# Why do so many people get grossed out by the idea of vat-grown meat? A poll. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 22, 2006, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416 "2006-10-22T05:06:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/101 "2006-11-04T01:17:05Z")
[QUOTE=Madd Maxx] I’m not suggesting we should, just why shouldn’t we. [/QUOTE] It’s a product without a market. Unless you’ve got a _genius_ marketing firm, it’s simply one of the worst business plans I’ve ever heard of. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/102 "2006-11-04T02:53:33Z")
The likelyhood of getting vat grown meat with the taste of a good grass fed cow is about as likely as being able to walk into a supermarket today and get margarine that tastes like a good, cultured normandy butter. It’s not that we don’t neccesarily know how, it’s just that theres no point. The taste of meat and most other things come in most part from their complexity. When you bite into a ripe, off the vine tomato or sip a great red wine or chow down on some argentinian grass fed beef, that flavour comes from the thousands of extra chemicals that were the product of a particular growing and ageing regime. Complexity in nature is easy, open up a stalk of grass and theres hundreds of different chemicals inside it. Feed a cow on a different patch of grass and you’ll get a different flavor. Complexity in processed goods is difficult because in order to reproduce that same quality, you need to isolate and then add in all of those flavours. This is why strawberry flavoured cookies, for example, taste nothing like real strawberry. Because it’s only economical to reproduce the top 10 or 20 different flavour compounds. The same will happen with vat grown meat. It will taste like factory farmed, industrial chicken, only moreso. Conventional meat grown the old fashioned way is still the cheapest and most economical way of producing really high quality meat, despite all the advances in technology. ---
**Author:** ![1010011010](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/1/ea666f/32.png) [@1010011010](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/1010011010)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/103 "2006-11-04T03:52:18Z")
We have the technology today to take an arbitrary protein source (e.g. SOY! SOY! SOY! SOY GIVES YOU STRENGTH! STRENGTH CRUSHES ENEMIES! SOY!) and turn it into a food product indistinguishable from a nice grilled steak. There’s no market for that level of costly simulation. Vegans aren’t secretly aching for a juicy slab of cow meat. Even if a market were to develop, due to the loss of natural meat for one reason or another, demand still probably wouldn’t support near perfect simulation… just like it doesn’t today in fast food. ---
**Author:** ![lisacurl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/41988e/32.png) [@lisacurl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisacurl)\ **Post date:** [November 4, 2006, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/104 "2006-11-04T04:00:37Z")
[QUOTE=featherlou] Interesting idea of growing human meat in vats. I’ve wondered in the past if human meat isn’t the perfect food for humans (well, between a bun, so you get your carbs, too). [/QUOTE] We sort of are, I thought. Not for consumption, though. 🙂 > **[BBC News | Health | Skin and bone bank](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/191708.stm)** > > Scientists are developing techniques to grow human tissue - and in time complex organs - in test tubes ---
**Author:** ![kittenblue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ba8739/32.png) [@kittenblue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kittenblue)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2006, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/105 "2006-11-05T01:18:27Z")
Now I would have no problem wearing a vat-grown leather jacket or fur coat. That doesn’t set off the squick meter. ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/106 "2007-07-08T13:14:01Z")
People have been talking about this idea for the better part of a century. Is anybody close to making it a reality? I’d happily eat some lab-cultured cowflesh, but I’m more interested in the possibility of learning to grow human kidneys, hearts and livers from the patient’s own cells. ---
**Author:** ![Yumblie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/76d3ee/32.png) [@Yumblie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yumblie)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/107 "2007-07-08T19:17:47Z")
I don’t really get the squickiness for vat meat from people who normally eat meat. Sure the thought of a pulsating blob of tissue in a petri dish isn’t very appealing, but imagine ripping off a chunk of a live cow and putting it on a plate. Not very appealing, is it? That’s not what they’re going to feed you of course, they’re going to cook and prepare it just like any other meat, and at least visually, once it arrives on your plate it should look identical to real meat. Personally for me there’s a much bigger squick factor when thinking that the meat I’m eating was once attached to a living creature. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/108 "2007-07-08T20:29:20Z")
[QUOTE=Patty O’Furniture] YI’m wondering how it’ll be marketed. Quazi-Meat? Nope… letters Q and Z are unappealing. Unmeat? Nope… too close to undead. Techno-Meat? Neat Meat? [/QUOTE] Perhaps, with a nod to Anthony Burgess, they will call it Ultra Meat-Plus. I’m also all in favor of it. I suspect it will be somewhat bland because the veins of fat give it sweetness but then again, buffalo meat is extremely sweet and leaner than beef. Maybe we can get them to do only buffalo meat in the vats? The Date: 2107 The Place: Old New York The Restaurant: Peter Luger’s Steak House ( hey, some things will never change ) Instead of asking what’s on tap, a patron might well ask the waitstaff, " What’s on vat tonight? " Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/109 "2007-07-08T20:38:21Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] People have been talking about this idea for the better part of a century. Is anybody close to making it a reality? [/QUOTE] [Apparently so](http://www.newsdesk.umd.edu/scitech/release.cfm?ArticleID=1098) > [@](#): > > **Treadmill Meat** > To grow meat on a large scale, cells from several different kinds of tissue, including muscle and fat, would be needed to give the meat the texture to appeal to the human palate. “The challenge is getting the texture right,” says Matheny. “We have to figure out how to ‘exercise’ the muscle cells. For the right texture, you have to stretch the tissue, like a live animal would.” > \*\* Where’s the Beef? \*\* > And, the authors agree, it might take work to convince consumers to eat cultured muscle meat, a product not yet associated with being produced artificially. (for some reason “Henk Haagsman, Professor of Meat Science at Utrecht University” cracks me up) [QUOTE=1010011010] We have the technology today to take an arbitrary protein source (e.g. SOY! SOY! SOY! SOY GIVES YOU STRENGTH! STRENGTH CRUSHES ENEMIES! SOY!) and turn it into a food product indistinguishable from a nice grilled steak. There’s no market for that level of costly simulation. Vegans aren’t secretly aching for a juicy slab of cow meat. [/QUOTE] Quorn seems to have exactly that business model in the UK - all their products seem to mention some dead animal they’re meant to taste like Apparently most of their coustomers aren’t Veggies, but people worried about health:- animal fats, BSE etc ---
**Author:** ![Bobotheoptimist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/919ad9/32.png) [@Bobotheoptimist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bobotheoptimist)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/110 "2007-07-08T21:04:41Z")
[QUOTE=Baldwin] I’d happily eat some lab-cultured cowflesh, but I’m more interested in the possibility of learning to grow human kidneys, hearts and livers from the patient’s own cells. [/QUOTE] Do they taste better than cow? ---
**Author:** ![Capt\_B.Phart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc29f/32.png) [@Capt\_B.Phart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt_B.Phart)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/111 "2007-07-08T21:07:50Z")
[The Space Merchants](http://www.scifi.com/sfw/issue370/classic.html) > [@](#): > > One of the great, classic images of this book is Chicken Little—a neatly packaged, popular meat product that’s actually a gigantic, living mass of vat-grown tissue fed and processed at the Chlorella plantation. It’s underneath this grotesque monstrosity that the Consie cell holds its clandestine meetings, which they get to by a special way of making Chicken Little’s flesh part, not unlike the Red Sea. That’s just so wrong and so right. — **Matt** ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2007, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/112 "2007-07-08T21:39:22Z")
[QUOTE=Cartooniverse] The Date: 2107 The Place: Old New York The Restaurant: Peter Luger’s Steak House ( hey, some things will never change ) Instead of asking what’s on tap, a patron might well ask the waitstaff, " What’s on vat tonight? " Cartooniverse [/QUOTE] A scene from _Cheers 2100_ Woody 4869: Evening, Mr. 5879, what’ll you have? Norm 5879: What do you have in the vat tonight? Woody 4869: Looks like meat. Norm 5879: Then that’s what I’ll have. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2007, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416/113 "2007-07-09T21:49:37Z")
God don’t you just hate it when someone else out-riffs you with your own riff? Man. That just chafes my chaps. 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-so-many-people-get-grossed-out-by-the-idea-of-vat-grown-meat-a-poll/377416.md?page=5)