Lab-Grown Meat Is Coming to Your Supermarket. Ranchers Are Fighting Back.

The U.S. Cattlemen's Association petitioned the USDA to declare that "meat" and "beef" exclude products not "slaughtered in the traditional manner."

Lab-Grown Meat Is Coming to Your Supermarket. Ranchers Are Fighting Back.

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Would you eat a hamburger or a chicken nugget made of meat grown in a laboratory?

Joshua Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of JUST, is betting that you will. The San Francisco-based company has been producing and selling non-animal versions of food, like mayonnaise, since 2013, and it's raised more than $310 million in venture capital.

Tetrick and his team have created products like Just Mayo by identifying plant-based alternatives to common animal products, like eggs, using a combination of lab experiments and machine-learning.

JUST is one of a handful of tech companies working to disrupt the meat production industry.

While many of its competitors are pursuing better plant-based meat substitutes, JUST is pushing ahead with so-called "clean meat," or lab-grown animal tissue that requires no farming, no feeding of livestock, and no slaughterhouses. Only a single sample from a single animal that's duplicated endlessly.

JUST and companies like it are poised to disrupt the livestock industry. So established players are turning to the government to help protect their turf.

The United States Cattlemen's Association, which declined to participate in this story, submitted a petition still under consideration by the United States Department of Agriculture asking that the words "meat" and "beef" exclude any products that "are neither derived from animals, nor slaughtered in the traditional manner."

Tetrick says accurate labeling will be essential when marketing his lab-grown "clean meat," which he hopes will transcend the vegan vs. carnivore paradigm.

"We don't allow the term 'vegan' to be used in our company," says Tetrick. "That word ends up turning off ninety-nine percent of people."

This isn't Tetrick's first fight with entrenched food interests.

When the company's first product, Just Mayo, appeared on the shelves of major retailers, the American Egg Board went on the offensive.

According to internal emails obtained by MIT researchers through the Freedom of Information Act, Egg Board members tried and failed to get Whole Foods to pull the product from its shelves and hired a network of writers to trash the product on food review sites.

Target stopped selling Just Mayo after receiving an anonymous letter about food safety, but a Food and Drug Administration investigation later found that the product was safe. Investigators failed to identify the author of the letter.

At one point, Egg Board members even discussed putting out a "hit" on Tetrick, with one member writing that he should get have his "old buddies from Brooklyn pay him a visit." The officials later told investigators that they were joking.

Whether or not consumers are ready for lab-grown meat is yet to be seen, and the company landed in hot water with the SEC in 2016 after being accused of buying its own products off the shelves to boost sales figures with the goal of raising more venture capital, though the company claims it was a quality control measure. No charges resulted from the investigation.

With JUST products in more than 20,000 stores, plans to release lab-grown clean meat onto the market by the end of the year at a retail price within 30 percent of that of traditional meat, Tetrick is optimistic about the future of the company and the global food system.

"In tomorrow's world, you can eat more meat, hopefully safer meat, even better tasting meat, without eating the animal," says Tetrick.

Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Alex Manning.

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Comments

[loveconstitution1789]

I like my meat to have a tinge of butchering.

[Don't look at me.]

Still quivering when you slap it on the grill.

[loveconstitution1789]

Knock the horns off it and wipe its ass is more like it.

[Don't look at me.]

Oh sure, like I want to get rid of the crunchy and tasty parts.

[SQRLSY One]

So I'll fill y'all in, even BEFORE I post this to my Facebook page! I got invited to the Bat Cave, where we dined on fine Bat China! Alfred served us fine foods from the Bat Vats; we had a taste-testing session!

Results were:
The Bat-Vat, vat-rat meat, has got the Bat-Vat, vat-cat meat beat!
If'n ya don't like that, I'll eat my Bat-Vat hat! Take THAT!
More soon? Same bat time, same bat channel!

MORE breaking news from the Bat Cave!
We discovered that the tip of the mammalian teat is very sweet meat! Accordingly...
The Bat-Vat, vat-rat sweet teat meat, has got the Bat-Vat, vat-cat sweet teat meat beat!

[CE]

Holy hamburger!

[MatthewSlyfield]

Grill? Take one cow, threaten it with a lit match, and serve. 🙂

[loveconstitution1789]

Rawhide!

[Eidde]

Perhaps you could eat the self-slaughtering animals from the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

[xucuvejo]

Start winning $90/hourly to work online from your home for couple of hours consistently... Get standard portion on seven days after week start... All you require is a PC, web affiliation and a litte additional time...

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[Hugh Akston]

If I can have meat without anything having to die for it then I'm totally on board.

[Zeb]

Food tastes better when you know it came from something with sad, beautiful eyes.

[mad.casual]

Food tastes better when you know it came from something with sad, beautiful eyes.

Also, there are more than a few animals who's eyes scream "Murder this creature before it murders you." and, of course, once you've murdered the evil itself, you have to consume it to gain it's powers. Or at the very least see how it tastes.

[Citizen X - #6]

That second footnote is totally a bummer.

[SQRLSY One]

Another set of issues to be considered:

If I hang a set of split hooves under the vat-beef-making vat, AND I add a "cud-chewing" appendage to the vat, to cycle some fraction of the vat-contents in and out and re-chew it now and then? Can I get my vat-beef "kosher" and "halal" certified?

And what if I do the same to my PORK-vat?!?! Can the devout Jewish and Islamic folks now FINALLY enjoy a ham sandwhich without pissing God off?!?!

[Echospinner]

Rabbis say that lab grown meat is kosher.

They do not consider it meat in traditional sense. It is not animal therefore just a product of technology

I do not know what Islamic scholars think but I am pretty sure they are on the same page.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

I guarantee you something will have to die to put this on your table.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Life feeds off life

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

This truth goes deep, yo. Predation is necessary for population control and prevention of overharvesting of the lower graphic levels, as well as a stimulus for evolutionary innovation. Even deeper than that, heterotrophy is necessary to cycle nutrients and prevent their burial into the earth's crust.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

*trophic, not graphic

[loveconstitution1789]

And yet matter is neither created nor destroyed.

[mad.casual]

I guarantee you something will have to die to put this on your table.

Even if absolutely nothing dies to put it on your table, the extra dollars you spend not killing things, through the magic of fungibility, make it cheaper and easier for the rest of us to kill more things and eat them.

[Don't look at me.]

PLAYING GOD!

[Brian Whittle]

It's just science buddy, you take what already exists and with clever stuff you probably don't understand it makes more of it.

[loveconstitution1789]

"Something has to die everyday in order for me to live. Something's gotta get its beak chopped off, feathers yanked, uppercut to its jaw."
-Bill Burr

[Sevo]

If it beats the flavor and texture of some wonderful grain-finished meat, why not?

[Brett Bellmore]

So far the flavor of vat meat might be ok, but the texture is strictly mystery meat.

[Zeb]

I don't have any ethical qualms or sqeamishness about eating animals. But if it's good and relatively inexpensive, sure, why not?

[mad.casual]

But if it's good and relatively inexpensive, sure, why not?

There's still a possible fraud issue, but between mostly ad hoc and/or voluntary labels like 'grass-fed beef' and 'kill-free meat' it seems like the market could solve the problem. I guess maybe you're still killing things with 'kill-free meat' but as long as the Kosher and Halal people aren't blowing up burger joints because of it, there's no real reason for the government to get involved.

[Citizen X - #6]

In one of Charles Stross's near-future books, it is mentioned that the British legal system is facing a problem because police have arrested a cannibal club who use home meat-vat technology to grow longpig from samples of their own cells, and nobody can figure out if that's a crime or not.

[Brett Bellmore]

If it's a crime I better stop biting my fingernails.

[CE]

And there there's the whole "unknown genetic mutation" problem with eating someone's lab experiment....

[Citizen X - #6]

Only a single sample from a single animal that's duplicated endlessly.

Yeah right, like i want to eat the same cow over and over and over.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

Then why did you get married?

Badum-ting!

[Citizen X - #6]

I walked into that one, but i'm still barely speaking to you.

[Illocust]

That does seem like a legit issue. Animals are varied, and that gives variety to their flavor r den in the same species. I wonder if people will get sick of eating this grown meat faster than they would eating meat every meal from different cows.

[mad.casual]

I wonder if people will get sick of eating this grown meat faster than they would eating meat every meal from different cows.

Considering the overwhelming amount of meat now, at least from cows, isn't consumed in any manner of 1 cow per meal fashion, I'm gonna go with 'Nope." I say this as someone who's lived with a freezer full of 100+ lbs. of ground beef as well as other cuts from the same cow.

[Chipper Morning Baculum]

You know who else gave orders not to slaughter in the traditional manner?

[Citizen X - #6]

Yahweh?

[Hugh Akston]

Colonel Kurtz?

[SQRLSY One]

Jeffrey Dahmer?

[General_Tso]

Colonel Sanders?

[loveconstitution1789]

Ruth Chris?

[Flinch]

Genghis Khan?

[mad.casual]

Plant-based alternatives to common animal products like eggs.

Dammit! Why is you can never find a bioethicist around when you really need one?

[Brett Bellmore]

Because the need never comes up?

[buybuydandavis]

"I have a degree therefore my moral values are right and yours are wrong"

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Meat is animal based. I have zero issue with the product, but trying to call it meat just seems like trying to redefine the word.

If this can been called meat, then someone not making a living wage can be called a slave.

[H. Farnham]

This can be called meat, and people not making a living wage can be called a slave. Both statements are true, though I'd agree with the former and disagree with the latter. I think the issue is whether government authority should have the power to enforce meanings of words. Personally, I don't think they should. Individuals should decide what words mean in the marketplace of ideas; just as individuals should decide how to spend their money in any economic marketplace.

[Sevo]

"This can be called meat, and people not making a living wage can be called a slave. Both statements are true,"

How many legs does that dog have?

[H. Farnham]

Exactly.

(Full disclosure: I had to do a google search to understand the reference.)

[MatthewSlyfield]

"How many legs does that dog have?"

Three.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"How many legs does that dog have?"

Three.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Three legs was my nickname in college.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

""Individuals should decide what words mean in the marketplace of ideas""

Wouldn't we first have to define what marketplace and ideas mean?

[Zeb]

Mambo dogface to the banana patch?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Classic!!!!

[H. Farnham]

Not in any formal sense, no. And we certainly don't need a government agency to tell us what those words mean. We'll either have a common understanding of the language, or we'll develop one, or we just won't communicate... voluntarily.

[TrickyVic (old school)]

"" And we certainly don't need a government agency to tell us what those words mean."'

Is Miriam Webster a government agency?

I am in no way saying it's the government job.

[H. Farnham]

Agreed

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Which goes back to how is meat defined and how is slavery defined.

[H. Farnham]

With meat, I would use the duck test: looks like a duck, swims like a duck, quacks like a duck, must be a duck. Looks like meat, feels like meat, tastes like meat, must be meat.

I would define slavery as forced or coerced servitude. So, to me, a "non-living-wage" earner would not count as a slave, because they're still working voluntarily.

That's all irrelevant to the main point I was trying to make though. The USDA should not have the authority to ban a company from calling their product meat, nor should any government authority have the authority to ban someone from calling another person a slave.

[vek]

I dunno man... Words have meanings that are commonly understood. If I just start calling my random low grade cow grown on a shitty diet and pumped out at the lowest possible cost Kobe beef... Or if I start calling chuck roast filet mignon... That's fraud.

Meat has a meaning. I don't have a problem with making them label it accurately as lab grown, kill free, etc meat... But it's not "traditional meat" or whatever.

It's like artificial vanilla flavoring versus real vanilla extract. Things should have to be labeled accurately.

NOW, I do agree the government will probably botch it, and do it in the stupidest possible way, but to me this is just fraud prevention. Labeling laws don't upset me much.

You ever notice how the people bitching about them are almost always the ones trying to pull one over? To market something as a better (or perceived to be better) product than what they actually make? It's never the guy making the Rolls Royce product who tries to skate on labeling issues because they have nothing to fear. It's the guy pumping out the ersatz products who want to piggy back on the quality perception of the better product.

We shouldn't have to redefine what meat means so somebody hocking faux meat doesn't have to slap a word or two in front of their product name like "lab grown."

[H. Farnham]

I hear ya about the fraud thing, but I don't think this (most) situations require preemptive government regulation. There are no known public health risks, and nobody will be financially crippled if they are misled into buying a type of meat they don't prefer. Now, I would contend that as long as JUST isn't labeling their product as 'free-range chicken' or 'grass-fed beef' or something along those lines, then no fraud has occurred anyway. If a consumer feels they've been misled, then let it be redressed in the civil court system.

[vek]

And what about after case law is established? Then we let that dictate future labeling?

I get that labeling laws can get funky when they get dumb... But the underlying principle is not bad. If you require a company to do 1 billion dollars worth of testing and hoop jumping to put a product on the market, like pharmaceuticals, that's ridiculous... But it doesn't cost a company ANYTHING to simply label their product in a manner that properly tells people what it is.

I don't mind them calling this some sort of qualifier + meat on the end. Lab grown or whatever. But that it doesn't have to say ANYWHERE that it is not from a real animal... That is by definition redefining the term "meat" to suit a particular businesses interest because they have an interest in making people think it IS real meat, when it is not.

There's no harm done to them or cost put on them, other than not being able to mislabel their product to get an aura effect from the real deal.

[H. Farnham]

"But it doesn't cost a company ANYTHING to simply label their product in a manner that properly tells people what it is."

Two problems with this statement, though.

Printing a specific label doesn't add hardly any direct cost, but it can amount to missed opportunity cost if a company is coerced to label a certain way, thereby making it easier for competitors to mount propaganda advertisement attacks. It also does wreak havoc on supply chains and industry processes. I saw it first hand in the grain industry and the GMO issues. A lot of unseen cost is added.

Also, who decides what a "proper" description is? As CE states below, meat is animal muscle tissue. The JUST product sure seems to fit that description to me. Or even a quick google search definition (second definition) "Meat: archaic Food of any kind."

Again, there is no public health risk involved. If consumers demand standard-raised and slaughtered meat products, then traditional suppliers can fill that niche by labeling there product as such (at minimal cost, as you point out). If lab-grown producers start labeling their products so as to mislead consumers into believing the product is naturally raised and slaughtered, then there's a legitimate fraud issue.

[vek]

The devil IS in the details. Hence sane and reasonable rules are important. This is not guaranteed, and I would be against any specific rules that were silly.

"but it can amount to missed opportunity cost if a company is coerced to label a certain way, "

Here's the thing, it only hurts them because they're trying to cash in on a false equivalency with something that is likely a superior product. Calvin Cline would not benefit from being able to label their jeans Wrangler, but Wrangler certainly would the other way around. To argue you're taking something from somebody by not letting them mislabel their products is a stretch IMO.

You can argue about the definition of the word "meat" all day, but the reality is that EVERYBODY knows and understands it to be the flesh of an animal that was killed. The impetus on lowering the bar is on the new guys. It's like real vanilla and artificial. Since the fake stuff tastes about the same, in your eyes they should label it however they want??? I call BS on that.

But agree to disagree I guess.

PS On the GMO labeling issue, it's ALSO not a big deal. The cost impetus is on those who want the non GMO/organic stuff. Anybody who doesn't go out of their way to buy non GMO corn or wheat can just assume they have GMO in the mix. Label it as such. Problem solved!

[CE]

Meat is animal muscle tissue. This is engineered muscle tissue. It's not plant-based.

[buybuydandavis]

Meat is a pile of tissue. I don't need it to some from a slaughtered animal.

[Magnitogorsk]

Animal Husbandry is in the first tier of the Civilization tech tree for gods sake. It's about time we move on to a newer technology

[Scotticus Finch]

Time to Oracle-rush Future Technology II!

[buybuydandavis]

Phase 2: Soylent Green is People!

[General_Tso]

'If wishes were horses we'd all be eating steak.'

I'll take my protein on the hoof, thanks.

[sarcasmic]

I'm gonna have to try horse steak at some point. Only because my ex worships the animals, and to know my eating one would cause her permanent psychological harm.

[loveconstitution1789]

She probably has a tough time finding a safe space from carnivores.

[TuIpa]

Had some in Switzerland and it's meh.

[Zeb]

I thought horse was pretty good when I tried it in Belgium.

[buybuydandavis]

Learn ventriloquism and make it whinny while you're eating it.

[StackOfCoins]

At one point, Egg Board members even discussed putting out a "hit" on Tetrick, with one member writing that he should get have his "old buddies from Brooklyn pay him a visit." The officials later told investigators that they were joking.
So DPR goes to prison for this, but Big Egg is off the hook. Nice double standards.

[Citizen X - #6]

Big Egg was SIV's nickname in middle school, with tragic consequences.

[$park? leftist poser]

Would you eat a hamburger or a chicken nugget made of meat grown in a laboratory?

I don't see why not. And I'd keep eating if it tasted good.

[loveconstitution1789]

Will there be a PETA anymore though?

[EscherEnigma]

Extra bonus!

[heart_of_flint]

Using the animal's DNA has got to be some kind of appropriation.

[$park? leftist poser]

It should have the same nutritional value as well.

[vek]

Says who? I guarantee it won't. At best this will end up being like the vitamin/nutrient deficient mass cultivated crops we grow nowadays. There's scant different between scaled up organic farming and farming with modern techniques... But the difference between what some dirty hippie can grow in their lovingly curated backyard garden and the crops at the store is huge. We just don't bother to get the trace elements in in industrial scale agriculture, we just pump in fertilizer.

This will be exactly the same. Maybe at some point somebody will figure out all the right stuff and create a boutique version, but not right off the bat. We don't even really know all the stuff we'd need to feed into the system to truly recreate the exact mix of stuff in meat.

[buybuydandavis]

I could easily have greater nutritional value

[vek]

I assume you mean "it" could have greater nutritional value?

Yeah, in theory. But I doubt they will do that. Maybe some brands will at some point, but not entry level stuff. How many bits of produce do you see that advertise they go extra far out of their way to use wood ash fertilizer on their organic farm to get those trace elements in their produce? I've never seen that. Some organic companies try to fake you out with vague stuff, but I don't believe a word of it because they never state anything concrete, AKA falsifiable, AKA actionable in court for fraud.

Maybe foo-foo super faux beef will become invented as a premium offering, but without labeling laws nobody would ever know anyway! LOL

[Citizen X - #6]

I'd be remiss if i didn't point out that Lab-Grown Meat was my nickname at the Kinsey Institute.

[loveconstitution1789]

And 30% the cost of the real meaty things.

[Bearded Spock]

Missing from this article are two key bits of information: how does the taste and cost of this substance compare to real meat -- i.e. the kind ripped from the dead bodies of helpless animals?

Despite the efforts of Mr. Tetrick, I could see this becoming popular with the sanctimonious-but-secretly-hungry-for-flesh vegan/vegetarian community and filling a niche market.

But I have a hard time believing it will be cheap or palatable enough to replace the real thing with most consumers.

Reason writers tend to ignore practical questions like these in their efforts to ride a new trend into the future, where all roads lead to the shining Libertarian Moment on the hill.

[Bearded Spock]

I guess they did include an estimate that this stuff might only cost 1/3 more than real meat. Wow. Sign me up.

I don't think the cattlemen have much to worry about, as long as JUST honestly labels their product.

And just wait til people find out its "cloned" in a lab....

[EscherEnigma]

From the article...

plans to release lab-grown clean meat onto the market by the end of the year at a retail price within 30 percent of that of traditional meat [...]

So 30% more expensive.

As for taste, that's, well, a matter of taste.

That said, yeah, of course this won't be a thing for "most consumers". Initially, anyway. Like most technologies, it's quite likely that the price will come down with time, getting more competitive as it goes.

That said, think about folks that eat "organic" and what-not. How much more pesticide and antibiotic free can you be then grown in a tank and never exposed to disease and pathogens? I can see folks on that train trying this out (and if the alternative is "organic", that 30% price mark-up doesn't look so bad anymore).

So yeah. This wont' be a reasonable alternative for most folks initially. But it's quite possible that in fifty years it'll be the mainstay.

[buybuydandavis]

< So 30% more expensive I'm amazed if they're that close already. If they can do that, their meat will be have the price in no time.

[tgrondo]

The taste? Why it's yummy!!!

It's just like the stuff grandma Frankenstein use to grow in the lab!!!!!

[Fist of Etiquette]

Would you eat a hamburger or a chicken nugget made of meat grown in a laboratory?

Why not? I've donated blood at a Mickey D's.

[buybuydandavis]

So that's how they make McNuggets!

[General_Tso]

Hell, some people won't eat GMO veggies. Now they're expecting people to eat vat-grown smeat.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

It ain't natural, as the Sierra Club intended.

[Jerryskids]

Missing from this discussion is any semblance of concern for the cows. What are all the unemployed steers going to do when you take away their one and only job? I say before we allow this meat-growing program to go any further we get JUST to formally commit to funding a job re-training program for displaced cows. Who knows how many of these dumb creatures, given the opportunity they deserve, might become teachers, lawyers, journalists, or even perhaps a productive member of society?

[TrickyVic (old school)]

Maybe we can elect one as president.

[tgrondo]

AND....what will it do to the romantic figure that is....The American Cowboy?

"I'm gonna wrangle this here herd of test tubes down to the rail head, Buck"....

Or....what about the rodeo?

"Coming out of chute No.4, riding petri dish...Ol' Iron Sides....it's Duke Steel"!!!

Just won't be the same.....

[The Metonymy]

I'm good with it as long as it creates a surplus of real meat to eat for cheaper.

[FiftycalTX2]

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

[Flinch]

...and is therefore not "carbon neutral". What will Al Goreleone do? This dilemna just may cause an aneurysm.

[buybuydandavis]

Soylent Green: Our Greatest Renewable Resource

[Mickey Rat]

"JUST is pushing ahead with so-called "clean meat," or lab-grown animal tissue that requires no farming, no feeding of livestock, and no slaughterhouses. Only a single sample from a single animal that's duplicated endlessly."

Anything organic which is grown, has to be fed. Maybe, not what would be traditionally considered animal feed, but unless they have found a way around the conservation of matter and energy, it has to be fed some kind of nutrients.

[CE]

They will feed it one cob of corn that's duplicated endlessly.

[Flinch]

Who do we sue if they screw up protein chain replication and cause a previously unseen brain malady? And... I'm gonna miss the half naked PETA people taking to the streets of NYC from time to time. Murderous, unrelenting boredom awaits in a synthetic future...

[SIV]

Who do we sue if they screw up protein chain replication and cause a previously unseen brain malady?

If? You mean "when".

[kc75081]

already featured in agrobusiness ike mad cow disease, swine flu, bird flu, and multi-drug resistant infections.

[Bill E]

I'm waiting on Ronald Bailey to come along and tell me that I have no right to even know if it's grown in a lab or not, because I'm not a scientist and therefore unqualified to make my own food choices.

[buybuydandavis]

The fight *against* labeling does seem rather perverse coming from a "libertarian" site.

[JuanQPublic]

If lab-grown meat is indistinguishable from slaughtered meat, there is no way this won't revolutionize everything.

[vek]

It won't be. Not right away anyway. Maybe in 30 years.

[Flinch]

Goodness. Being able to produce basic food stuffs from a petri dish [effectively] means... mars colonization is around the corner. We just may live to see the first attempt. The only variable left is how much usable water can be extracted/produced locally, because human needs require so much volume that space transport is not viable.

[SIV]

This post is paid content.

Of course getting paid to post a press release as "news" is what journalism has become.

[SIV]

Target stopped selling Just Mayo after receiving an anonymous letter about food safety, but a Food and Drug Administration investigation later found that the product was safe. Investigators failed to identify the author of the lett

Citation is from a Buzzfeed "science reporter" and the sole source is the fraudulent food vendor and an "anomymous investigator" the company claims to have hired.

Kudos to Target for refusing to sell Hampton Creek's possibly poisonous fake "food"

[SIV]

From one of Zach "paid shill" Weismuller's links:

A source close to the board told us at the time that if Tetrick and other managers were discovered to have been "buying back mayo solely for the purpose of juicing the numbers," the board would be "livid."

Whether they're now patting Tetrick on the back instead isn't yet known.

This story is from March 2017. The sole source that the SEc and DoJ had closed its investigation is Tetrick, the sole source of nearly all the fraudulent "facts" in this press release. The entire board quit the company shortly thereafter. Weismuller doesn't link to that fact

[BlueStarDragon]

Personally I do not think the cattlemen association has anything to worry about. Cows have a 5 billon year evolutionary head start on lab grown meat. Cows and buffalos are very good at taking grass and turning it into protein. Your lab meat will need it energy and nutrients preprocessed. This will destroy any concept of being more efficient than farming to day or even efficient at all. The real problem here is that animal rights activist will try to use this technology to outlaw slaughter house and farms. With the free market being damn by them.

[SIV]

Equine abattoirs are already illegal. Bovine are next.

[vek]

This stuff will not be anything great for a long time IMO. Reasons?

1. The taste will almost certainly be off. Anybody ever tried free range chicken vs factory farmed? Grass fed beef vs corn fed? These things matter a LOT to the taste. This stuff is going to end up being bland and lame, I'd bet my life on it.

2. Texture. The same as above. Without movement the muscle tissue will probably be way overly tender and weird. I've never been a fan of veal because it tastes super bland, and frankly is almost too tender. At best this stuff will be like that, at worst perhaps something, errr a lot worse. Maybe they'll figure out how to electrode work out the meat at some point to give it actual texture, but I'm not holding my breath.

3. The nutrients will not match real meat. They will almost certainly be putting in only the most base things to get tissue to grow, not all of the weird trace elements that end up being found in natural beef. Again they could potentially pump that stuff in, but probably won't due to complication and cost reasons.

For these reasons this will probably be nothing better than a thing for douchey vegan pussies, and/or shitty cheap filler material for ground beef or something. I'd try some to see what it's like, but it will probably be a 3x86 compared to a modern Core i7 processor (real meat) type situation. SOMEDAY these might all be worked out, but it'll likely be a long time.

[Liberty Lover]

As long as it is labeled I don't have a problem with it. Let the consumer decide. Remember irradiated meat?

[Deconstructed Potato]

If the bare bones issue at the heart of rhe matter just boils down to a labeling technicality, then where's the beef? I guess to flesh out the story you've got to ham it up; raise the *cough*, uh "steaks" a little. Don't mince your words, though. It's hard not to see this slice of "news" as a nothing burger, a bunch of baloney. Trim the fat and chop out some of the gristle. Something something gabagool.

[buybuydandavis]

' The United States Cattlemen's Association, which declined to participate in this story, submitted a petition still under consideration by the United States Department of Agriculture asking that the words "meat" and "beef" exclude any products that "are neither derived from animals, nor slaughtered in the traditional manner." '

Perhaps we should instead require photos of any slaughtering done for meat products.

"Traditional Slaughter Certified"

Is there some Vegan mole working at the Cattlemen's Association?

How else to explain making "traditional slaughtering methods" the centerpiece of their product differentiation branding effort?

[vek]

Well, some people aren't sissies and understand that their steak comes from a cow that had to be murdered for their dinner... I'm totally fine with this. I had beef last night, it was awesome. I'm glad that cow got killed. I hope the bolt gun ended it quick for the bugger, but beyond that DON'T CARE.

[Deconstructed Potato]

Is there some Vegan mole working at the Cattlemen's Association?

While that is some impressive speculatuve tinfoil hatting, would such a thing make much of a difference? Folks know their meat is an animal that was killed and they're either fine with that, or they aren't, and the effect of that determines what they buy and eat. Maybe I overestimate people's reasoning abilities. Perhaps there really are folks out there that think chickens lay nuggets and steaks grow on trees. I expect that there is a great deal of ignorance, wilful or otherwise, when it comes to food production, but with the greater transparency comes more informed consumer choice. Some folks might prefer the new lab meat, but by comparison, many will prize real meat over it for authenticity and whatever qualities they prefer in it. This is all odle speculation. I've typed too many words. Good day, sirs.

[Vince aut Morire]

So GMO is good now? I get so confused.

[gphx]

It has been Genetically Modified to be different than meat. Therefore it isn't meat. Anything that's patent as different from meat isn't meat by legal definition.

[newlife3.0]

JUST gross.

[lohito]

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[Hank Phillips]

I work for the beef industry a lot. It's been my observation that "slaughtered in the traditional manner" when spoken by Mohammedans or even some of the remaining mystical Jews means "cruelly killed." It's kind of fitting that the champions of Christianity are joining in the chorus--and reassuring that at least it's not the same art they perfected in Germany from 1933 to 1945.

[Echospinner]

An Israeli startup called supermeat has a new technology to produce lab grown chicken.

They have raised a lot of startup money, 3 mil in the press release.

Chicken, how can you argue with that.

I think that lab grown meat could be an excellent food source and we will see this more.

Sure there is nothing like the real thing yet I think this tech has big promise.

Food is something we all deal with as individuals. We all make different choices. It is libertarian heaven.

Let us as individuals make cwhat we eat and let the market decide. Oh and the product is kosher, I think halal from what I have read, or will be if it becomes something you can buy at the store.

[SomeDude68]

One step closer to the matter replicators on Star Trek. --- What if "food" were simply digitally created with energy (instead of plants), then transformed INTO the desired matter (E=mc^2); an indistinguishable copy of "a steak from the Angus breed", down the DNA and marbling? --- Pass the digital horseradish, baby!

Ah, the future... If we FIX "the world controlled by so few with all the money" vs. all the people's well being... and grow up from believing in Santa Claus and all the other random separatistic gods among the sheeple who MUST believe in their form of Santa-god... this world would be a great place to live. Everyone pulling together like the Earth as depicted in The Next Generation's renditions from Star Trek...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vsy4mjSHtcE

- The Earth really could be close to that in under 50 years.

Imagine using the best and genuine scientifically-based balance and long-term considered use of all the Earth FOR all... without the excess, the greed, and power mongering. But, no. There's too much fucking profit to be made, control to be had, and that god says they can't play with those people and their god... fucking it all up.

Humanity is too selfish and immature. We ARE too much like teenage children who still believe in Santa... AND...

We need to grow up.