[anon-sre-srm]

s/Lab-Grown// would be a better idea.

- Climate change

- Antibiotic resistance

- Novel pandemic pathogen evolution, including the "Spanish" flu and COVID-19

- Air pollution

- Water pollution

- Soil pollution

- Reduced total available calories

- Increased food prices

- Deforestation

... way, way down here is animal cruelty because the actions of 99% of people prove they don't give 2 fucks so long as they don't see it or the animals aren't cute.

[anlum]

If you think lab-grown meat is anything other than a massive accelerrant to the problem of antibiotic resistance, you've got another thing coming.

A bioreactor is basically just an animal with a severely curtailed feature set - limited homeostasis, no sense organs, cognition, locomotion, etc.

Crucially, a bioreactor has no immune system. It's a soup of muscle cells with basically no defense against external pathogens. Sterile technique will only get you so far, especially at scale. Lab-grown meat pretty much constitutionally requires constant antibiotic input. It's the price you pay for stripping the concept of animal as meat machine down to its most basic essence.

[sieste]

Interesting point. But you also have to consider there are no faeces which contribute to infection risk in live animals and increase need for antibiotics. And we know a lot about keeping dead meat from going bad, see slaughterhouses and supermarkets. Can lab meat be grown under less favourable conditions for bacteria, eg cooling or oxygen poor?

[dartos]

Kind of.

Lab meat may be in a sterile environment, but it’s vulnerable to a lot more too. (As OP was saying)

Like an operating theatre is cleaner than a slaughterhouse, but that’s because the bar for what would cause contamination is that much lower.

[dutchclutch808]

A consumermarket labgrown meat was tested in the Netherlands for over three decades, as they wanted to be absolutely sure that the genepool used was varied enough to maintain the quality of the meat, and that no unforeseen mutations would suddenly pop up, messing up meatproduction or worse, more. I don't believe the antibiotic resistance was too much of an issue over that period.

Too bad they pulled the plug on the product in the end, due to production costs making and market assessment it would still be too expensive to be sold as a viable alternate meat-option. But as far as I know, it's over three decades of growing meat in a lab, good and safe enough for human consumption.

[dartos]

It’s one of the main challenges of growing meat like that too.

[bmer]

*[CITATIONS NEEDED]*

1) Bioreactors have available many options other than antibiotics for controlling bacterial growth.

2) A bioreactor is not "basically just an animal with a severely curtailed feature set". A bioreactor is not even "basically an organ with a severely curtailed feature set".

3) What precisely do you mean by "sterile techniques will only get you so far, especially at scale"?

There are actual issues with lab-grown meat. In a nutshell: nutritional quality, and the high degree of post-processing likely needed in order to make them palatable in terms of texture and taste.

TL;DR when someone reasons by analogy, doubt everything they say.

[JR1427]

I also find it interesting that people don't seem to think too hard about where lab grown meat is heading.

You could imagine that the culture mechanisms will get more and more sophisticated, building up some of the systems seen in animals from scratch.

I have (partly jokingly) thought about the idea that rather than redesign animals from the ground up, why not just engineer out the qualities that we (think) we don't want in livestock animals.

It wouldn't be hard to selectively breed brain-dead carcasses that require life-support machines to grow. And then we can harvest the meat from brain-dead animals. Yum.

Sounds appealing, doesn't it?...

[rogual]

Maybe we could even go full Hitchhiker's Guide and design an animal that wants to be eaten.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HLy27bK-wU

[dartos]

I think it’s more likely that we just grow cells into basically a large living meatball.

Why go through the effort to grow skin, eyes, and bones when all we want is a wad of meat

[JR1427]

A large living meatball wont be able to stay alive.

It would need a circulatory system, to get oxygen in to it, and waste products out.

As others have pointed out, it would also be very prone to infection, without a protective outer later (skin), and specialised cells that will destroy pathogens (immune system).

I could go on and on!

There is a reason why giant meatballs didn't evolve.

[PhasmaFelis]

More appealing than typical factory farms, yes.

[okokwhatever]

Your answer is SO well informed and focused out of the hype that I just can say thanks.

[bmer]

Except it's also very wrong. So, it just happened to make you feel good, and therefore it felt well-informed?

[swatcoder]

Reducing overall meat consumption would be great in a lot of ways, but lab-grown meats are a luxury product for the next few decades and will basically fall off the map if there's any kind of extreme or prolonged global crisis, which will happen sooner or later.

I spent years being vegan and vegetarian and still eat many meals that way, but the idea of purging ranching and meat consumption from the world is technologist hubris and the start to someone's dystopian novel. I mean, maybe it'll happen responsibly some day, but if you're grounded in reality and history, it's a 500 year transition, not a 5 year one.

[samus]

Then there's no reason to ban it. If anything, real meat might surprisingly soon be the expensive luxury food. We humans are pretty good at figuring out ways to scale up complex production processes and drive costs down.

[xeonmc]

Reminds me of "The Food of the Gods" by Arthur C. Clarke:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38303638

[exe34]

Also, the flesh eaters get very emotional, just as much as the pro-"life" supporters. Cruelty is irrelevant to them.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Of course. "personal freedom" is a multi-edged implement, it's not just for meat-eaters. There is no "pro freedom" argument in preventing me from choosing "lab-grown meat", if I want to. My reasons might be good or bad, emotional or not, that's irrelevant. You can't prevent me and also claim to be all for personal freedom, as these states like to.

[exe34]

> "There is no "pro freedom" argument in preventing me from choosing "lab-grown meat"

I was about to point out that the very TFA was about states lining up to outlaw it, but the sibling comment on here is the exact same hysterical response I was referring to. I would support labelling the item - I wouldn't eat either version myself, but banning one for the emotional comfort of flesh-eaters is the problem here.

[kelipso]

The freedom to not be exposed to lab-grown meat. To live a life free of experimental, potentially harmful, not widely tested lab-grown meat is important for a happy and healthy life. Etc.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

> The freedom to not be exposed to lab-grown meat.

What do you mean "exposed to" ?

If you mean "eat it", then ... don't eat it. Eat something else. That's not at all the same as preventing me from eating it. "personal freedom" is, as I said, a multi-edged implement, Why trample on my freedom in the process of freely not eating something?

If you mean that it's around, then so is lead, gasoline exhaust smoke and any number of other pollutants that are present in some quantity, are much harder to avoid, and are worse. We don't have complete freedom from them. There is no justification for a special legal exception for lab-grown meat.

If you mean that you don't want it present in the same supermarket, even wrapped in plastic, then ... isn't that a little fragile? Vegans are expected to shop in meat-carrying shops, and there is no justification for a special legal exception in that direction, or the the other direction.

[kelipso]

> There is no justification for a special legal exception for lab-grown meat.

Sure there is. It's untested and experimental. I don't want to go to a restaurant and accidentally eat lab-grown meat.

[SideburnsOfDoom]

Then chose to eat something else, you're good. I'm not seeing your choice here as in any way a worse issue than anyone else (such as someone on a vegetarian or halal diet) faces already without this kind of special treatment.

And I don't think you're engaging fully with the questions above in parent or grandparent post. I will refrain from repeating myself when you can always re-read.

[exe34]

Do you also worry about muslims accidentally eating non-halal meat? Do you worry about jews accidentally eating pork? Would you be okay for them to ban such things?

As a vegetarian who pukes when I accidentally eat meat (happened twice in ten years), I would like to ban all meat. I trust that I'll have your enthusiastic support?

[itishappy]

That's not freedom. Are we also given the freedom to choose lab-grown meat if we so please? Otherwise "freedom to choose the only available option" is disingenuous.

Also understand that the FDA regulates lab-grown meat to the same health standards as farm-grown meat, and you can go buy genetically modified meat in the store today. 95% of meat sold in the US is thus "experimental."

https://www.fda.gov/food/human-food-made-cultured-animal-cel...

https://www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/gmo-crop...

[funcDropShadow]

And the vegan climate activists that prefer to wear plastic shoes from mineral oil instead of responsibly produced leather shoes are not getting emotional?

[jesterson]

I would ask how "climate change" or "water pollution" has anything to do with proper meat, but there is no substantiated answer expected.

You may "reduce total available calories" yourself, that's fine, but other people should have a choice in a free country. That's why I would never touch lab "meat" with a telegraph pole, but against banning it per se.