
SuperMeat raises $3M for lab-grown chicken - throwaway2016a
https://venturebeat.com/2018/01/02/supermeat-raises-3-million-for-lab-grown-chicken/
======
everdev
As a vegetarian, I'm really excited for lab grown meat. The choice is
primarily ethical for me and if we can give people high protein foods they
enjoy with confining or killing animals on a massive scale, I see it as a huge
win.

~~~
gooseus
I'm curious if the lab-grown meat will truly be ethical, which I suppose
depends on your definition of ethics with regard to preserving life.

What exactly are the processes by which animal meat is grown and what kind of
resources are required? I assume whatever sauce they're grown in is both a
trade secret and also not just sugar water with some protein powder mixed
in...

If the process of growing meat in a vat requires vast amounts of amino acids
that need to be either extracted from another natural source (or else needs to
be synthesized in a precursor process) then how much is known about the
negative impact of that resource extraction and/or synthesis?

Will a pound of lab-grown meat use less water than a pound of comparable
nature-grown meat? And if not, is it more ethical to prevent the killing of
farm animals or prevent the continued waste of our most precious natural
resource?

I'm well aware of the negative impact of factory farming, but you already have
options for spending more on meat for non-factory farmed meats (at least we do
in the NW of USA) and I somehow doubt the economics will scale to where McD is
gonna be able to sell $2 double-cheeseburgers using lab grown meat. Is this
really going to move the needle, or just make some rich people to feel better
about themselves?

I know vegans who have no qualms eating tofu despite the damage that the soy
industry has done to entire species[0]... is reducing the suffering of farm
animals actually more ethical than preserving the overall biodiversity of our
planet?

So how do the lab-grown meats actually measure up in that context? That's
really my main question here.

I, obviously, have my doubts that it measures well and have been advocating
for an increase in entomophagy (eating crickets, mealworms, soldier fly
larvae, etc) which provide comparable protein/nutrient profiles to farm meats
while requiring a fraction of the inputs (notably water and land) and a
massive decrease in the sentient suffering of the protein source (most are
just put into hibernation and don't wake up). I haven't made one yet, but I
think a 50/50 ethical-beef/mealworm burger will probably be great with the
right seasoning and would be cheaper to make (at scale), more ethical and
still provide comparable nutrition.

[0]
[http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/soy/im...](http://wwf.panda.org/what_we_do/footprint/agriculture/soy/impacts/)

~~~
cies
> I'm curious if the lab-grown meat will truly be ethical, which I suppose
> depends on your definition of ethics with regard to preserving life.

Yups. But for most definitions it is going to be a heck of a lot more ethical!

> What exactly are the processes by which animal meat is grown and what kind
> of resources are required? I assume whatever sauce they're grown in is both
> a trade secret and also not just sugar water with some protein powder mixed
> in...

Ethically, growing it in a sentient being, thereby commodified, often made
part of an industrial production process, is EXTREMELY unethical. The animals
that we produce for food know concepts like "family", "pain" and "danger".
While they may have the children taken from them, or may be "raped" in order
to force reproduction.

> If the process of growing meat in a vat requires vast amounts of amino acids
> that need to be either extracted from another natural source (or else needs
> to be synthesized in a precursor process) then how much is known about the
> negative impact of that resource extraction and/or synthesis?

We're going to find out. I find this more to be part of the economic viability
question then the ethical question. I know economics can provide many ethical
dilemmas, but in my view they rarely stack up to justify
enclosing/hurting/raping/child-robbing/killing sentient beings.

> Will a pound of lab-grown meat use less water than a pound of comparable
> nature-grown meat? And if not, is it more ethical to prevent the killing of
> farm animals or prevent the continued waste of our most precious natural
> resource?

If you are concerned with this: you can switch to a plantbased diet!
[http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-
ed/soapbox/article19970922....](http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/op-
ed/soapbox/article19970922.html)

To my understanding all you give up when going plant-based is some taste bud
pleasure and the convenience of not having to change your habits.

And the taste bud pleasure "gap" is being closed by initiatives like the one
described in the linked article.

> I'm well aware of the negative impact of factory farming, but you already
> have options for spending more on meat for non-factory farmed meats

Going non-factory-farmed hugely increases the resource consumption for a
pieces of meat. I thought you were concerned with resource consumption?

Also, while non-factory-farmed is better for the animals, it is still not nice
to transport and kill them. Heck, they still need to be fenced!

> I somehow doubt the economics will scale to where McD is gonna be able to
> sell $2 double-cheeseburgers using lab grown meat.

$2 burgers is not something sustainable. We should aim for $2 salads or $2
falafels or $2 <be creative with plants>.

> Is this really going to move the needle, or just make some rich people to
> feel better about themselves?

Lab grown meat is going to make the discussion very pure. If we can provide
the same experience/conveinience without the animals suffering, then what sick
fuck would still pay for animal-based product?

And why only rich people? The has the potential to be lots cheaper on the long
run.

> I know vegans who have no qualms eating tofu despite the damage that the soy
> industry has done to entire species...

About half of US soy is produced for animal feed[1]. I think worldwide this
number is much higher (US imports feed). Also land use for animal farming
(including what they need for growing feed) is HUMONGOUS compared to the land
needed to feed a human on a plant-based diet.

[1] [http://www.sustainabletable.org/260/animal-
feed](http://www.sustainabletable.org/260/animal-feed)

> is reducing the suffering of farm animals actually more ethical than
> preserving the overall biodiversity of our planet?

Farm animals have nothing to do with biodiversity. Nothing. They are like the
mono-crop field in plant agriculture. If you want to preserve biodiversity,
preserve forests. And the major reason to cut forests is for (directly or
indirectly) animal agriculture.

> So how do the lab-grown meats actually measure up in that context? That's
> really my main question here.

As I mentioned time will tell. It is likely to be much more efficient than
animal agriculture.

> I, obviously, have my doubts that it measures well and have been advocating
> for an increase in entomophagy (eating crickets, mealworms, soldier fly
> larvae, etc)

Great! Did you try to eat them?

I'm also concerned with ethics/environment/health, and started a WFPB diet. A
major improvement.

> I think a 50/50 ethical-beef/mealworm burger will probably be great with the
> right seasoning and would be cheaper to make (at scale), more ethical and
> still provide comparable nutrition.

There is no "ethical beef", just "more ethical than the current appalling
situation".

Nutrition wise, a well balanced plant-based diet is superior to eating a
regular amount of animal-based product alongside your plants.

[https://nutritionfacts.org/book/](https://nutritionfacts.org/book/)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjmIJHZRWXw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjmIJHZRWXw)

~~~
gooseus
I appreciate your long and thorough reply, though I think you got off the
rails in a few parts.

I wasn't looking to get into a debate regarding the ethics of eating animals
vs not eating them. I'm very clear in my ethics regarding that. I, personally,
find myself much more concerned with the living system as a whole, rather than
individuals.

> About half of US soy is produced for animal feed[1]. I think worldwide this
> number is much higher (US imports feed). Also land use for animal farming
> (including what they need for growing feed) is HUMONGOUS compared to the
> land needed to feed a human on a plant-based diet.

This is a really good point, though I really wished I used a different example
because my main point was that many veggies and vegans don't really care about
the big picture so long as they can convince themselves their conscious is
clean. They're the people in the Trolley Car Problem who would never push a
large person onto the tracks to save five other people, but if you gave them a
button that served the same function then they would go ahead and push that.

It is, of course, the same cognitive dissonance that allows factory farming to
continue since plenty of people admit they could never kill a cow while
munching on a burger. Just a few layers of abstraction give people peace of
mind and technology enables people to hide behind more layers every day.

> Lab grown meat is going to make the discussion very pure.

I seriously doubt that. What technology can you think of that has made any
discussion more "pure"?

> If we can provide the same experience/conveinience without the animals
> suffering, then what sick fuck would still pay for animal-based product?

Probably any "sick fuck" who doesn't have the means to spend half their
paycheck on lab-grown protein sources, though I suppose they'd be more of a
"poor fuck". Many people don't bother making a distinction between the two.

> Going non-factory-farmed hugely increases the resource consumption for a
> pieces of meat. I thought you were concerned with resource consumption?

One assumption that's constantly made regarding meat consumption, both as it
relates to ecology and nutrition, is that we're either talking about 0 meat
consumption or the typical average American diet of meat consumption, totally
excluding the middle. I do not think that the average American diet of animal
meat is sustainable or healthy and this is why I advocate for substitutes that
don't cost billions in R&D and have a better chance of reaching the price
point for an average American. Lets not forget that wages for average
Americans are stagnant, so given inflation and other increasing costs the goal
posts for what would be a reasonable protein price point is moving. So even if
it gets cheaper over time, it's a race.

My main point in all this was to try to get people to think twice about just
lauding lab meat without considering the potential issues. I'm not going to
continue here because I try to maintain a policy of not having emotional
conversations with people I can't look in the eye and you are obviously quite
passionate about this.

Again, I appreciate the thoughtful and well-researched response, though I find
it noteworthy that neither you, nor anyone else that responded, seemed to
address the actual comparison of resources for lab grown meat vs nature grown
meat.

Here is something published 7 years ago which I had to find on my own (found
in search of response to your comment, thanks for that) which did a pretty
good job of answering my core question and softening me to the lab meat:

[https://phys.org/news/2011-06-lab-grown-meat-emissions-
energ...](https://phys.org/news/2011-06-lab-grown-meat-emissions-energy.html)

However, I also found a more recent article on lab meat which I found aligned
with the core point I've been trying to make on many other issues as well:

[https://phys.org/news/2017-12-lab-grown-meat-humanity-
moral....](https://phys.org/news/2017-12-lab-grown-meat-humanity-moral.html)

We're not using technology to become more moral or ethical, we're using it to
become lazier and more complacent. The same attitude that allows people to eat
meat without caring about the conditions under which it was made isn't going
to change when lab meat becomes available... which means that if companies
that make lab meat DO end up having to cut costs by killing some other
ecosystem, they probably won't care about that either.

For me, whether you eat meat or veggies doesn't determine how ethical you are
as a person, it's how much energy you're actually willing to spend on giving a
shit about how your actions affect others.

~~~
cies
> I wasn't looking to get into a debate regarding the ethics of eating animals
> vs not eating them. I'm very clear in my ethics regarding that. I,
> personally, find myself much more concerned with the living system as a
> whole, rather than individuals.

So go vegan. Have a look at Cowspiracy for example. Our meat consumption is
killing our habitat on this planet.

> > About half of US soy is produced for animal feed[1]. I think worldwide
> this number is much higher (US imports feed). Also land use for animal
> farming (including what they need for growing feed) is HUMONGOUS compared to
> the land needed to feed a human on a plant-based diet.

> This is a really good point, though I really wished I used a different
> example because my main point was that many veggies and vegans don't really
> care about the big picture so long as they can convince themselves their
> conscious is clean.

How do you know? I say it's BS as the vegans I know are making a daily effort
to improve the shituation, while omnis keep coming with lame excuses.

> They're the people in the Trolley Car Problem who would never push a large
> person onto the tracks to save five other people, but if you gave them a
> button that served the same function then they would go ahead and push that.

 _laughs_ Sorry man, not even replying to this. Any research to back this
statement up? I guess nah.

> It is, of course, the same cognitive dissonance that allows factory farming
> to continue since plenty of people admit they could never kill a cow while
> munching on a burger. Just a few layers of abstraction give people peace of
> mind and technology enables people to hide behind more layers every day.

Yes. And it is the vegans that are the exception here. I picked fruit! I
pulled a cabbage from soil. I would never like to kill an animal, not even
when it give me taste pleasure.

> > Lab grown meat is going to make the discussion very pure. > > If we can
> provide the same experience/conveinience without the animals suffering, then
> what sick fuck would still pay for animal-based product?

> Probably any "sick fuck" who doesn't have the means to spend half their
> paycheck on lab-grown protein sources

I forgot to say that the price-at-shop is same of cheaper for the faux meat.
So that what I mean by a pure discussion: we have the same-price-same-
experience right here, why buy cruelty?

> > Going non-factory-farmed hugely increases the resource consumption for a
> pieces of meat. I thought you were concerned with resource consumption?

> One assumption [...] it's a race.

Are you concerned with resource consumption or not? If yes: do your research
and go (mostly) vegan. Why wait for it to be to expensive for you to pay for?

> My main point in all this was to try to get people to think twice about just
> lauding lab meat without considering the potential issues. I'm not going to
> continue here because I try to maintain a policy of not h

Without substantial foundation that's called F.U.D.

> Having emotional conversations with people I can't look in the eye and you
> are obviously quite passionate about this.

So what. Yes I try to make a difference. My passion is not the point here.

> Again, I appreciate the thoughtful and well-researched response

Thanks for noticing. :)

> though I find it noteworthy that neither you, nor anyone else that
> responded, seemed to address the actual comparison of resources for lab
> grown meat vs nature grown meat.

Because it is still a question mark. It has all the potential to be much more
sustainable. That's why Gates/Branson/etc are investing in this: they know we
need to live more sustainable or die as a species. It is not a choice at this
point.

> We're not using technology to become more moral or ethical, we're using it
> to become lazier and more complacent.

The ethical impact of this tech is a side-effect. The ones investing are
simply looking to make money. That we cannot grow further with our livestock
numbers is primarily an economic factor for the investors. It just happens to
line up at this point.

> The same attitude that allows people to eat meat without caring about the
> conditions under which it was made isn't going to change when lab meat
> becomes available...

Says who? At the same price/experience it has the potential to make a huge
difference! I know loads of peeps who'd switch (or pretty much have switch
since the alternative are good enough for them). They do not need to re-learn
cooking, just pick the other "meat" and do as you always do.

> which means that if companies that make lab meat DO end up having to cut
> costs by killing some other ecosystem, they probably won't care about that
> either.

Srsly. Where do you get this from? What ecosystem are you talking about?

Not the ecosystems in the forests that where cut for animal agriculture of the
GMO soy/corn field to feed them...

Get a grip man. You're chasing ghosts.

> For me, whether you eat meat or veggies doesn't determine how ethical you
> are as a person

For me it does because, in your own words:

> it's how much energy you're actually willing to spend on giving a shit about
> how your actions affect others.

And going vegan is an effort, try it, and you save many animals by doing so.
That industry is so ugly you would not be able to swallow that piece of corpse
when you had to look at movies showing its practices.

I really wish for you to try to consume cruelty free, you seem to have the
capacity to understand it will help (though still trying to deny it with --in
my opinion-- highly convoluted reasoning).

~~~
gooseus
> > Having emotional conversations with people I can't look in the eye and you
> are obviously quite passionate about this.

> So what. Yes I try to make a difference. My passion is not the point here.

You gotta take some deep breaths before you reply because you and every other
vegan I end up engaged with lay it on so thick with the defensive self-
righteousness that you are more apt to have people dig their heels in. This
doesn't end up making any difference except to how you feel about yourself and
the social cred you get amongst your bubble-buddies when you share how much
you "destroyed" some rando on the internet.

My point was that you can't see me and I can't see you, so you don't truly see
me as another person, just some adversary or potential convert to get a notch
in the belt. I took the time to calm myself, do some more research and then
reply respectfully (imo) to most of your points.

> Because it is still a question mark. It has all the potential to be much
> more sustainable. That's why Gates/Branson/etc are investing in this: they
> know we need to live more sustainable or die as a species. It is not a
> choice at this point.

See, you obviously didn't even click the last two links I sent in your rush to
shove more of your own information down my throat, because the first link is
for an article about a study that specifically asks the main question in my
original post... __and their findings support your position __, I mean wow...

> Says who? At the same price/experience it has the potential to make a huge
> difference! I know loads of peeps who'd switch (or pretty much have switch
> since the alternative are good enough for them). They do not need to re-
> learn cooking, just pick the other "meat" and do as you always do.

> "Srsly. Where do you get this from?"

From the second link you didn't look at, I was literally paraphrasing the
article for you, but it makes the points much better than me, cause, ya know,
professional writer at scientific publication.

So yeah, if you want to make a difference in online debate then you should
probably leave your ego in whatever room your computer isn't and actually try
listening to whoever you're engaged with. Good night and good luck in your
crusade.

------
Mizza
I think humanity should be spending about 5 to 6 orders of magnitude more
money on investment in this space. It's seriously one of the most important,
if not the most important, challenge that we currently face as a species.

Does anybody have any more information about the company's specific technology
here? I've done some research into this space, and the big blocker at the
moment is the use of Fetal Bovine Serum which is used to "grow" the meat. FBS
is exactly what it sounds like, so it's not a huge victory to make lab grown
meat if it requires liquid-cow-baby to actually grow.

A plant-based FBS replacement would be the holy grail for this industry. Some
companies have claimed to have done it but nobody has actually publicly
demonstrated it yet. If there are any investors out there looking to make an
impactful investment in this space, please invest heavily into solving the FBS
problem.

EDIT: From SuperMeat's FAQ:

> Does clean meat contain animal products?

> One of SuperMeat's purposes is to produce meat products without having to
> resort to ongoing animal use. SuperMeat has developed a unique technology
> that will make that happen, without having to use animal serum or other
> animal ingredients.

So, they are claiming to have solved the serum problem, which is good. Others
have also made this claim, but so far nobody has had a public demonstration,
let alone actually create a commercial product, so this is still vapourware.
Still, I wish them luck.

------
tlb
I tried an Impossible Burger last week, and it was very good. I could not
distinguish it from good beef. It's plant protein with heme, a sort of lab-
grown blood. A few places in the Bay Area now serve them. Worth trying.

I think fake meat is having an electric car moment, where there is suddenly a
product every bit as good as the previous technology, just more expensive.
When the price comes down, real meat will seem gratuitously cruel and
unsustainable.

~~~
KitDuncan
To some people real meat (and animal products) already seem incredibly cruel.

I'd argue most people actually know it's morally wrong and just choose to eat
it out of convenience.

~~~
ecshafer
How is it morally wrong? A wolf would eat a cow, why not a human eat a cow?

~~~
akkat
For the same reason it is "okay" for a cat to rape another cat but it is not
okay for humans to do that.

~~~
glenstein
Exactly. Or, to put it in fancy philosophy terms, there is a difference of
moral agency. You can't assign moral blame to creatures that aren't morally
cognizant.

------
sethbannon
For the interested in the clean meat (aka lab grown meat) space, there was a
recent cover story in Inc on the industry leader Memphis Meats that's well
worth a read: [https://www.inc.com/magazine/201711/jeff-
bercovici/memphis-m...](https://www.inc.com/magazine/201711/jeff-
bercovici/memphis-meats-lab-grown-meat-startup.html)

------
xkcd-sucks
Is there any indication that the "lab-grown" tissue is really produced without
animal products?

Most mammalian cell culture requires "serum," the non-cellular fraction of
blood from a similar critter which contains a pretty complex mixture of growth
factors, hormones etc. plus other proteiny things like collagen.

Serum-free cell culture is tricky in well characterized cell lines, and "meat"
is tissue culture from cells which is tricky in itself, at production scale
which is also tricky by itself. For context, pharma companies manufacturing
biologics at scale do use animal serum in cultures despite animal products
being a vector for contamination issues which have literally killed successful
pharma companies.

Also, cell culture requires antibiotics much more than animal farming requires
antibiotics, so don't expect "ethical" tissue culture groups to voluntarily
minimize antibiotic usage any more than farmers do

tl;dr cells grown in labs like to eat animal products and other things that
people consider unethical

Edit: If you can grow realistic muscle tissue at feeding-people scale you've
accomplished something much bigger than "ethical meat." If you're just
producing animal cells-- basically textureless slime-- it would be more
ethical to process existing waste meat into a palatable form aka rebranding
"pink slime" as "recycled meat" or something.

------
julianh95
This is fantastic! Hopefully they take off like Impossible Foods did with
their faux beef burger that is akin to the real thing.

------
sebringj
"I've been a fan cannibalism for all my life but was never able to participate
fully in it, for legal reasons. Maybe they'll start growing human meat and I
can finally be myself without having to murder people!" That hypothetical
could happen if they start perfecting musculature scaffolding as a very odd
side effect. Sorry, just sayin.

~~~
plopz
Just be careful to avoid Kuru.

~~~
drspacemonkey
I was under the impression that kuru was a prion disease that comes from
eating brain matter. Was I wrong about that?

------
mikestew
I don't know why companies didn't start with chicken in the first place. A
lab-grown steak? Yeah, good luck competing against the real thing (and as a
vegetarian, I hope they do). But chicken? I grew up on chicken before factory
farming, and then as an adult wondered why I didn't like chicken much anymore.
It occurred to me that factory farming has bred all the taste out of it, in
exchange for other features. (And I'm open to the idea that my tastes just
changed, and chicken is just as delicious as it always was.)

In summary, in the case of chicken it might not be as hard to beat the "real
thing". (Though in my book, the "real thing" picks through grass for its food
and spends its days running around a barnyard. _That_ might be hard to compete
with.)

------
omarforgotpwd
Everyone is focusing on the "ethical" issue of killing animals but in fact I
think this issue does not matter to the majority of the global meat market.
Instead I think the ecological factors (greenhouse gas emissions from meat
production) and economic factors (could theoretically be cheaper, easier to
manage, and more efficient than a farm) will be the primary drivers here.

Also, funny to imagine someone walking into a16z with just a piece of chicken
and walking out with a $3 million check.

------
ebbv
I hope this works and provides cheap, clean ways to have chicken nuggets. But
that's a long way off because we don't even have a way of doing it cheaply or
cleanly right now, let alone have a product that people actually want to eat
that is also cheap and clean.

In the mean time, I think this is the wrong way to try to solve the issue.
Raising a few chickens is not a big deal. I live in rural Michigan, many of my
neighbors have chickens with no real environmental impact and not much cost at
all.

All of the problems come from industrialized livestock practices. If we simply
outlawed those practices, and/or put huge taxes and tariffs on the products
the issue would solve itself (in that the monetary cost of meat would reflect
its real costs, and consumption would drop accordingly.)

~~~
neaden
The problem is that people like eating lots of chicken and will not be happy
about suddenly paying more, whether it is through taxes or increased cost from
regulations. In the US alone we killed 9 billion chickens a year, or about 28
chickens per person. Some of that meat is exported, but at the end of the day
I think this is a problem that can only be addressed by working with the
demand.

~~~
ebbv
They won't like it but tough beans. People don't like a lot of things we have
to change for the better of society. Not doing things because people won't
like them is why so many things are screwed up right now.

~~~
koolba
> They won't like it but tough beans. People don't like a lot of things we
> have to change for the better of society.

IMHO it's not a better society when we're forcing people to eat synthetic meat
grown in a lab.

If you've got a real winner on cost, taste, or ecological impact, then compete
in the open market and make a better chicken nugget.

~~~
Malic
It's a marketing problem. Take pearls. A natural pearl seems like something
you would prefer. But a cultured pearl is more uniform in size/shape/color and
more desirable.

What would need to happen is to push the idea that cultured chicken meat is
more uniform in quality (well, assuming that it will be.)

