

Can robots debone a chicken?  - diminish
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303879604577410433686070506.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

======
gurkendoktor
The good news is that less chicken will have to die for the same amount of
meat.

But it's sad to see the amount of sophistication in deboning when the actual
slaughtering still seems to be a "mostly works" thing. I wish they'd invest
the time and money in lab meat instead.

~~~
crikli
American markets will not accept lab meat.

I say this based on the reaction to what was dubbed "pink slime" and about
which the media and the public flipped out. The result is that a completely
safe and efficient process to increase yield came under fire because of
hysteria grounded in not a whit of logic.

People are also whipping themselves into a frenzy about genetically modified
organisms. They're also convincing themselves that organic food is what they
should have been eating in lieu of food treated with chemicals(1).

So if a public that is generally ignorant about food production is
(over)reacting to existing scientific enhancements it follows that the
reaction to a completely scientificly generated product would not be met with
acceptance.

Disclaimer: I'm part of a fifth generation farm family. We farm corn,
soybeans, and milo. No livestock.

(1)Certified organic food is often treated with chemicals, sometimes the same
chemicals as non-organic, but at different dilutions and with different
application methods.

~~~
sp332
I don't understand the pink slime thing. I'm pretty sure the only reason
people freaked out was because of Jamie Oliver's campaign against it.

~~~
DanBC2
People want to eat meat. Pink slime is a small amount of meat with large
amounts of the bits you'd normally leave behind.

I'm not against mechanically recovered meat. But I'd prefer children to get
chunks of real meat cooked well than a squirt of slime and salt and
flavourings in a crumb coating which is then fried and served with a sugary
sauce. (ketchup, bbq, etc.) That combination of fat, salt, and sugar makes
food "hyper palatable"[1] and, while much cheaper than "real" food contains
little in the way of useful nutrition.

[1] Not my term. It's used to describe food where the balance of salt, sweet,
and fat have been carefully balanced, and where the food is very easy to eat,
because it's small or soft and easy to chew. See the progression from roast
chicken, to deep fried chicken, to deep fried chicken with a salty coating and
sauces, to "popcorn chicken" which are small chunks of meat, with a lot of
fat-soaked salty coating.

~~~
ericb
Also a big part of the objection is that pink slime is soaked in an ammonia
bath. I don't think it is ignorant to question whether an ammonia bath might
have consequences health-wise.

~~~
Cushman
1\. There is no soaking. The product is exposed to ammonia gas.

2\. If we don't trust the FDA to regulate based on health consequences, what
the hell do we pay them for?

3\. It is, in strict terms, ignorant to not know that ammonia is a component
of animal metabolism which we produce and excrete naturally. Ground beef
always has ammonia in it (albeit about a quarter as much as in treated meat).

~~~
ericb
1 - source? Honest question--is "bath" the term for something other than
soaking? [http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-
food/safety/story/2012-...](http://yourlife.usatoday.com/fitness-
food/safety/story/2012-03-27/Beef-industry-braces-for-loss-of-pink-slime-
filler/53802154/1)

2 - Straw man. We pay them for being better than the alternative. I don't
trust them because, like most of our government, they are ultimately beholden
to lobbying and special interest money.

3 - 4x the ammonia is not really a selling point, and in fact makes the case
that rejecting this food out of caution is not ignorant.

Further, I don't think you can call it ignorant for people to reject eating
foods that make them go "ick!" I _could_ eat maggots. Is it ignorance that
makes me choose not to, or personal taste?

~~~
Cushman
1\. I imagine USA Today uses the term "bath" to refer to any number of things.
Here's the Washington Post: "...the lean beef passes through a tube the size
of a pencil, where it is exposed for less than a second to a tiny amount of
ammonia gas."[0]

2\. Be that as it may, they are the people in charge of telling us whether or
not food is safe to eat, and they said this was safe to eat. They also happen
to know a lot more about this stuff than we do, which brings us to...

3\. It is quite literal ignorance to say "Ammonia? I have a bottle of that
under my sink! And they feed this to children?!" while _ignorant of_ the fact
that you exhale ammonia with every breath, and could eat the same amount of
ammonia by simply _making a bigger burger_.

Not that that gives it an automatic pass, but it sets the bar for someone
saying, "Yeah, we tested this and it's completely safe to eat" a hell of a lot
lower.

[0] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/06...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2008/06/11/AR2008061103656_2.html?sid=ST2008061200002)

------
protomyth
"We did not understand the science of cutting," says Mr. McMurray, rubbing his
hands together. "This is when you appreciate what a human can do."

The above is probably that hardest step engineers / programmers have to deal
with when doing this type of thing. It comes sometime after the realization
that some things human's do are pretty hard.

~~~
tomp
I think that one of the main "techniques" that humans use is _continuous
feedback_ \- we don't decide exactly what path to use _before_ we even start
cutting, we just start cutting and see what happens and adjust as we proceed.

~~~
protomyth
Probably, we are after all is said and done really high-end pattern matching
machines and we keep thinking about things. I just wish more schools would
teach what amazing pieces of work humanity is and save engineers a lot of
startup time on new projects. It would be better if people started new
projects with a respect for what humans can really do.

------
ralfd
I was about to comment, that I would love to see a video of the robot-
machinery. But then I clicked back to the article, and alas, there is!

------
amalag
So this will increase the slaughter and inhumane treatment towards other
sentient creatures. Put another blind eye to slaughterhouses. Better people
should get graphic reminders of where their meat comes from than put another
layer on the plastic packaging through using a machine.

Losing empathy towards living creatures means reducing empathy for humans as
well. A controversial statement, but i am sure one can search that out within
themselves.

~~~
rdl
I really don't think having some poor people working in slaughterhouses,
treated slightly better than the animals they butcher (but only slightly)
really improves anyone's sense of empathy for animals (or humans). That ship
sailed a long time ago, around when we got factory farming or really once any
family didn't contain at least one farmer (1800s?)

~~~
gurkendoktor
To anecdotally confirm what you said: There was a "scandal" in Germany last
year where a school slaughtered and barbecued a hare. (Students were around
10/11 years old) Parents were outraged, basically arguing 'it should be
everyone's choice to either know or ignore where meat comes from'.

------
swedenborg
why debone . its tastier cocked with bones, and while eating you debone ...

~~~
sp332
It's useful when you're using chicken as an ingredient in prepared foods.

