Vegetarians - would you eat lab-grown meat ?

[Grissom 10]

It seems that in the future it'll be possible to 'grow' meat in an industrialised process - no animals would be involved except for the use of a single cell to start the process off

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4148164.stm

 

So, would you eat it or not ?

[carcrash 11]

I dont think I would. I've been veggie for a long time. If i wanted to eat meat I would go to a decent free range and organic butchers.

[Birth-Peace 10]

A very interesting question, well done.

 

 

Im not a vegetarian so I cant help.

[carcrash 11]

Would meateaters eat it I wonder

[evildrneil 14]

While this may be a nice idea in theory, if I remember my cell biology correctly (and it's been a while so I may not!) a normal cell will only go through about 70-odd divisions before dying and "suffers" from contact inhibition so would have to be grown in one cell thick sheets. If on the other hand you wanted a probably more commercially viable approach of 'vat grown meat' you would need to transform the cell line (by fusing it with an immortal cancer cell line) and I can't see that going down well with either consumers or HSE?

[Grissom 10]

Originally posted by carcrash

Would meateaters eat it I wonder

 

It'd be interesting to see what retailers would say about it - could be a good selling point e.g. "all our chicken nuggets are manufactured in 100% sterile conditions - avoid other manufacturers who use animals to produce their meat - you cant get any diseases from our product !"

 

It'd be nice to munch the chicken and know it'd not been festering amongst dead and dying chickens etc

[raskel 10]

no i wouldn't, because its still meat... still a muscle, still the thought of an animal, etc.

I am not a vegetarian because i don't like killing animals, im one becuase i don't like eating them!

[Phanerothyme 12]

Originally posted by steelcitybab

no i wouldn't, because its still meat... still a muscle, still the thought of an animal, etc.

I am not a vegetarian because i don't like killing animals, im one becuase i don't like eating them!

 

It wouldn't be eating an animal though. In fact, if technology like this were ever to work in the industrial quantities need, it would have an enormous positive impact on animal welfare.

 

And how is this different from quorn? All cultured cells, just from different organisms.

 

EDN - the beeb article states that nasa have already grown edible quantities of fishmeat in vitro.

[raskel 10]

Originally posted by Phanerothyme

It wouldn't be eating an animal though. In fact, if technology like this were ever to work in the industrial quantities need, it would have an enormous positive impact on animal welfare.

 

And how is this different from quorn? All cultured cells, just from different organisms.

 

yes but quorn is a mushroom not a single cell organism.

so its technically different

[evildrneil 14]

Originally posted by Phanerothyme

EDN - the beeb article states that nasa have already grown edible quantities of fishmeat in vitro.

 

It's quite possible to culture the tissues - however I was questioning the techniques that would be used to grow it.

 

The actual quote was:

 

Tissue engineering techniques were first developed for medical use and small amounts of edible fish tissue have been grown in research conducted by Nasa

 

which I'm not sure if it means that they have cultured the tissue of an edible fish or that they have cultured fish tissues and shown it to be safely edible?

 

The quorn thing is a bit different - it's a substance processed from Fusarium venenatum (which is a mould rather than a 'shroom!) with the mould grown in vats. This is more growing the mould under lab conditions and then processing it rather than engineering the tissue to grow under the conditions it wouldn't normally grow under.

[melthebell 864]

not sure as yet, the jurys still out

 

ive been veggie about 19 years but do like meat, i just dont eat it cos of cruelty and killing

 

i laughed when the butcher i saw on telly mentioned natural meat tho

i thought yeah right

 

he didnt mention all the chemicals pumped into the animal and meat in about 90% of cases

[chill 10]

I'd eat it. I eat cultered fungus, so I don't see why I wouldn't eat cultured "meat".