic Church that has the infrastructure to actually
consult credentialed scientists to consult on these issues.

Most of the Hindu sources I've seen maintain that meat is bad on two levels.
One is the ethical dimension of committing violence to things that feel pain.
The other is an internal spiritual dimension where they believe meat is
intrinsically not Sattvic. So it's less bad than real meat, but still not
good.

The little I've seen from Jewish and Muslim sources suggests that they don't
really see lab-grown as being any different from regular meat with regarding
kashrut or halal food.

~~~
crispyporkbites
At some point you have to accept that relgious scholars can’t answer
everything. There is simply no premise for this in texts written thousands of
years ago.

~~~
naravara
There are religious groups that take a literalist stance on scriptures and
interpret the rules therein as checklists of arbitrary codes to adhere to
because reasons, but that's not really how most serious theology or religious
thought works.

Generally religious scholars are scholars because they're trained in an
intellectual tradition that involves understanding the underlying logic behind
the rules so that they can be applied to the changing times and evolving
contexts. That's the whole point of having a clergy in the first place. If it
was just rote memorization of a rule book you wouldn't need them.

Talmundic law has managed to continue updating itself based on extrapolations
of the underlying logic behind restrictions in the source text. Here is an
example:
[http://www.kashrut.com/articles/buffalo/](http://www.kashrut.com/articles/buffalo/)

And in Hinduism, the dietary restrictions are based on practical
considerations around how the food is produced and its perceived metabolic
impact on the body and mind. There is an established framework for evaluating
any food by these standards.

~~~
flukus
> Talmundic law has managed to continue updating itself based on
> extrapolations of the underlying logic behind restrictions in the source
> text. Here is an example:
> [http://www.kashrut.com/articles/buffalo/](http://www.kashrut.com/articles/buffalo/)

Isn't the ban on pig products thought to have been based on it being a disease
vector? Considering that this is no longer relevant with modern sanitation and
medicine it would seem they're using it as a checklist rather than applying
any sort of logic.

~~~
naravara
The disease vector is more modern speculation/post-hoc rationalization for the
rules. It's not really anywhere in the text itself aside from references to
the animals being 'unclean.' It's likely that a variety of factors went into
the rules, not least of which were probably just wanting to maintain some
social and cultural separation from the communities around them.

------
teamspirit
While I'm excited at the all the possibility that lab grown meats can provide
- ethically produced meat, less environmental impact, "cleaner" food - my
judgement will have to be reserved until after leave scale production begins.
What the definition of "clean meat" is today may not be what I agree with
tomorrow.

~~~
rhn_mk1
What are your concerns? Are you aying that your values are subect to change,
or am misunderstanding you?

~~~
hanniabu
Subject to change as most details arise

------
stateofnounion
"In conclusion, substantial scientific progress is still required to determine
whether clean meat from single myogenic cells will be environmentally friendly
and commercially viable. In the meantime, progress on the development of more
mature skeletal muscle tissue in vitro may find other medical applications29,
including the repair of volumetric muscle loss."

[https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0043-0](https://sci-
hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-019-0043-0)

------
queercode
As a vegan, this is neat. There are tons of "vegan bacon" substitutes on the
market, and most of them are pretty bad.

It being as unhealthy as "real" bacon is concerning a bit - but, I'll be fine.

~~~
amval
And how is real bacon unhealthy?

~~~
henryaj
High levels of salt, fat, nitrates. Is this a serious question?

~~~
amval
Completely serious. I am not sure I am in the mood for another long post
sourcing my claims, so feel free to question any of what I say:

\- The idea of limiting salt and fats in the diet comes from very misguided
health recommendation based on bad science from the 70s motivated by
commercial reasons.

\- Bacon actually has quite a healthy lipidic profile even with those
recommendations (50% monounsaturated rich in Oleic acid, like olive oil; not
that saturated fat is actually unhealthy...)

\- Same for nitrates; bacon doesn't even have that much, nitrates are not
proven to be harmful and most of nitrites/nitrates are endogenous (70-90%)
anyway...

~~~
MarkusAllen
I admire you courage @amval... the "vegan police" have been notified and will
be here shortly.

Here is a website that supports your position: that meat is actually VERY good
for us... just look at all the case studies:

[http://meatheals.com](http://meatheals.com)

~~~
magnamerc
I wouldn't go that far. IGF-1 which is released due to the consumption of
protein (particularly leucine) has been shown to be responsible for increases
in mTOR signaling which is a nutrient sensor responsible for initiating cell
growth in some forms of cancer, see this study for example
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4392529/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4392529/).

In effect, leucine and IGF-1 increases mTOR signalling which is responsible
for growth, the opposite effect of calorie restriction (which turns off mTOR
and has been shown to reduce the growth of cancer).

~~~
MarkusAllen
That NCBI study (which I am 100% was not scientific) was funded by the Winkler
Family Foundation. Yep, the guy who produced the movie "Rocky" funded this.
And the Winklers have direct ties to the evil Monsanto Corporation:
[https://usrtk.org/tag/winkler-family-
foundation/](https://usrtk.org/tag/winkler-family-foundation/) Monsanto (now
Bayer) wants to eliminate meat eating. So, no thanks... I will pass your
"tip."

~~~
magnamerc
This isn't the only study, it's just an example. Perhaps you should read into
mTOR, then you wouldn't have to take my word for it.

------
antisthenes
I've been seeing these types of articles at the very least since the start of
this decade.

Here's one from 8 years ago, and there is at least some overlap in the
comments.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2951733](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2951733)

Not that there isn't progress. There certainly is. You can now buy actual
products (albeit quite overpriced, considering the average American can't
really afford to spend 200% of their food budget on a whim). However, it's
important to keep in mind how much meat people eat, especially in the States.
I think the average consumption is somewhere in the neighborhood of 200
lb/year. Here's a graph from 2012

[https://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2012/06/gr-
meatcomsuptionp...](https://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2012/06/gr-
meatcomsuptionpercapita-462.gif)

Let's set a reasonable goal of 10% of that being converted to lab grown meat.
We'd need 5 billion pounds (10% of 2012 level) of lab produced meat every
year. How close are we to that amount of commercial production? How much more
efficient is it in terms of fossil fuel use? 50%? 75%?

It's a great initiative, but simply reducing the amount of meat we eat
(imagine having 1 meat-free day/week) is likely to be more effective than
this, at least in the near future.

------
pedro596
Is this some kind of Brexit backup plan?

Jokes apart, more on pork import/exports
[https://britishmeatindustry.org/industry/imports-
exports/pig...](https://britishmeatindustry.org/industry/imports-
exports/pigmeat/)

------
Sol-
Is there a reason such research often works bottom-up, from cells to meat?
Would it not also be possible to go about it top-down, starting from an
existing animal species (pig, chicken, etc.) and modify it via breeding or
genetic engineering such that what remains is mostly a walking muscle that can
be used for meat production in a more ethical manner?

In the end, true lab meat might be "cleaner" or the better solution. But in
the meantime, reducing the cognitive abilities of such farm animals by
breeding or gene-tech also seems like it could be an ethical alternative to
reduce their suffering.

~~~
rsynnott
The primary aim here generally isn’t ethics; it’s efficiency, with food safety
a distant second.

------
mtgx
Is the nutrition profile anywhere close to real meat, though? And by nutrition
I don't just mean "does it have enough protein".

~~~
_Schizotypy
So then what DO you mean? Which nutrients are you concerned about?

~~~
sametmax
I assume D, B12, iron, etc

~~~
Harvey-Specter
Presumably it's easier to include extra vitamins and minerals in artificial
meat than it is for 'real' meat.

~~~
jklinger410
I would not be surprised if we find that in 200 years each vitamin has a
unique profile based on it's source and putting supplements in something fake
does not make it the same as real.

It probably won't matter, however. Biology adapts.

~~~
Falling3
We already know there are synergistic effects with certain nutrients. But what
we're just as likely to find is that there are more beneficial combinations of
nutrients than are found in nature. There's a strong possibility that
(eventually) we'll be able to create better foods instead of worse ones.

------
zachguo
Lab-grown meat, along with vertical farming, may also make space colonization
easier, or at least make the experience more enjoyable.

~~~
tomp
I think the main problem with space colonization is the whole nutrient cycle -
using and/or recycling every part of food that is grown and consumed,
including human excrements and other organic waste (skin, hair, blood, etc.).
I don't think that terrestrial farming practice focus on that, no matter how
technologically advanced or futursistic.

------
naveen99
Looks like serum free cell culture medium exist:
[https://www.labome.com/method/Cell-Culture-Media-A-
Review.ht...](https://www.labome.com/method/Cell-Culture-Media-A-Review.html)

------
strainer
I don't want see meat mass produced in this manner. But if WOOL would be
produced this way - that would be a lower risk way develop an industry and
gain experience of what kind of diseases might result from such unusual
factory conditions.

~~~
rhn_mk1
It's not wool, but the non-edible animal product that's being currently
researched is leather:
[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/09/modern-m...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/09/modern-
meadow-lab-grown-leather/540285/)

~~~
wUabkSG6L5Bfa5
Sign me up for all three. I would give a kidney for an excellent, guilt-free
wool business suit.

~~~
gameshot911
I'm a vegetarian for ethical reasons, but have always considered wool to be
fair game. The sheep is shorn, and frolics off unharmed. What's the guilt
aspect? Would like to reassess my position given whatever info you can share.

~~~
strainer
I think the life experience of farmed sheep tends overall to be a little
milder than wild mountain goats, although they are herded up several times a
year which they don't much like - they are bred to be quite cool. Most
seriously their lambs are separated and sent to slaughter, and eventually the
adults are too if they don't fall ill outside. The slaughter operation is the
most problematic and the stress could be reduced alot if it could be arranged
on site. In the wild predation on herds and flocks is routinely very traumatic
as well.

My major concern with sheep farming is that it is done at an intensity which
keeps their ranges quite barren of flora. Tree and bush saplings and many
native plants cant withstand grazing levels so ranges which could reforest and
be more fertile wild or semi-wild habitats, end up tundra-like despite having
much more potential for diversity, conservation or sustainable productivity.

------
akrymski
Is nobody else seriously worried about the safety of lab grown food in
general?

It took us decades to realise that cigarettes are in fact harmful. Medicine
takes years to get approved. Who really understands the long term impact of
fake meat on human body? Why aren't regulators requiring long term trials of
these products before allowing them to market?

As a complete outsider looking in, this trend is very worrying. Am I missing
something?

~~~
ceejayoz
I mean, it's not fake meat. It's meat. Same fundamental ingredients humans
have been eating since they became a species (and long before).

~~~
crazynick4
Except it is fake meat.

~~~
dymk
It’s lab grown. Are plants grown in a lab fake plants? Bacteria cultured in a
Petri dish fake bacteria?

~~~
crazynick4
If you only create a fruit without a full grown plant to have produced it,
yes.

If you want to prove that eating fake meat has no additional adverse side
effects to real meat, there would need to be studies. Have there been studies?
No, there haven't. You can't assert that the two are the same because of a
lack of evidence if there has been no attempt to find evidence. Until you have
controlled experiments where people are exclusively fed both (preferably for
at least a year, IMHO) you can't just conclude that 'well they seem the same
so they must be'.

------
crazynick4
I'm surprised how many people in the comments automatically assume that fake
meat will be safe to consume. Sure it appears identical but so does a clone of
a sheep, and yet they live a fraction of the lifespan of the original animals.
I think a little agnosticism, especially given the lack of research and
testing on animals/humans would be welcome here.

------
makerofspoons
How much energy and water does it take to grow the cells? Are there any
environmental benefits here or are the benefits primarily ethical? The article
mentions the potential for decreased emissions but I've yet to see hard
numbers about how much waste these products produce.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
It has to be more efficient eventually, animals waste energy moving around,
breathing, excreting, etc. This completely wipes that out.

------
worik
I prefer my food made by a plant not in a plant...

------
KangLi
"First lab-grown burger, created by a team in the Netherlands at a cost of
€250,000 - largely due to the time and labour needed to turn millions of tiny
cells into meat". I understand there is a cost to research, but still, I'm
speechless at the costs of this burger.

~~~
cr0sh
> I'm speechless at the costs of this burger.

What left me speechless is the fact that they cooked it "well done" (they damn
near burnt it).

Pound-for-pound way more expensive than Kobe, and they burn it.

WTH were they thinking?

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
>or using a population of "immortalised" cells, that will keep on dividing.
"Which means that you don't kill any animals; you have this immortal cell that
can be used forever."

Another term for "immortalised" is cancerous or pre-cancerous. I wonder if in
15-20 years, we will find out that exposure to these artificial meats can lead
to cancer?

~~~
mcculley
Can eating a tumor cause cancer? I would have thought the stomach would render
it down into amino acids.

~~~
matt4077
No, of course not. Intact cells have a really hard time getting into the
bloodstream. If they do (say, from handling it with an open wound) the immune
system might complain about being bored by such an easy challenge.

Cancers can theoretically be transmitted via transplants, but those derive
from humans and are therefore much closer to the body's own cells. And even
there, immunosuppressives are required to prevent rejection.

There are some cancers that originate from viruses. HPV is the most prominent,
and whatever is killing the Tasmanian Tiger. There's some speculation others
may as well (the red meat -> colon cancer link comes to mind). But that's not
really relevant for the topic at hand.

------
laythea
I would not eat any meat that has been grown by a human. Logic tells me fake
meat is not the same as real meat. It must lack something real meat has.
Otherwise, it would be real.

~~~
dementik
I have hard time understanding your logic, could you elaborate?

~~~
laythea
I am not sure why my opinion is being shot down.

If I was cheering for fake meat, I wonder whether this would be the case. Is
this a "touchy" subject? If my opinion offends, please be less sensitive.

To say fake meat is identical to real meat is to say that humans understand
everything about the process. We don't, but like to pretend we do.

I admit, I also have this view because of an association with meat and live
animals - hence, meat comes from life. It is special.

If it is grown in a lab, it looses this. Although some will say fake meat
still comes from life, I disagree.

I think my opinion is historically aligned with mainstream.

~~~
neysofu
The way I understand it, you refuse to eat lab-grown meat simply because you
dismiss it as "fake," thus lacking in something compared to livestock meat.
Why, though? There is no intrinsic, special value in livestock meat -or any
food, for that matter- besides taste and nutritional properties. The day these
two attributes, together with cost and environment footprint, become on par or
preferable to livestock meat's, all other considerations should fly out of the
window.

~~~
icebraining
> There is no intrinsic, special value in livestock meat -or any food, for
> that matter- besides taste and nutritional properties

How do you know?

~~~
neysofu
Biochemistry has come a long way in the last decades by explaining how food
powers our body and interacts with it at every level. There is no magic
involved! Surely many questions remain unanswered, but nothing prevents us
from applying what we already know to food engineering.

------
albertgoeswoof
If this reaches mass scale, is this ethical? What about all the pig, chickens
and cows that will never be born because they won’t be reared anymore? We’d
have no use for them, we’d take over farmland with meat factories and wipe out
99% of the species.

Is that more ethical than rearing & killing the animal instead?

~~~
inertiatic
What sort of mental gymnastics do you have to go through to even arrive at
this question?

