momoese

What do you think?

http://www.wired.com/science/discove...4/invitro_meat

Chironex

There are so many things to consider about this. So numerous that this blog would not permit me to expand. There are socio-economic, physiological, epidemiological and lots of other issues. If meat can be cultured with genetic engineering, it could also be manipulated within its genome to produce carcinogenic or other terror-motivated anomalies with far-reaching effects. Conversely, so much good could come of it. Reducing cholesterol in natural meats, reducing fat, hence lowering cardiac incidents/stroke, even cancer. Feeding the hungry, preserving feed supplies to convert to energy such as ethanol....The mind begins to roam. Now if we could just clone oil!!!
As Dennis Miller concludes: "Of Course, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong." You be the judge.

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lorax

eeewwwww.....

slightly better than eating actual animals, but still.... eeewwwwww.

Too many possible implications on that, as Chironex starts to lay out.

magicgreen

hmmmm, If this gets popular I'll go vegetarian all the way! Looks nasty!

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mskitty38583

i absolutely refuse!

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Richard

There is currently a world food shortage of catastrophic proportions. Leading up to the summer of 2007, there were roughly 1 billion people living at or below the malnutrition line. However, an increase in use of crops to create biofuels, the rising costs of oil, and bad economic conditions world-wide have cut the supply and affordability of food for many more people. It is estimated that by summer 2008 an additional 700 million people will be added to the ranks of the malnurished [Economist, 4/19/08].

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hydrojeff

i think its a great idea, count me in, i will try anything once!!!!!

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hydrojeff

in 20 years our grand kids wont even know what a cow looks like?

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mrbungalow

Talk about your double standards;

Anthony Bennet, the guy in the article who wants to save the world with this technology says he had some "delicious norwegian salmon" afterwards.

Virtually all of the norwegian salmon on the market is farmed. These predatory fish are fed high-protein fishmeal, high quality oils, soy proteins, krill, and other food-products that could be utilized otherwise in a starving world. This is to satisfy picky markets. These salmon have a feed factor of about 1; Give the fish 1 kg of dry feed and they gain 1 kg of wet weight. Better than pork and chicken production, but pork and chicken don't get fed top notch feed that could be used for humans.

Honestly, this kind of production makes me sick somehow. But that could be a reaction to seeing this as something very new. Somehow though, I find it unnatural and I feel this completely removes humans from nature.

The article didn't state what the raw materials for this kind of in-vitro production would be: Agar? Sugar? Enzymes? Hormones? These things don't come for free either....

Glad to see they have full control.

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turtile

You'll eat bananas grown from tissue culture yet you won't eat meat using a similar method of production?

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lorax

Actually, I won't do either.

Richard

Many of the banana varieties grown in the American tropics originated as tissue culture in Honduras and elsewhere. Subsequently, the pups (of pups of pups ...) of these are distributed to growers and consumers.

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Richard

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lorax

The ultimate point being that it produces a whole, viable plant capable of reproduction by its traditional means (ie pups).

When in-vitro meat gets up and starts mooing, I'll take note of that and be more comfortable with it. Until then, I'll stick to veggies.

mskitty38583

i love veggies, but i am a meat eater. we are very carnivouse in my family. but if the cow or chicken i eat, is cloned or genetically mutated i wont touch it. hey to each his/her own but its not for this kat nor my kits. if it gets to the point where i dont have a choice on cloned or mutated food, ill go to the mennitites who live 5 miles from my house. they raise organic meats( cow, chickens) we hardly eat pork anymore. and they are grown the old fashioned way...via the womb.

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Richard

I haven't said whether I'm for or against it. I am pointing out that the current method of meat and protein production is not viable for the planet as a whole.

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island cassie

Yukk!!! Hopefully we are not too precious about it - but for many years now we have only eaten meals home-cooked from basic ingredients - nothing processed, and meats and vegetables resourced locally. Probably there are some pesticides but we try to avoid the mass market food full of growth hormones/antibiotics/gm etc.

In the UK and many other parts of the world, farmers are paid not to produce crops! This combined with the fairly sudden change to biofuels has had a huge effect on available resources worldwide. If the land that farmers were being paid to let lie fallow was put back into production and the surpluses that are stored until they are unusable were rationalised, I think the current shortage would be easily solved.

My thoughts
Cassie

mrbungalow

Well, I don't think these two methods are comparable. Plant TC is just a relatively simple tool to induce multiple shots, and make a genetic copy of the mother-plant. When propagating bananas from TC, we are ultimately growing the whole plant naturally, as all its' parts are present and it's roots will be in soil or hydroculture, and a relatively natural environment.

The meat in question is just muscle-cells/tissue grown on petridishes under lab-conditions in the whole "lifecycle". I think there's a big difference between TC bananas and this meat described here.

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