Tuesday, 21 November 2017

Week 4 [20-26.11] In vitro meat

Since the beginning of the mankind meat was always in our menu. First, people were just hunters, then they became farmers. But during last 100 years farming got far more industrial. Nowadays just in US 10 billion animals are killed every year. That’s a lot of meat! And meat needs a lot of stuff to be produced like a lot of water, grains and grass. As you probably know, it’s really bad for the environment. Most of the air pollution is not caused by cars, it’s caused by cows. Cows and other animals are being fed with antibiotics. Perfect solution for this situation would be if everyone became vegan. Unfortunately, as we know it’s not gonna happen. However, one of proposed solutions is: in vitro meat. Produced entirely in a lab. It sounds a little gross but instead of killing animals scientists could take steam cells from every animal we want to eat. Then put it in kind of a nutrition soup, add some electricity and wait till it grows. Then we can make sausages or hamburgers. In theory, a single cell would be enough for the entire population. It can be 100% pure meat muscle without side products. Creating it in a lab gives us possibility to add healthy things like vitamins or exchange bad saturated fats for stuff like Omega3. We could make a healthy hamburger. In vitro meat is far more ecological than the classic one. Its production requires 99% less land, 45% less energy, 96% less gas emission and 96% less water. In 2050 our population will hit 9 billion.
Till that time we must look for an alternative for traditional meat production.
TED:

Read more:

1. Have you heard about and would you try this kind of meat or similar products?

2. Do you know any other ways to fight bad effects of our consumption level?


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat
http://www.futurefood.org/in-vitro-meat/index_en.php
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4648904/

26 comments:

  1. 1. I haven't heard about this kind of meat or any similar products, but I would like to try that. This topic is very interesting and in my opinion sooner or later we will be forced to consider some of the alternatives. It sounds really good, but I wonder if it would taste the same.
    2. I don't know any other ways to fight bad effects of our consumption level. I guess educating people about vegetarianism and its influence on human body would be positive for humanity and would decrease consumption of meat in general.

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    1. I'm glad you like it! From what they say it tastes exactly like ordinary meat.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y027yLT2QY0
      I would like to try it too, but at this early stage one burger costs a lot more than ordinary one. However, the prices are getting lower!
      https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/02/lab-grown-meat-prices-have-dropped.html

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  2. Marek, you brought up a very important subject. Crucial for all of us and really close to my heart, too. Although I'm not 100% vegetarian, I try to limit amounts of meat and animal products in my diet. I purchase from local producers and try to be conscious about my choices. Not only for environmental reasons. As every other product manufactured on a large scale, meat's lost in quality (not even to mention the way they treat animals). It's packed with antibiotics that demolish your immune system and that have lead to development of antibiotic resistant bacterias, which is a hell of a big deal.
    Back to the meat - I've heard of it and I'm really excited about the project. I think it's a marvellous idea for every meat-lover with remorses about eating too much steaks. As soon as it appears on grocery store shelves, I'm gonna make the switch. As for other ideas of living low-impact, I've heard about one... Eating worms:) They're cheap, easy to breed and high in protein, calcium and amino acids. Plus, they bring no negative impact on the planet. You can read about it here:
    https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/08/10/489302134/should-we-make-room-for-worms-on-our-dinner-plate

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    1. Thank You Stefania, your comment is a balm to my heart!
      Great idea with the worms, I heard they have a lot of proteins.

      Delete
  3. I heard, that its colour is actually... yellow :) that is because natural meat consists a little of blood. I heard. And if there is no other kind of meat in the world- i would probably eat it once a month or less.
    It is amazing, that science can save animals lives. Instead of artificial enlargement reproduction we could let them live in their natural tempo, and eat only few of them. As you mentioned at the beginning, at start we were hunters. Eating meat is so natural for a human. Of course, we can decide to became vegan, but usually we neeed to decide conciously. It is very imprtant to educate people about how exactly meat is "produced".
    Then everyone will think about his own decisions, and as we know -the more the merrier.

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    1. I haven't seen in vitro meat live but in photos and movies
      looks pretty normal.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y027yLT2QY0

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  4. I already heard about in vitro meat but I think it’s not a common knowledge. So I think that the greatest way to fight bad effects of our consumption level is educating people. If everybody knows the possibilities then we can really fight with that. At the moment fighting with these “bad effects” looks like sending untrained teenager on war front. Most people nowadays just want to eat and don’t want to think about any consequences. Without crucial knowledge we can’t change anything. For example, how to fight with air pollution, when people asking “where are you charging your hybrid car?”,” is it hassle-free to own them?” etc. Without basic knowledge, folks thinks that hybrid cars are technology of future and don’t know that first Prius was presented even in the end of XX century! Same counts to in vitro meat. How it’s possible to sell it worldwide when people don’t know about its existence…

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    1. Yes that's true, it's all about education. In vitro meat
      is produced already and it's get cheaper every year
      but articles like this are still science curiosity
      for most people.

      Delete
  5. I did not hear about such experiments but i must say it does sound intriguing. I would certainly give it a try and i think it would not take long to switch to this kind of meat.

    The only way, i can think of, to limit bad effects of our consumption level is to limit what we eat! Don't buy extensive amount of food and eat more of what you have in your fridge, not what you crave in that particular moment. I cook 2 dinners a week, i plan them beforehand so during shopping i buy only things i will consume that particular week.

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    1. I totally agree, people buy way too much and they don't think what they eat or spend money on. Like this weekend
      is black friday and everyone got crazy.
      Did you know that director George Romero created zombies in all his famous movies based on people slowly walking in shopping centers? :)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgU71nWCNeY

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  6. It's not just antibiotics but total of water, transport and space we need to use, to gain one kilogram of meat that's way too high.
    There are plenty of websites nowadays with good information on how big footprint of producing meat is, one of which I can think of is: http://greenmonday.org/environment/
    Artificial meat sounds like certainly way to go, because - as you pointed out - going vegan, or even vegetarian is really hard for most of the population. We can also use it for space travel, because we would not need so much water and space to obtain it.
    I'm sort of skeptical when it comes to a taste of artificial meat but I bet if you would not tell me and then gave me a bite, I would not be able to tell the difference. :)

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  7. 1. Have you heard about and would you try this kind of meat or similar products?
    I never heard about think like this. I'm a little bit affraid on effects of such food.
    Chronic diseases, cancer, that will be standard in my opinion.

    2. Do you know any other ways to fight bad effects of our consumption level?
    Actually? No.
    I heard from some of my friends about this problem but honestly I don't care about it. This is an arrogant behavior and I'm ashamed of it. This problem come also to Europe and I hope some claver people will prevent tragedies.

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    1. If you have some free time maybe movie Cowspiracy will be interesting, it shows and explains the problem
      with meat consumption.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlUctErf7dc

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  8. 1. Have you heard about and would you try this kind of meat or similar products?

    I heard a little bit about it. I would probably try it, because I'm curious how it would taste, would it be the same as the natural one and so on.

    2. Do you know any other ways to fight bad effects of our consumption level?
    I don't knwo, but I imagine it would be hard as hell to fight consuption level. Taking into account that basically everybody can buy whatever they want in the shops all around it's hard to convince somebody to buy less that they want. One way might be education about consumption level and why it's important. I guess even in vitro meat would not be bought without proper education when you have choice between real one and in vitro.

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    1. I agree, education is most important thing when we talk about
      consumption. Nowdays there are some movements promoting
      ideas like minimalism. We definitely need more.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Co1Iptd4p4

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  9. No, I haven’t heard about this kind of meat, but now I’m terrified. I don’t believe if it’s good idea to make food in a laboratory. It can’t be. Why? Because it’s not a natural way of producing products. Even more, your article make me more suspicious about nowadays eating habits. I’ve been knowing about our problems, as a population, but now I’m realized how wrong I was. The problem is huge. I’m not gonna try this kind of met, I’d like to be a vegan person, than try this.

    Oh no, I have no idea to fight bad effects of our consumption level. I was wrong when I was thinking that problem is not so big as it is. You must be right about getting more vegan, I think it could a good idea but it’ll be take a long time, really long time.

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    1. Being vegan is one of the best alternatives,
      unfortunately it's hard for most people.
      For example I'm very active person and it would be very hard to give up meat completely, still I'm trying to limit consuming it.

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  10. I've heard of these attempts to get meat out of the test tube. I will honestly say that I am quite curious how tastes such meat. I wonder if it is possible to grow a piece of muscle, or it will be a mush from multiply cells. Such a slug would certainly be worse to try.

    I have read that the problem of air pollution by cows can be solved by converting this gas into fuel. However, such technology has not yet emerged

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  11. I have a particularly negative attitude towards this kind of solutions. I think that artificially grown or genetically modified meat can be very harmful to human beings. In the article, which you presented, it has been mentioned that there is no blood in the artificially prepared meat. This may suggest that its taste will be different. Also, no studies examining the effect of artificial meat on the human body have been conducted. However, if it turns out that such meat becomes available at the stores, I would prefer it to be clearly marked as such. I think that scientists will find a way to manufacture food cheaply and in a natural way. If we want to counteract the adverse effects of our level of consumption, we could start with solving some simpler problems first. One of such problems is delivering food to the cities. The majority of people in the world live in large cities. Every day we have to deliver food to the cities and consume large amounts of petrol in the process. Growing plants in the city could reduce the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by cars.

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  12. 'Perfect solution for this situation would be if everyone became vegan' - Hi I'm vegetarian :)
    For me it is very interesting article, because i could eat it. I understand that animals do not suffer from it.

    1. No. I rather eat some soy products. Where can I buy this kind of meat? :D

    2. We buy too much. The food is wasted. This causes unnecessary resources to be consumed.

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  13. As far as I'm aware of meat not being a very healthy part of a diet I really don't like an idea of people messing up with nature.. and this idea seems quite like someone is trying to compete with it. I'm quite conservative and prefer to eat cows that walks the fields doing all their moo-moo stuff.

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  14. I never heart about his ideas. But can be interested. Sometimes i eat for example vegan burgers and it is good, for a part of people. Problem is when we have a problem with health and diet with only plants it isn't healthy for me. I have this problem and i don't have ideas what i can because theoretically, the meat is bad and practically the plants are bad too. Now i should have my private animals and plant but it's possibility. In the future it's could be very big problem but we need global desision.

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  15. I agree with Marek. This experiment does not look good. Strongly changes in nature are very dangerous for us. People should be interested about healthy and economic eating . I think that our parents in the 80s more cared about food, because they had everything limited. We live in better times, but We not respect that.

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  16. I've never heard about this in vitro meat, but I do like the idea of creating more accessible method to our world. I love animals and it's always making me sad, when I am hearing about mass meat production farms. It's a common knowledge, that animals are not treated well there.
    Unfortunatelly, I love eating meat more than animals themselves. I am ashamed, but I turn the head in a different direction, when someone telling me about killing animals for food. I tried to be unconcerned, because I realy like to eat meat dishes.
    Meat that can be produce unnaturally, could be a really good solution, but I am troubled with just one question. Are the flavor still going to be this tasty?

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  17. I heard about that, but I have never tried that kind of meat. Is it like genetically modified products?
    I don't think that this kind of meat would have all ingredients inside which we need. Some of them you can't replace just by chemistry.
    I don't think that idea of spreading inv vitro meat will be good one. It will cause damage in natural food circle.
    Maybe that will be good idea for far future.
    Maybe idea of eating healthy food, feeding animals healthy not fulfill with chemistry fodder and start to take better care of our Earth will be better solution. Eating non-taste food produced in labolatories will cause bad influence of our health.

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