PETA offers $1 million price for test tube meat

[bascule]

Scientists have long experimented with growing meat in-vitro, now PETA has apparently borrowed a page from the X-Prize and is offering a $1 million reward for production of commercially viable quantities of meat produced through the method.

 

Personally I think this is the greatest thing PETA's ever done. As a pescetarian I am still concerned with the way the meat I eat is produced. Fish farms have promoted diseases, and commercial fishing is on the verge of wiping out species like king salmon and ahi tuna (ahi tuna being an apex predator), plus there's the human cost to consider in regard to harvesting species like king crab. It's hard to eat king crab legs knowing that somebody might have died to bring them to you.

 

In vitro production ensures that the meat can be formulated specifically with human nutrition in mind, something that cannot be said about any meat in existence today (although I would argue salmon comes close). It should also ensure that meat is produced without the massive negative environmental effects that typically come from ranching (e.g. rainforest destruction), factory farms (i.e. massive smelly antibiotic-laced pink ponds of pig waste), or fish farms (sea lice which have spread from fish farms and decimated wild salmon populations). Hopefully, it should also cut down on disease provided proper maintenance and cleaning is performed on the equipment.

 

That's not to mention the massive cost benefits that in vitro meat production could potentially have over conventional means. Turnaround on the process would be days or weeks rather than months or years required by the "conventional" approach of enslaving, fattening up, then slaughtering animals. Furthermore, in vitro meat production would be substantially more efficient, as there's, uhh, no poop, since there's no animal.

 

The majority of the population seems unwilling to stop eating meat entirely. This is the most practicable solution I am aware of. I'm glad to see PETA endorsing it.

[iNow]

That IS a badass idea!

 

http://www.peta.org/feat_in_vitro_contest.asp

 

Scientists around the world are researching or seeking the funds to research ways to produce meat in the laboratory—without killing any animals. In vitro meat production would use animal stem cells that would be placed in a medium to grow and reproduce. The result would mimic flesh and could be cooked and eaten. Some promising steps have been made toward this technology, but we're still several years away from having in vitro meat be available to the general public.

 

PETA is now stepping in and offering a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and bring to market in vitro meat.

[Phi for All]

I don't approve of many of PETA's methods, but this is the most rational, reasoned stunt they've ever pulled. It shows someone at PETA is using their head instead of just their heart.

[ecoli]

I don't approve of many of PETA's methods, but this is the most rational, reasoned stunt they've ever pulled. It shows someone at PETA is using their head instead of just their heart.

 

Maybe they're just trying to find some practical way to grow themselves hearts and brains.

[Sayonara]

If we offer them banner space for promoting this contest, and encourage other science sites to do so, it may help them to recognise that this avenue is actually applauded by the people who are usually telling them to STFU.

[Severian]

I dislike this for two reasons.

 

1. It implies that eating factory produced meat is morally superior to eating animal meat. It is not.

 

2. Removing the eating of "natural" meat from our society will decimate farming and mean many currently farmed species only survive in zoos.

 

I am all for choice, but I suspect that they are doing this to try and restrict my choice, not enhance it.

[YT2095]

I think their money is quite safe! (and they probably Know it).

 

I don`t think it`s even Remotely possible to grow a slab in a tank and have the taste and texture even remotely convincing without a Living host.

[ParanoiA]

What are we going to do with all of the animals? We won't be raising and slaughtering them anymore, so I suppose they'll have to compete with the rest of the wildlife we've marginalized. Will hunting still be relevant? And what excuse will we use to defend the second amendment when hunting becomes "unnecessary"?

 

I love the idea of growing meat - advancing our techniques for survival. But, like Severian, I worry about the fallout. Liberty is already on every politician's hit list in some form or another and I can easily see our liberties further eroded by the same mentallity that drove the Pit Bull thread. "Why do you need to hunt?" "Why is that form of food necessary when this food is so much better?" And on and on...

[gcol]

I dislike this for two reasons.

 

1. It implies that eating factory produced meat is morally superior to eating animal meat. It is not.

 

2. Removing the eating of "natural" meat from our society will decimate farming and mean many currently farmed species only survive in zoos.

 

I am all for choice, but I suspect that they are doing this to try and restrict my choice, not enhance it.

 

Here is a relatively rare event.....I totally agree with Severian. Plus, my initial, secondary and tertiary reaction is yuk, yuk, and yuk again. It is enough to make an otherwise sane man become vegetarian. Perhaps this is their sneaky underhand plan?

[Phi for All]

I think the detractors are forgetting something that's often forgotten when attempting to embrace new technologies: it's not going to happen overnight. The old and the new will have some time together to let us see how things work out.

 

And I don't think this technology has any moral implications except those PETA has imposed. Let's face it, if a scientist figures out a way to grow meat, PETA's challenge will be lost in the little bits of paper that float down on the parade we'll give him/her/them.

[YT2095]

are they going to try and do Bone as well?

as in T bone steaks or spare ribs (also part of the pleasure in eating meat), if it`s going to have that, How will they get it right without the circumstances needed to Make it right (such as walking about and fighting gravity)?

at best it`ll be breeding cadavers, and I can`t see that working!

[PhDP]

1. It implies that eating factory produced meat is morally superior to eating animal meat. It is not.

 

It is.

 

Not because killing animals is wrong.

 

But because farming is disastrous for the environment (and for so many reasons; methane, pollution of the soil and of water, reduced biodiversity).

 

2. Removing the eating of "natural" meat from our society will decimate farming and mean many currently farmed species only survive in zoos.

 

First of all, as I said, getting rid of farming would certainly increase biodiversity, who cares that a few species will live in zoos if thousands of other species will have a better change to thrive. It's especially true for beef production, one of the stupidest thing done by humans.

[gcol]

at best it`ll be breeding cadavers, and I can`t see that working!

 

Beware, YT......if there is money to be made, there is a corporate bandwagon to be ridden.

 

As for cadavers, I think that may be a "dead"-end argument. Not many people eat twitching meat, anyway.

 

Do you think that North Korean TTM (test-tube meat) might taste of dog?; and if it ain't kosher, what then?.

 

One of my favourite films was Soylent Green. If you know it, you'll know what I am thinking.

 

On this issue, I am proud to be a detractor. PETA is off its tiny in-vitro mind.

[YT2095]

One of my favourite films was Soylent Green. If you know it, you'll know what I am thinking.

 

funny you should say that, that`s exactly what I was thinking after I typed it

 

anyone else wondered Where these Stem cells will come from in the 1`st place?

considering they are like rocking-horse sh!t to source anyway!

[Pangloss]

I'm wondering about the politics of this (hey, there's a surprise!). Specifically, will this move by PETA bring them in conflict with those amongst their supporters who are opposed to genetic engineering of food. It's part of the same political base.

 

The NY Times article suggests that they came to "near civil war" over it (within PETA) because it's still eating living tissue (go figure), but I think it will also cause a conflict over genetic engineering.

[bascule]

1. It implies that eating factory produced meat is morally superior to eating animal meat. It is not.

 

One thing is a lump of tissue cultured in a factory. The other is what used to be a living, breathing, feeling being. If you see the two as morally equivalent for your consumption, I don't really know what to say.

 

2. Removing the eating of "natural" meat from our society will decimate farming and mean many currently farmed species only survive in zoos.

 

That will never happen. For starters, I think many, many people will be averse to factory produced meat. I don't know about Scotland, but in the US, and particularly in the city I live in, people here are nuts for organic, and yes, that includes meat. I think many people will find factory produced meat unseemly.

 

However, I would hope it will lead to the collapse of factory farms. That's one industry I can do without.

[Pangloss]

So is this the first step in Star Trek food replicators?

 

I've been waiting for those, but it's hard as heck to flag down a Ferengi trader these days. My electronic thumb is on the fritz.

[Phi for All]

So is this the first step in Star Trek food replicators?

 

I've been waiting for those, but it's hard as heck to flag down a Ferengi trader these days. My electronic thumb is on the fritz.

You're mixing your meataphors.

[john5746]

Just eat Tofu. That's probably what it will be like

[CDarwin]

The vast majority of beef that we consume is already poor quality cow-processed corn. I don't see it as a big step down to a test-tube hamburger. I doubt it would eliminate the demand for "real-meat" all together, but it would probably reduce it from an industrial scale operation to something more like an 'organic'-typed agriculture. It's the industrial farming that makes me uncomfortable ethically and environmentally, and I think that goes for a lot of people.

 

That said, I'm a little uncertain as to the feasibility, and more than a little skeptical as to whether-or-not PETA would pay up when the time came. This seems like a cheap ad ploy to me.

[ecoli]

That said, I'm a little uncertain as to the feasibility, and more than a little skeptical as to whether-or-not PETA would pay up when the time came. This seems like a cheap ad ploy to me.

 

Regardless, if there's a place in the market for it, it'll probably happen with our without the PETA prize.

[JohnB]

I see a place for it, long haul space missions for one. (Read H. Beam Piper, his books used the idea of "Carniculture" a lot.)

 

I do wonder what PETAs (and others) stance would be if someone used human stem cells though.

 

We should exercise care.

[Mr Skeptic]

Hey, this is better than the usual **** we get from PETA. And very brave of them too, considering that many of their members would be hugely opposed to it.

 

In any case, a problem with the "test tube meat" idea is that it would almost certainly be more picky about what it can eat. No more edible lawn mowers. On the other hand, this is just what will be needed for space. Progress is always good.

[PhDP]

... it wouldn't be easier to get tofu to taste like meat (...and with a similar texture) ?

[gcol]

Apologies for "shouting", but:

 

JUST BECAUSE SOMETHING COULD BE DONE DOES NOT MEAN IT SHOULD BE DONE