Probably because they’re plants made to resemble meat, which they usually don’t, so it takes a lot of effort. (I tried veggie burgers once, from the local HEB, while I was on a diet. I later discussed them with a friend of mine who had also had them. She stated that the best thing about them was, if you put enough ketchup and mustard on them, they begin to taste like ketchup and mustard. :rolleyes: ) As for how this would be economical, it probably wouldn’t be unless something fairly big happened, like if it became impractical to raise cattle due to their suddenly becomign an endangered species, or if there was a large disease outbreak that largely eliminated the existing cattle herds, thus making a market for synthibeef if enough people wanted it badly enough.
Could also be a means of augmenting the existing methods of raising beef if you suddenly had a large famine to deal with (though veggie and legume-based methods, or even just raising large flocks of chickens, might be a more economical way of providing the fats and proteins that the folks would need, not to mention being more acceptable for certain religions.
I suppose it might be possible to “excercise” the meat via electrical shocks, assuming that the majority of meat is muscle fiber like I’m thinking it is. Give it a shock, the meat twitches, repeat until desired toughness is aquired.
If we learned to grow nerve tissue as well, might it be possible to “exercise” the vat meat in some fashion by running electricity through it, thus causing it to contract, or am I just being stupid here? (I’m probably revealing vast ignorance, I fear.)
Regarding marketing, how about “Eat Veat, the vat meat. It’s the kindest cut of all.”?
I LOVE the idea of vat meat. Too bad it won’t happen soon enough to help save the rain forests.
If we’re at a stage where we’re growing mass-produced meat in vats, I’d hope that they’d have details like marbling, texture, and various flavours worked out at that point.
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).
I agree with featherlou. I would love to replace meat with vat-grown meat. As long as they don’t name it soylent green or tube-steak I would welcome it. If they would start with cows then pigs and then chicken in that order.
Not sure if chicken would ever become economically viable. As it is, a chicken isn’t worth much more than the feed you put in it (IIRC they have an almost 1:1 exchange in terms of how much edible stuff you get out of them vs. edible stuff you put in them), which is one of the reasons why chicken meat can be had for so cheaply in the grocery stores. That’s not to say that there might not be other reasons to make it synthetically.
Have you tried Morningstar Farms stuff? I’m a meat-eater but some of it is really not at all bad. Their breakfast sausage patties have actual gristle in them and taste pretty darn good. Some of their burgers ain’t bad either. You really don’t have to smother them in condiments. Their ground “beef” works great in spaghetti sauces & chili, etc. The problem is their products aren’t cheaper than real meat, and by the time they get done making them taste good, they aren’t all that much healthier for you.
That image really makes me hungry. :rolleyes:
Seriously though. People occasionally hear horrible stories about how their cows, pigs & chickens are raised, slaughtered & processed but most people don’t think about it that much. You don’t see it on the news.
I’m certain if vat-grown beef hit the market we’d be seeing slimly jiggling quivering totally disgusting blobs of amorphous cow-muscle being electro-stimulated on the news every night. With lots of person-on-the-street interviews with concerned parents going “ew! Gross! I won’t let my kids eat that!”
The thing that puts me off the most is the impression that it will be like meat in the way that Kraft Processed Cheese-Food Slices are like cheese (i.e. not at all).
The thing that’s next in line for putting me off is the notion that there could be something about the manufacturing process that has nasty, but not-immediately-apparent effects on consumers.
I don’t have a problem with it if they can get the texture right, but then I’m a chemist. Half my conversations about food involve some moron claiming that “chemicals are bad for you” and me explaining that water is a “chemical”.
Even back when I was a vegetarian (on principle, due to objections about bad practice in animal husbandry), I determined that morally I’d be happy eating meat thus produced. Though I conceived of it as “a field of meat”, to be harvested in big slabs with sharp-bladed combine harvester. Mmmm.
Intellectually, I’m all for vat-grown meat. Emotionally, it should appeal to me as well, because I’m one of those animal lovers who thinks that cows are cute even though I love to eat meat.
But for some reason, there’s something about the way it is described that skeeves me out. The way the process is presented, the mental image I get is of eating a tumor – something medical, from a lab, or something along those lines. Maybe the process/product needs a better name, or better marketing. I probably read too much science fiction, because I find myself thinking about bizarro scenarios where growing meat in a vat, despite the most vigilant food industry monitoring, manages to produce other tissues, like eyeballs and a nervous system, so the meat in the vat becomes creepy rudimentary animals trapped in their own flesh (who then rise up and take over the world). I’m not saying this is AT ALL realistic, it’s just describing my gut-level reaction to the vat-grown meat.
In the real world, if vat-grown meat was available, it would probably be mundane enough that I would get over my grossed-out-ness and not give it a second thought.
LOL that sounds like me. I was discussing aeroponics with my sometimes goofy stepbrother and he said something like “Yeah, but don’t you have to use alot chemicals in the water to get the plant to grow?”. I just looked at him… and asked what, precisely, did he mean when he said “Chemicals” and why he thought that was a negative.
Vegetarian here. I don’t know that I would want to eat vat-grown meat. After not eating meat for six years, I do find the idea of eating it just kind of gross and off-putting. I’m not sure sure that I would be able to get over that visceral reaction just because no actual animals were involved. I suppose I have a lot of time to think about it before this becomes an actual issue, though.
Isn’t this just a case of differences in terminology though? To the layman, ‘chemicals’ means something different (albeit somewhat amorphous) to what it means to a chemist. Same thing with ‘organic’. This isn’t a simple case of ordinary mortals trying to use the chemists’ terminology, and failing.
Mangetout, the classic battle between the connotations that words have and the actual meanings of those words. I used to read this youth-oriented magazine published by Consumer Reports, and it had this little cartoon with a mad scientist looking guy saying “Muahahahahaa! Chemicals are natural too!” and the caption read: “Made with all-natural ingredients!”
I think even a lot of people who intelectually know that even natural processes involve all sorts of chemicals and chemical reactions, have a mental cut-off between that kind of chemical, and the kind that you see in test tubes in labs. In that context, “Chemicals” are artifically added compounds, and often carries implications of nefarious intent.
“Organic” has always been a word that amuse me. From a science standpoint, Organic means “It has carbon in it”. Just about everything you can find in a grocery store, including much of the packaging used, is probably organic, but the Organic Foods section is the more expensive section where they sell the apples that you don’t have to rinse before eating and the cereal that you buy by the scoop instead of the box.
But that’s just the point; nobody is confused by the term ‘organic’ as applied to food; nobody - chemist or layman - is fooled into thinking it just means the food contains carbon, and yet chemists still seem to feel the need to speak up on it - correcting a misconception that exists only in their own imaginations.
It’s like if a manufacturer of dairy products were to correct a movie critic over the ‘real meaning’ of the term ‘cheesy’.
