
Worlds Most Expensive Burger: 1/4 million euros - jkuria
http://www.economist.com/node/21548147
======
gfodor
Almost as important as the technology is the marketing. They need to get on
message for this even at this early stage. Calling it "Artificial Meat" is
already conceding the battle. It's not artificial, it's real meat.

"Cultured"? Conjures up images of lab coats. "Man-made"? Not much better.

I'd say some better ideas:

\- Humane meat

\- Painless meat

\- Slaughterless meat

\- Guiltless meat

\- Pure meat

To me, pure meat probably wins. It's meat, but without all the ugly impurities
introduced by having an animal grow it in the wild. See how much of a
difference successful framing can make to how you "feel" about a product?

~~~
anigbrowl
_See how much of a difference successful framing can make to how you "feel"
about a product?_

I like knowing what I'm eating, not how you want me to feel about it. I am
just fine eating artificial meat, cultured in a lab by people in white coats.

~~~
davidw
And you're in the minority, which is why marketing campaigns are not aimed at
people like you.

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raldi
I'm waiting for the technology to reach the point where we can create whole
new meats. Like, imagine a world where pigs had never evolved, and then a
scientist, working in a lab, invented bacon. They'd make millions and millions
of dollars, and dramatically improve the lives of a billion fat people.

And even in our world, just think: There are meats out there, waiting to be
invented, that are a thousand times more delicious than bacon.

~~~
celoyd
I’m kind of hoping cultured human is delicious. I’m going to send a cheek swab
to a PO box, and six weeks later a slab of my own pseudo-shoulder will show up
packed in dry ice. My first experiment will be:

    
    
        1 kg own cultured flesh
        3 cups orange juice
        lime, kiwifruit, or pineapple juice to taste
        1 clove of garlic, mashed
        pepper and salt to taste
    

Combine and put in a saucepan on low heat without a lid. Let simmer until the
liquids steam off and it begins to fry in the rendered fat (about 2 hours). At
this point it should be very tender and break apart into threads. Serve over
rice or in tacos.

~~~
peteretep
There's something a little terrifying about this, which I can't quite place.

~~~
raldi
He's mixing imperial and metric measurements in the same recipe.

~~~
celoyd
That’s an interesting. I rarely use actual measuring cups for main
ingredients, so I was thinking of everyday cups, not the well-defined unit.

So I guess my error was using an ambiguous unit, which is even worse than
mixing units.

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latch
The true cost of beef is staggering. It is, by far, one of our most selfish
indulgences the rich have. It's sad that our economic model doesn't adequately
capture this.

A lot of numbers get thrown around, but the amount of grain and water you need
for 1 pound of beef is enough to feed something like 25 people. Then there's
the environmental impact (land, pollution, ....). The more I travel the world,
the harder it is for me to eat beef.

~~~
zcid
Those claims are only valid for feedlot raised cattle which you shouldn't eat
anyway if you care about your health. Cows aren't meant to eat grain. Plus,
you get to support your local community by buying from local, responsible
farmers.

And if you want to be completely honest with yourself, take a good look at
industrial agriculture and tell me how self-righteous you feel.

Here's a couple of decent articles to start:
<http://www.alternet.org/story/13900/>
<http://www.organicconsumers.org/Organic/IndustrialAg502.cfm>

Also, the documentary Food, Inc. is a well done introduction to the issue.

~~~
latch
The majority of beef comes from feedlots. 90% of the beef we eat _is_ grain-
fed. Also, I can't find any evidence, one way or another, that grass-fed cows
take less land or pollute less (in terms of methane).

There's no doubt that it's healthier for us, and better for the cows, but
there seems to be plenty of back and forth with respect to which of the two is
more sustainable. And I don't see anyone arguing that grass-fed cows are more
efficient (or even close to as-efficient) than chicken, pork or plants.

Thanks for the links on agriculture...going through them now!

~~~
GFischer
The majority of beef comes from grass-fed cows. Of the about 1.3 billion cows,
only 100 million are fed grain (those in industrialized countries).

According to a quick googling, it seems that grass is more sustainable but
lower output.

<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/207/4433/843.abstract>

Free trade would mean less or no grain-fed livestock, hopefully (here in
Uruguay we have almost 7 million cows, all of them grass-fed, neighbour
Argentina has 40 million cows, also grass-fed, Australia and New Zealand also
have similar numbers of grass-fed cows).

In any case, as you argue, cows are not the most efficient means of producing
meat, that's why chicken is much cheaper for instance :) .

Grass-fed cows probably take more land, but I suspect they pollute a lot less
(for example there's a lot of indirect pollution from the grain produced to
feed the grain-fed cattle)

Edit: about free trade - both the U.S. and Europe have trade quotas and
subsidies in place to maintain the local agriculture. I understand not wanting
to destroy it entirely due to strategic concerns (and excessive dependency on
a provider), but I believe it's gotten out of hand.

Edit2: the number of cows in Uruguay was inflated, changed for more reasonable
source.

~~~
latch
1.3 billion is the _total_ number of cows. Almost 300 million of those are in
India, where I doubt very much that they are used for beef. I'm finding it
hard to get numbers since it's largely given in metric tons...

Although, I'll agree that looking more into it, grain-fed appears to be a
largely North American thing.

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nestlequ1k
Hmm.. pretend this takes off and the quality of the meat is good. Would a
vegan be inclined to eat this lab meat? Seems like most vegans that I talk to
are mostly motivated by animal cruelty issues.

Just curious.

~~~
latch
I'm pretty sure strict vegans (is there any other kind?) would continue to
have a problem with it. The original definition is:

Veganism is a way of living which excludes all forms of exploitation of, and
cruelty to, the animal kingdom, and includes a reverence for life. It applies
to the practice of living on the products of the plant kingdom to the
exclusion of flesh, fish, fowl, eggs, honey, animal milk and its derivatives,
and encourages the use of alternatives for all commodities derived wholly or
in part from animals

Note that they consider honey to be an exploitation of animals...so I assume
extracting muscle tissues from a cow would also be considered exploitation of
animals. Furthermore, it pretty explicitly states "living on the products of
the plant kingdom".

~~~
Sniffnoy
Yes, but one has to wonder whether linear output requiring nearly constant
animal input, vs. linear output requiring linear animal input, will cause some
people to rethink this (thus resulting in a split in veganism). Every burger
may ultimately come from exploitation of a cow, but if the burger in front of
you does not come from any _additional_ exploitation of a cow, many people may
not have a problem with it.

Unless there are already existing products that have this property, in which
case I guess we have our answer. Or if it's not so non-linear as it sounds, in
which case there's no question.

~~~
latch
Well, there's still the issue of "living on the products of the plant
kingdom." The only thing I can think of that's similar would maybe be recycled
leather. I still think ethical vegans would have a problem with it, and I
don't see this changing the opinion of anyone doing it for health reasons.

I think environmental vegans are the most likely to buy into this..if it even
becomes an efficient way to produce nutrition/calories. I could certainly see
some more pragmatic organizations throwing their weight behind it.."if you
must eat beef, at least eat this kind of beef (but consider X, Y and Z as even
better alternatives)."

~~~
ido

         I still think ethical vegans would have a problem 
         with it, and I don't see this changing the opinion 
         of anyone doing it for health reasons.
    

I think very few will have an ethical problem with it, most non-meat-eaters
are vegetarians and not vegans, and I suspect even among vegans most are not
as strict as you think.

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Tsagadai
Having been to a factory farm that used homogenized grain and had "attendants"
in white coats and re-breathers this really isn't far from the present
reality. Anything that can make livestock mass production more humane is a
very good thing.

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stretchwithme
The real benefit of this will be ending overfishing.

~~~
gerggerg
The real benefit of artificial non-descript meat sausage will be ending
overfishing? I'm assuming you mean when they come out with artificial fish
meat, but I can't find any mention of that in the article.

~~~
stretchwithme
fish meat is muscle too.

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colonel_panic
"... they are encouraged to exercise and build up their strength by being
given their own gym equipment (pieces of Velcro to which they can anchor
themselves in order to stretch and relax spontaneously)."

Creepy. Do they give these cells an electric jolt to make them exercise?

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stretchwithme
nonsense. I can make one for you at twice the price.

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loceng
Why? Because we can!

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ahoyhere
Given the issues with "whole" organisms which are genetically modified, and
our continuing "tiny keyhole" understanding of nutrition, it seems very
unlikely that lab grown meat will be nutritionally comparable as real meat.

~~~
mvzink
Not comparable, but that doesn't mean worse. It will be easier and cheaper to
provide good nutrition to artificial meat than it is to whole cows. It's easy
to imagine that the cost-cutting inhumanity of ranches includes poor
nutrition.

Besides that, few people eat beef for its nutrition (beyond the protein), and
McDonald's meat is probably more tuned for 1) ease of production and 2) taste
than nutritional value.

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urdnot
Vegetarians from birth will probably not be inclined to eat this. They've
never acquired a taste for meat. I think this is awesome. Livestock are a
haven for pollution and pestilence, most recently implicated in producing
antibiotic-resistant superbugs that will probably be the death of us all.

------
brianbreslin
Slightly misleading title. However this reminds me of an episode of better off
Ted, in which they create a steak in a lab.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Better_Off_Ted_episodes...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Better_Off_Ted_episodessee)
episode 2

