Comments on: Is Vat-Grown Meat Organic?

By: Gary B

Gary B — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 23:27:44 +0000

You really want to eat real organic meat, get yourself a rifle or shotgun and go out and hunt wild game. Hunters by and large do more and care more about the environment that any of you vegan hippies any day.

By: Arch9enius

Arch9enius — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 02:51:58 +0000

Nikpo Said:
” my biggest concern – if you’re producing “petri-dish” meat… what the heck else are you growing in that petri-dish???? some sort of crazy new bacteria or virus that could possibly make whole batches disease ridden? How will you keep the production and packaging process sterile? ”

Crazy new bacteriums or viruses tend to crop up in normal animal husbandry anyway… did you miss the bird flu/swine flu stuff recently?

Chris Says Said:

“I do wonder, though, if/when the day comes that we can produce a decent vat-grown steak, what happens to all the cows? It’s not like there are vast herds of wild Holsteins roaming the central plains – will they be reduced to exhibits in zoos, or face extinction?”

People would still pay silly money to eat a ‘real’ cow, just like people pay silly money for shark’s fin soup, which is supposed to taste like nothing. I don’t know, I only have sensible money.

A whole other possibility could be to clone whole batches of animals, whilst neglecting to clone the brain/brain stem/neural system. This would make the animals, technically, vegetables.. ergo suitable for vegitarians! This would of course raise the question – would a eating a human cloned as above be technically cannibalism?

By: Justin

Justin — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 00:34:09 +0000

“It doesn’t have an immune system, so you don’t have to inject it with antibiotics or growth hormones.” — Common Sense Fail. Science Fail.

By: Sally

Sally — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 20:48:44 +0000

Yuck. I want the real thing. I’m not into franken meat.

By: Don

Don — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 07:37:21 +0000

Stop with the Taco Bell 38% number. That is a number claimed in a lawsuit and has never been verified. TB claims the percentage is greater than 85% which seems plausible. Remember, it can’t be 100%, otherwise it wouldn’t have any spices or flavoring in it.

By: victoriousvic

victoriousvic — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 17:16:19 +0000

I personally would have to see some thorough research that vat grown meat was in fact more resource efficient then conventional and that it was just as or more healthy for you. I don’t see why a majority of americans would have a problem with it though as long as it tasted good – after all Taco Bell seems to be doing well and the ‘beef’ in their tacos is only 36% real beef, so people eat a lot of ‘vat grown’ meat anyway.

By: Robert

Robert — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:24:49 +0000

@Jody giardina : I’m with you 100%. Bring on the Robert filet! Heck, people could even throw parties where folks get to choose someone else to eat! Yum!

By: mleuther

mleuther — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 21:47:07 +0000

Not telling you differently, but mock duck may be wheat based. Love it! And, wheat glutins, tofu and my favorite vat grown food, cheese! But, back to the future, skip the external vat, we each have ~28 feet of vat, seed with the right microbes, maybe modified nitrogen fixers, to produce our own high quality protein and then food can stop being such a time wasting obcession and we can get busy with basics, while sucking a stick to arrest our evolutionaly oral fixation hangover. Like, do you even know where we are in the universe?

By: Mark Curtis

Mark Curtis — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 05:43:27 +0000

I love the comments about the importance of the texture and flavor being “right” in order for people to eat Vat-Meat. Or saying that as long as it wasn’t too unnatural it would be okay.

When you compare the amount of wieners, sausages, bratwurst, pepperoni, balogna, salami and “cold cuts” that are consumed in this country to the amount of straight up steaks and roasts, there’s no contest. Add to that the consumption of Spam, head cheese, turkey rolls and roasts, brunschweiger and mock crab and it becomes clear to me that America is in LOVE with unnatural meat. In fact, given the recent revelation that Taco Bell’s meat filling is less than 40% “real” meat, we barely need to have meat involved at all to eat unnatural meat.

Forget about trying to make it look, feel and taste like steak. Grow it, grind it, add spices and shape it into something and you’ll make a fortune. I love the fact that sausage (with some of the most disgusting parts of the animal) is priced 50% higher than hamburger which is just (hopefully) muscle meat and fat.

I also have to add that even the vegans eat unnatural meat – sort of. I love a dish at my local Asian restaurant called “Mock Duck.” It is chunks of tofu that has been processed and molded to look like poultry, complete with skin that looks as if it’s been plucked. It’s so close to the real thing that I once took a client there and he ordered the Mock Duck. During the meal, he was picking at the Tofu with his fork. I asked him what he was doing and he said, “I’m taking off the skin. That’s where all the fat is.” I never told him differently.

By: Geoffrey Frasz

Geoffrey Frasz — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 02:49:20 +0000

Aspects of vat grown meats have treated well in Science Fiction for quite some time where some of ethical issues were first presented. Arthur C. Clarke first pointed out that there was no reason that one could not create a meat flavored product that had the exact flavor and texture of human flesh. If this is thinking about imponderables, well that is why we think about issues before they come up, so that when they do come up (and they will), we can have in advance some thoughts to work with.