The whole "lab-grown meat" thing always seemed like nonsense to me, at least techniques using cell cultures. Life is a no-rules arms race, which is why immune systems are a basic requirement, not an unnecessary luxury. Trying to build an organism out of tubes and pipes with industrial techniques seems utterly foolish to create such a low value/mass quantity product as food.
IMHO, any kind of successful and practical "lab grown meat" would probably look like some kind of engineered "minimal viable animal" (e.g. a chicken without the brain, and maybe missing a few other things, but recognizable as an animal with functioning organ systems).
We already use several processes that are similar to lab grown meat. Ie beer and cheese are a bunch of cells dumped into a growth medium. Hell bread rises because of yeasts in a growth medium.
So the “minimal organism” here is probably some kind of fast growing meat cell in a relatively sterile environment, alcohol production optional.
> We already use several processes that are similar to lab grown meat. Ie beer and cheese are a bunch of cells dumped into a growth medium. Hell bread rises because of yeasts in a growth medium.
"Similar" is not the same. In all those cases you cite, you're using non-animal cells that are very close to wild to modify existing food in relatively minor ways.
If "meat" was bacterial sludge or yeast blocks, it would be a lot more practical to grow in a lab, but it's not. Meat is things like chicken muscle cells, which are not evolved to grow outside the support of a complex organism.
If your definition of food extends to everything, then yes. In all of these products (and lab grown meat) you take low-value starter materials and make them food through microbial processes. Without yeast we wouldn't really be eating wheat to the same extent as we do (except unleavened bread...)
> In all of these products (and lab grown meat) you take low-value starter materials and make them food through microbial processes.
You are missing the key point. Not all "microbial processes" are the same: they can have massively different characteristics. Lab grown meat 1) uses exceedingly fragile microbes and 2) makes extensive modifications to the food (complete transformation). Making beer 3) uses much more robust microbes and 4) makes less extensive modifications to the food (i.e. metabolize a fraction of the carbs into a microbially-toxic substance called alcohol).
If your understanding can't make these significant distinctions, it's too fuzzy to be very good.
The assumption that these cells cannot be hardy assumes a great deal about this process. It’s lab grown meat not just lab grown beef.
From the perspective of human health we can use non mammalian cells for meat such as fish, reptile, or even invertebrates. That greatly changed the risks from things like viral or bacterial infection.
There’s a massive tradeoff in terms of the need for an immune system vs antibiotics vs near perfect sterilization. Avoiding contamination is extremely difficult but if possible solves many problems.
> The assumption that these cells cannot be hardy assumes a great deal about this process. It’s lab grown meat not just lab grown beef.
IIRC, none of the issues are specific to beef cells. They're issues with growing animal cells in a bioreactor.
> From the perspective of human health we can use non mammalian cells for meat such as fish, reptile, or even invertebrates. That greatly changed the risks from things like viral or bacterial infection.
Maybe for viral infection, but that would definitely not solve any issues for bacterial infections.
> Avoiding contamination is extremely difficult but if possible solves many problems.
Just like perfectly secure, bug-free code is extremely difficult but if possible solves many problems. But we all know how viable that is (e.g. you can manage it at a small scale at great expensive, but good luck trying it at a large scale).
> They're issues with growing animal cells in a bioreactor.
There’s major differences in growing different cells in a bioreactor. At the extreme end some cell lines are almost as hardy as bacteria.
> bug-free code
Producing some bug free code isn’t difficult, always producing bug free code is impossible. Similarly, a sterilization first approach is likely to occasionally fail but not every batch would fail.
It's more that, since you need blood, muscle tissue, and fat, (and probably more stuff) you need something to support their growth, you can't just create an homogeneous mass.
The GP is quite unimaginative to think you would need an entire animal for supporting those, but "some kind of fast growing meat cell" is wrong too.
> The GP is quite unimaginative to think you would need an entire animal for supporting those, but "some kind of fast growing meat cell" is wrong too.
What you described is actually pretty close to what I had in mind. I think you'd need something close to an "entire animal," since animals don't typically have lots of extra organs and systems they don't actually need.
If you start with muscle tissue and "add back in" all the stuff you'd need to grow it as a passive lump that just gets fed, I think you'd come pretty close to an entire animal: heart, lungs, and circulatory system; bones and bone marrow; kidneys; a digestive system and liver (because do you really want to feed it exotic growth factors); a rump of a nervous system; etc.
My point was more that these growth mediums don’t result in harmful bacteria like salmonella.
Also, Beer is more about eating the byproduct used by these cells to minimize competition. Cheeses have more variety with some using use aromatic molds or bacterial enzymes, but others just use Rennet.
I've had similar thoughts. It seems to me that it's probably a lot easier to design some sort of 'minimum viable' animal that produces perfect chicken eggs instead of trying to produce some sort of tissue that can be made to resemble chicken breast, or more likely chicken nuggets.
The consumer will never have to see the unsightly 'meat' that will be very imperfect, so you don't have to invest in making it palatable to humans. It just has to produce eggs.
There's probably a lot of room to optimize egg product as it currently is.
IMHO, any kind of successful and practical "lab grown meat" would probably look like some kind of engineered "minimal viable animal" (e.g. a chicken without the brain, and maybe missing a few other things, but recognizable as an animal with functioning organ systems).