Would you eat "test tube" beef?

Interesting quote at the end of that article.

BBC: Dr Steele, who is also a molecular biologist, said he was also concerned that unhealthily high levels of antibiotics and antifungal chemicals would be needed to stop the synthetic meat from rotting.

Well, it's probably better than the "meat" fast food chains sell

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01/31/10282876-mcdonalds-drops-use-of-gooey-ammonia-based-pink-slime-in-hamburger-meat

Factory would require much smaller footprint. Much lower biological waste to dispose of. Much lower wastage, as "food" would be directly processed. Cattle disease would not be an issue. Would hormones be used to increase yield? Would appear more like a factory than a stock yard. Happier neighbors. (Ever driven past a stock yard?) No cruelty issues. I really doubt that taste would be anything like a steak, but more like beef flavored toothpaste. OK for astronauts, not so great for my grill. Probably have substantial energy demands, for keeping climate control. Hmmmm.

Good grief no! Where's the fun if we can't know that some big animal is getting whacked to satisfy our bloodlust?

1988RedT2 wrote: Good grief no! Where's the fun if we can't know that some big animal is getting whacked to satisfy our bloodlust?

Intelligent and friendly on rye bread with some mayonnaise

cwh wrote: Factory would require much smaller footprint. Much lower biological waste to dispose of. Much lower wastage, as "food" would be directly processed. Cattle disease would not be an issue. Would hormones be used to increase yield? Would appear more like a factory than a stock yard. Happier neighbors. (Ever driven past a stock yard?) No cruelty issues. I really doubt that taste would be anything like a steak, but more like beef flavored toothpaste. OK for astronauts, not so great for my grill. Probably have substantial energy demands, for keeping climate control. Hmmmm.

Bold parts - first, disease would still be an issue as you'd have to keep the meat from being digested by fungi, bacterai, and becoming a breeding ground for virii. Second - if it's muscle tissue, it shouldn't be like toothpaste at all, and the flavor should depend on the feedstock (much like today's beef and the flavor difference between corn-fed and grass-fed beef); the texture is going to depend on how the muscle is worked, which can be easily accomplished through electical stimulation.

I would also expect this to be super-lean as I don't believe that muscle tissue would "know" how to create fats. Unfortunate, because fat is what makes beef taste good.

It will be ground and combined with fat to make ground "beef."

z31maniac wrote: It will be ground and combined with fat to make ground "beef."

Combined with what fat, though? My loose understanding is that there an enzymes(?) in beef fat that help in the digestion and nutrient uptake of beef.

Kinda like how there's stuff in oranges that aid in the uptake of the vitamins within, so while an orange has a fifth of the vitamin C that a pill does, your body gets more useable vitamin C out of the orange.

I would also be very concerned about unintended consequences. What might raise it's ugly head in a year or so?

ReverendDexter wrote:

z31maniac wrote: It will be ground and combined with fat to make ground "beef."

Combined with what fat, though? My loose understanding is that there an enzymes(?) in beef fat that help in the digestion and nutrient uptake of beef. Kinda like how there's stuff in oranges that aid in the uptake of the vitamins within, so while an orange has a fifth of the vitamin C that a pill does, your body gets more useable vitamin C out of the orange.

It helps if you guys will read the articles being discussed.

"These strips will be mixed with blood and artificially grown fat to produce a hamburger by the autumn."

5th paragraph in the BBC story.

I don't know how it all works, I'm not a scientist.

1. Is it free?

2. Is it all you can eat?

3. Can they wrap it in test-tube bacon?

If the answer to all of these questions is "yes," then yes.

I'm not saying I would not eat it, but the whole concept kind of gives me the creeps.

i thought i was the only one who was a bit creeped out by the concept of beef "grown" in a factory.

As far as the vegan argument goes...it's still made from living tissue, to say it's NOT the same as eatting beef from a whole cow is somewhat akin to saying it's not an abortion if the fetus is only XXX number of cells.

I wasn't listening as close as I should have to the tv story, I don't remember the "line" about the possibility of the meat rotting before it was "useable" / harvestable(?).

Finally, stories like this bother me because we already have foods "enhanced" by artificial hormones and colors and flavors...I wonder how long (hopefully, not in my lifetime) before we do sort of a Soylent Green...thing?

BTW, if anything / everything "replicated" in a Star Trek replicator is made from the essential molecules / atoms of something, it's not real beef. But I suspected Vulcans don't eat meat for 2 reasons:

1.) eatting meat, especially red meat, is considered to some folks to be the main reason so many folks are so violent.

2.) eatting meat causes your body to produce an odor, some of it is on your breathe, some in your sweat / skin. In the Star Trek series that featured Scott Bakula, the Vulcan character is asked if she doesn't find the stink of humans overpowering...what I figured was a plausible way to explain this reason (meat eaters stink).

In reply to integraguy:

I am not crazy about eating genetically modifed corn and whatnot. So saying lab meat gives me the creeps is kind of an understatement.

Otto Maddox wrote: In reply to integraguy: I am not crazy about eating genetically modifed corn and whatnot. So saying lab meat gives me the creeps is kind of an understatement.

Same here. We are already trying to get to a more vegetarian diet (only eating meat 2-3 times a week vs lunch/dinner every day)......

Could be a good plot for a new zombie movie?

Yuck! I will take my beef sliced off a cow please.

In reply to 93EXCivic:

Slicing a bit off of a dead cow is old skool. But if you had a way to cut some steaks off a live cow and have the cow regrow more steaks, you might be on to something.

In any case, I don't feel like having beef for dinner now.