PETA Offers X-Prize for Artificial Meat

Bored MPA writes "The Times reports that PETA is to announce plans on Monday for a $1 million prize to the "first person to come up with a method to produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012." PETA founder Ingrid Newkirk addressed the controversial decision by saying, "We don't mind taking uncomfortable positions if it means that fewer animals suffer." An unexpected and pragmatic move from an organization that has a strong base of support from pro-organic vegans." The question I always had about this- if they can take one sample from one animal and clone it in a vat and feed this world, will the vegans be ok with that?

Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I've got a winning idea, thanks to this film [amazon.com]. Hopefully those PETA folks won't ask too many questions. Then things might get... unpleasant.

They are unpleasant already

[Gription]

Instead of a movie they need to watch cable. Force them to watch the Discovery Channel and Animal Planet nature shows.

If they are at all awake they will either realize that the whole world is designed around the idea of one thing eating another. (Or they might decide that God screwed up as they watch the lion take down that gazelle...)

Remember if they weren't intended to be eaten they wouldn't have been made out of meat!

Re:They are unpleasant already

[aplusjimages]

Remember if they weren't intended to be eaten they wouldn't have been made out of meat!

Aren't you made of meat? Also not all creatures are designed to eat meat. And factory farming is far from natural.

Re:They are unpleasant already

[Applekid]

"Are you classified as human?"
"Negative, I am a meat popcicle."

Re:They are unpleasant already

[Rei]

Look, even as a vegetarian, I have a lot of big problems with PETA, but that's just ridiculous. You're not destroying a thinking being or causing incredible environmental damage (like eating meat does -- the scale is truly staggering. See my later post [slashdot.org] for details). Do you think PETA feels that if you surgically remove someone's injured spleen, you're committing some tragedy because you're "killing living animal cells"? Give me a break.

Kudos to PETA for offering this prize. It's one of the first reasonable things I've ever seen to come out of that organization. I might not even have gone vegetarian had this existed at the time; I would have just switched. Not sure I'd eat vat meat now, as I've grown accustomed to a vegetarian diet and see no reason to switch back, mind you.

Re:

[Joe Tie.]

Agreed. I'm a vegetarian as well, and I too have a strong dislike of PETA. Strawman arguments, no matter how deserving the recipient might be, never do a cause any good. Hell, PETA's love of arguing from logical fallacy is one of the first things I disliked about them!

Re:They are unpleasant already

[mog007]

Do you think PETA feels that if you surgically remove someone's injured spleen, you're committing some tragedy because you're "killing living animal cells"? Give me a break.

Well, when you consider that PETA's ideal world would ban honey, pets of any sort, circuses, seeing eye dogs for the blind, and most importantly they would totally stop all animal testing in medicine which would cause the medical field to practically grind to a halt. I wouldn't put it past them to put cells above the person they came out of, these people would rather a person died from diabetes then get insulin which was created by use of animal testing.

Unless your name is Mary Beth Sweetland.

Re:

[xappax]

Wackos without common sense, you say? Well I'm for common sense, and I'm against wackos!

Thanks for breaking the issues down for me, I didn't realize things were so cut and dry!

Re:

[confusednoise]

Are you kidding me? How much of the meat that people eat day to day is from hunting?

Answer -- an incredibly insignificant amount compared to that which is produced by factory farming...which is responsible for the environmental damaged cited above.

Re:They are unpleasant already

[cayenne8]

I dunno. I've been a vagitarian for years. Plenty of protein....a seafood diet of sorts.

Re:

[blakestah]

Factory farming is a natural progression of human culture. We analyze our problems (steak is expensive and difficult to provide on a larger scale). We engineer and deploy solutions (farming).

Without agriculture, humans would never have developped any modern science. Only scientific applications to agriculture freed up enough cultural labor to apply science outside the realm of feeding everyone.

We ate meat before agriculture, and we eat meat now. And every last one of the vegans posting here (and even Ingri

Re:They are unpleasant already

[aplusjimages]

This isn't a simple biological fact. I haven't eaten meat for over 6 years. What's supposed to happen to me if I don't eat meat? I don't take supplements either.

Re:

[Sabz5150]

What's supposed to happen to me if I don't eat meat?

You become prey.

Re:They are unpleasant already

[pragma_x]

I am not a dietitian.

I know a lot of fat vegans. I don't know how they do it, they must trough all day on their bean and hummus pittas. A lot of the meat eaters are reasonable weights on the other hand.

That's not all that shocking seeing as how the latest culprits of the "american obesity epidemic" are refined sugar and starch. Second to that are hydrogenated oils, which are made from vegetable products and can be best thought of as a form of "synthetic lard" since it fills the same role in cooking.

In short: calories and fats with no vitamins and/or minerals (salt doesn't count) are the real culprit here. Hummus and pita on the other hand still has some rudimentary nutritional value to it thanks to the chick peas and olive oil.

So you can still be a strict vegetarian and develop metabolic syndrome. Odds are your tubby vegan friends are having plenty of doritos and pepsi along with their beans and rice, or think that "corn-on-the-cob, biscuits, rice and potatoes" is a well balanced meal.

Re:They are unpleasant already

[Rei]

I know a lot of fat vegans. I don't know how they do it

Silly person, picturing that vegans and vegetarians must just eat a lot of greens or whatnot :) If you don't get enough calories, you don't feel sated, so you eat whatever makes you feel full. Which means enough calories. Which means things that have calories -- carbs, proteins** and fats. That's not just hummus and pitas -- it's pasta, lentils, stir fry, rice, beans, couscous, breads, potatoes, cereals, and on and on and on. I had a bowl of trail nut crunch cereal for breakfast this morning. Last night, I had a red bean jambalaya with bread for dinner. For lunch, I think I had some sort of pasta dish. I eat things like potatoes wedges with carrots and onions covered in olive oil, paprika, garlic, salt and pepper, all roasted until they crisp on the outside; spanish rice burritoes, with black beans, olives, chili powder, lemon juice, salt, pepper, garlic, onion, and whatever else I feel like throwing in; and on, and on, and on. I could recite recipies all day. I'm a vegetarian, not a vegan, but just my list of vegan dishes is quite extensive. And never, after eating them, will you still feel hungry or not have gotten enough calories.

** It's a big surprise to a lot of people that the most protein-rich foods are vegetarian, as most people associate "protein" with "meat". Look up the protein stats on, for example, tempeh or gluten. I could give you a big long list of a couple dozen common vegan foods that contain more protein per unit mass than the most protein-rich meats.

Re:They are unpleasant already

[gnuman99]

Liver stores *6 year supply* of Vitamin B12. And it is not from animal meat but bacteria. Animals just store their own supply and we "eat it" (the supply) while eating the animals. Today, all of the B12 you get at a stores is made from bacteria cultures. And since your body retains lots of it, you don't need to eat the supplement all the time. Just once a week, a month or whatever. You can get those 1000mcg pills and take once a month and never have any problems. That way you'll get more B12 than meat eating people anyway.

From wikipedia:

"Vitamin B-12 cannot be made by plants or animals[5] as only bacteria have the enzymes required for its synthesis"

"The total amount of vitamin B-12 stored in body is about 2,000-5,000 mcg in adults. Around 80% of this is stored in the liver[2]. 0.1 % of this is lost per day by secretions into the gut as not all these secretions are reabsorbed. How fast B-12 levels change depends on the balance between how much B-12 is obtained from the diet, how much is secreted and how much is absorbed. B-12 deficiency may arise in a year if initial stores are low and genetic factors unfavourable or may not appear for decades."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12

As a side node, I'm not a vegan. But B12 deficiency takes *years*, and does not happen overnight because you stopped eating meat. Hell, you can eat termites or even dirt with B12 bacteria and you'll get enough B12.

Freaking FUD about stupid B12.

Re:

[RemoteSojourner]

There are quite a few cultures which have been vegetarians since centuries. i come from one such culture. Nobody in my family has ever tasted anything for which you have to kill an animal and we are perfectly healthy. See this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian [wikipedia.org] There are always alternate sources available and fortunately our food habits include all of them. As far as why you should be a vegetarian, see the logetivity section. Also the supplement you mentioned is more in fish than in meat so

Re:

[pragma_x]

Okay, can someone please explain to me w(hy)tf organ, muscle, and connective tissues derived from land animals is called meat, but the same derived from aquatic creatures isn't?

This largely due to a misinterpretation of western societiey's Christian legacy. I googled around for "fish on friday" and dug up this:

http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/52049 [answerbag.com]

The real reason why christians do this is still kind of open for debate.

In short, it comes down to a old tradition of "abstaining from eating meat during fasting"

Re:They are unpleasant already

[DaveV1.0]

See, fish aren't warm and furry and have big doe eyes. They fail the cuteness test, so it is OK to eat them.

Re:They are unpleasant already

[Rei]

Awh, man, I'm so sorry to have to be the one to break this news to you, but mortality rate [wikipedia.org] is "a measure of the number of deaths (in general, or due to a specific cause) in some population, scaled to the size of that population, per unit time. Mortality rate is typically expressed in units of deaths per 1000 individuals per year; thus, a mortality rate of 9.5 in a population of 100,000 would mean 950 deaths per year in that entire population."

Re:They are unpleasant already

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans and many animals need meat as much as air. It's a simple biological fact.

Nope. Rubbish. You could argue that humans need *animal protein* or equivalent synthetics. But not meat. You can be perfectly healthy on a Vegeterian diet which includes dairy products but no flesh (red meat, polutry or fish etc.) (I did this for 10 years with no supplements etc. and cycled 100's of miles and was very healthy). The problems occur with Vegan diets where you eliminate all animal products.
However, one of my colleagues who is vegan says that you don't need supplements; there are specific types of nuts and stuff which contain the relevant nutrients. He seems perfectly healthy.

Note that I have no moral axe to grind here since I now eat quite a lot of meat and enjoy it.

As for your statement that 'there is no meat replacement' surely the whole point of this prize is to grow something in the lab which is nutritionally and taste equivalent to meat? And if they suceed, there *will* be a full 'meat replacement'

Re:They are unpleasant already

[PetiePooo]

However, one of my colleagues who is vegan says that you don't need supplements; there are specific types of nuts and stuff which contain the relevant nutrients. He seems perfectly healthy.

You say he seems perfectly healthy; I say he's nuts and stuff.

Re:

[aliquis]

To begin with if one also supplements the diet isn't that a meat replacement?

The human body can convert ALA to DHA and EPA, how effecient it is at that varies, I've seen numbers ranging from 0.2 to 15.2%. It seems to be better at converting it to EPA because at some place I saw values of 5% mentioned for EPA and 0.5% for DHA.

The human body can also convert between EPA to DHA and DHA to EPA, but the former are much easier to do. Whereby EPA are seen as more important nowadays.

Together that makes me belive th

Re:They are unpleasant already

[gnick]

...perhaps the PETA people might want to sponsor some genetic engineering research to allow humans to digest the plant matter that cows can eat that we can't.

I actually eat grass all of the time, it just needs to be preprocessed before it's ready for direct consumption. Personally, I run it through a cow, have the butcher extract it once it's ready, and then grill it up and enjoy it. Grass can be delicious when properly prepared.

We're omnivores

[deesine]

deal with it.

Re:

[xappax]

OK, let's accept your absurd premise that killing a plant is as bad as killing an animal.

Meat animals don't just grow themselves magically, they must be fed. And they're fed a lot of plants, for a long time.

So, when you eat some meat, you're effectively consuming many times that much plant matter, because of all the plants that were killed to feed that meat. Meat is fundamentally a very inefficient kind of food to produce.

A vegetarian, on the other hand, eats the plant matter directly, thereby requi

Re:They are unpleasant already

[nostriluu]

I totally agree with you. I also consider slavery and torture to be completely natural. How about you?

Totally unnatural - sending spaceships to the moon, or food cultivation (that habit that creates reliable food sources so you don't need handy scavengers like chickens and pigs, until we mass produced animal farming with buildings full of thousands of creatures packed in shit).

Those shows you are watching are highlighting certain aspects of animal existence. How about you go to the zoo and watch how the monkeys act naturally all day, and do a report on how we should be acting. Or look in an aquarium at the natural creatures and tell us how we should be acting, and emulate it yourself.

Sorry, I just find people who use your kind of logic a bit simple, but I guess if you want to justify your lifestyle and continue stuffing dead animals in your mouth three times a day, backed by completely natural factory farms and a host of ghouls who enjoy working in meat packing plants (I've known a couple of them) then just do it.

Personally (and I know you couldn't care less ;)) I stopped eating meat 8 years ago because I got bored of it. There is a whole world of other foods to explore. I also find the non thinking attitude about food to be disturbing, like I was a beef, chicken, or pork eating automaton. All the potential environmental, ethical and health reasons are just nifty bonuses to me, and I really think if we freed all the cows, chickens and pigs it would quite annoying.

Re:

[Belial6]

"Sorry, I just find people who use your kind of logic a bit simple, but I guess if you want to justify your lifestyle and continue stuffing dead animals in your mouth three times a day, backed by completely natural factory farms and a host of ghouls who enjoy working in meat packing plants (I've known a couple of them) then just do it."

Talk about people being simple. Another vegetarian trying to take the high ground when their kind murders trillions of the most defenseless life forms on the planet, but i

Re:

[nostriluu]

There is a very real difference between the nervous system and emotional capacity of an animal versus a plant. If you are saying there is no difference, then you are saying we should all exist in a vegetative state, rather than expanding on our nervous system and emotional capacity. I do think it technically diminishes people collectively to permit such mass suffering for unnecessary reasons. But I am not making the ethical argument.

And when I say unnecessary, I mean animals used to be necessary to ensure a

Re:They are unpleasant already

[kwerle]

The reason I don't eat meat is because of the way food animals are treated while they are alive - not because they are animals. There are plenty of vegetarians who take this stance.

I recommend any of the documentaries on the farming process in america.

If meat-in-a-vat became economically feasible, there are plenty of vegetarians who would eat it.

(details: it is easier for me, personally, to say "no meat" than to be picky about which meat I'm eating and where it is from, etc. It's just the easy line for me to draw)

Re:They are unpleasant already

[Rei]

Oy, where to start with this one?

If they are at all awake they will either realize that the whole world is designed around the idea of one thing eating another.

1) Simply untrue. By your logic, autotrophs don't exist. Unless you call absorbing light, hydrogen sulfide, methane, or whatnot "one thing eating another".
2) Moral equivalency. You are declaring eating any form of life as equivalent to any other. The ~99%** of people who find the concept of raising humans for meat abhorrent would disagree with you.

** -- I did specify 99% because on occasion, I have found people who find nothing wrong with this. Thankfully, they're rare.

Let's focus a little more on #2. What is so abhorrent about eating other humans to most people? Usually, it's some variant on the destruction of the self. Call it a soul, call it a conscience, self-awareness, whatever you will. Raising a sentient being and deliberately killing them for their meat when you don't need to is generally seen as abhorrent.

So, what's sentience? One ancient standard is the ability to reflect on one's own thoughts. Well, that standard certainly doesn't hold up as an argument against eating meat now that we know that even rats do that [sciencedirect.com]. So what's the cutoff point? Problem solving or reasoning ability? Chimps, depending on the task, often have the reasoning ability of a 4-6 year old. Parrots, 2-6 year old, depending on the task. Pigs, same general range. None of them have anywhere near the sort of *communication* skill that humans have, but communication is hardly a reason not to eat something, now isn't it?

From my perspective, the simpler the mind, the less of a moral issue there is. Sure, even plants have at least some forms of stimulus response; every cell in existence does. But none of it approaches the complexity in external stimulus-processing as a neural net. A change in light may cause guard cells to open or close a stoma, but you're just looking at a predictable biochemical cascade. That stoma will never, for example, "learn" not to keep opening and closing if you shine a flashlight on and off at it. It is this spark of intelligence in animals, particularly higher animals, that I find tragic to snuff out needlessly.

In a choice between the life of a pig and a human, which do I side with? The human, undeniably, indisputably, every last time. I don't fault in the least, for example, innuit cultures that traditionally survived on sealing; what choice, exactly, do they have? But in this world, I have all of the choices under the sun. I can choose to eat whatever the heck I want. Having that choice, I eat a vegetarian diet.

Of course, I know very well that not everyone will agree with me on this. But that's hardly the only reason. Most people have no clue how extreme of an impact eating meat has on the environment. A staggering, mind-boggling big [sciencedirect.com] impact. 1/3 of the world's non-ice-covered land is dedicated, directly or indirectly, to growing meat. Despite programs to abate it, we're losing 1,250 square miles of rainforest in Brazil per month to cattle land. Meat growing releases more greenhouse gasses than transportation (and no, we're not just talking about methane from ruminants; the energy aspect is the big portion, since it takes many pounds of grain to produce a pound of meat), plus huge amounts of water pollution (3/4 of the water pollution in the US, for example), as well as breeding antibiotic resistance.

Re:

[morari]

You can argue that the food chain exists for that reason, and that might debunk a lot of teenage girls who think that not eating cute critters is a good way of being different among their highschool class. However, the problem that many vegans have is not that animals are consumed, but that they are literally tortured in the modern commercial farm.

No creature deserves to be cooped up a small cage, kept in filth, injected with cocktails of growth hormones, and then thoughtlessly killed before one another.

easy

[circletimessquare]

because they taste good and we evolved to eat them

the only reason eating animals is a problem is suddenly because we evolved higher mental faculties like empathy, morality

luckily, we also developed science, which will soon give us meat vats, and we can go on with our carnivorous delights and not a single animal need be killed anymore

but if you try to ask people to give up meat just because the animals suffer, you have just as much success asking people to stop having sex because of disease and overpopulation

it is a compulsion, hard wired into us. do not underestimate it. it is deeper and stronger this compulsion than our higher faculties

so much as birth control and penicillin sidesteps the issue of disease and too many babies as byproduct of our love of sex, so will meat vats sidestep the issue of cruelty and our love of meat

but you are really insane if you think a nice morality lecture will stop people from eating meat just because its cruel. as if a "just say no to sex" because of disease and overpopulation approach would work

Re:easy

[Bombula]

There's nothing morally wrong with eating meat. The moral problems are with how the meat is grown. Growing meat in a vat would be nice, but what PETA ignores is that if this was the only way we ever farmed meat, then billions of creatures would never even have the privilege of existing in the first place.

The real moral issue is about suffering: do farmed animals suffer while they live or suffer while they die? If so, then farming is immoral. If not, well, then it's hard to argue farming is immoral. All things die. It may be morally wrong for humans to decide when an animal should die, but that's a much harder issue to resolve. What is easy to resolve is that animals should live comfortable, pleasant, healthy, hygenic lives and then be slaughtered instantly and painlessly without any prior fear or anxiety. This is readily achievable, though it is more expensive than growing animals in filthy boxes and pumping them full of drugs. Farmed in this way, it's pretty difficult to categorically condemn livestock agriculture.

Torture? Murder?

[phorm]

Torturing animals doesn't serve a purpose. Killing them for the purpose of nourishment and consumption does.

Yes, perhaps it's in some ways distasteful, but - being omnivores - it's also part of our natural biological process. I'm sure this will cue the rant about vegetable and pill-based alternatives, but it's still not the way we're built to function.

You can't compare murdering somebody to the consumption of a food animal. It's not the same thing. And before you get into the "would killing be OK if we eat each other," that's also a no, as - except in cases of starvation - most mammals don't eat their own species either, and in many cases they don't kill each other except under a certain set of rules (territory, etc).

Re:They are unpleasant already

[hador_nyc]

Humans are omnivores. It's also natural for us to kill and to eat other animals; say like a bear.

So, to answer your question, we are capable of not killing to eat, but you have to make the argument as to why. Thus far, I haven't been convinced of why we shouldn't eat meat; eat less of it, sure, but no meat entirely, not yet.

Also, it's hard to make the case that killing a human and killing a animal is the same thing. I'm not particularly religious, nor am I Christian, but my objection to that is more akin to what Silverback Gorilla's, male lions, and other animals do when they take over a group. They kill the infants of the former group leader. Most people for a variety of reasons don't consider animals, let alone other humans, "human". That is the basis for eugenics. While I agree that is reprehensible, it's still a fact. I think we have a lot of work to convince all people that all humans are "human," before your goal of equating animals with humans can be achieved. Still, I still can't see why we shouldn't eat cows, chickens, and things. I grew up near a farm, and maybe that's why I just don't see it; no matter how much I value human life.

Re:

[penguin_dance]

Why don't you come over for dinner sometime? I'm making some fava beans. Please bring a nice Chianti....

Re:They are unpleasant already

[Gription]

I would like to popularize a term:
"Civilized to death"

"Civilized" is an illusion. It is a consensual illusionary construct of your social conditioning. We do need some sort of social structure so we can all get along, but when you start to think that there is some innate 'higher truth' in your view of what is civilized then you are stepping into fantasy world.

100 years ago we didn't have the weird idea that eating an animal was a tragedy. We weren't less civilized then either. (Watch some TV. After that if you still think we were less 'civilized' then you need to get off your high horse so you can be trampled...) We just had different social norms and we weren't so divorced from our food supply.

Re:They are unpleasant already

[Xiaran]

100 years ago we didn't have the weird idea that eating an animal was a tragedy

Who is *we* exactly?

Jainism [wikipedia.org]

Re:They are unpleasant already

[spidercoz]

We kill flies and mosquitoes because they're pests. We kill cows and chickens because we're hungry. We kill pheasants and quails because it's fun, and we're hungry. We kill people because they're pests, and it's fun.

With apologies to George Carlin

Re:Hmm...

[trolltalk.com]

You can have my soylent green when you pry it from my cold dead ... ummm, on second thought ...

So, PETA's offering a million bucks. Chump change compared to what it's worth.

Anyone remember the sci-fi story with "chicken little" - that one piece of repeatedly cloned, vat-grown chicken flesh that was made into chicken breast, leg, etc.? If they could throw in some Octopus genes, everyone'd get a drumstick!

The Space Merchants

[rpjs]

By Pohl and Kornbluth if memory serves (can't be asked to look it up). Corporations control everything, including the government. Invasive advertising everywhere. That's 2/3. If Peta succeeds it'll be a full house!

Animal apocalypse

[williamhb]

It's not so mad to compare it to those dystopian futures like Soylent Green: PETA seem to be under the strange impression that if artificially grown meat was invented then all the farmers in the world would set their cows and chickens free to live wild with a cheer and a wave. In economic reality, however, if cheap artificial meat was invented, more and more farmers would very quickly send all their cattle to be slaughtered as no longer economic to maintain. It would be the animal apocalypse.

Isnt fake meat called...

[Mazrim_Ta]

Tofu? I'll take my prize in small bills please.

Re:Isnt fake meat called...

[HeroreV]

In vitro meat is not fake meat, just like cultured pearls are not fake pearls. In vitro meat is produced through the same cellular process, with the same animal DNA. Anybody who did 2 minutes of research would know that in vitro meat (aka cultured meat) is never called fake meat.

Re:Isnt fake meat called...

[jasen666]

I can't wait for the cloned meat. Tasty steak, but never having been exposed to parasites, virus, pesticides, herbicides, etc. Also no fat, gristle, tendons, blood vessels or bones to worry about. Although I suppose if they can engineer cloned muscle cell, they can clone fat cells in that meat as well if they wanted, for flavor.
And if they can do this for seafood? Cloned lobster and crab meat? (Swordfish steaks.. nomnomnom.) Once in full production, the prices would likely be much cheaper than ocean caught meat. And no worries about pollution or mercury poisoning.
It would be great for wild animal populations, although bad for farmers and fisherman.

Re:Isnt fake meat called...

[smooth wombat]

Also no fat, gristle, tendons, blood vessels or bones to worry about.

That will be one bland, inedible hunk of meat. Fat is where the flavor and tenderness comes from. Why do you think T-bones, delmnicos and strip steaks taste so good? They have ribbons of fat in them. Same goes for pot roasts. Loads of fat, loads of flavor. This is the same reason most pork nowadays is so bland. We've bred out most of the fat in pigs (except for the bacon portion).

Flavor also comes from the bones. Marrow provides the flavor and is used when making stock.

If we're going to manufacture meat from non-animals, I want my fat and bones. It goes along with my high fat, high sugar, high cholesterol way of eating. I want flavor! If I wanted blandness, I'd eat tofu.

If nothing else, PETA is getting better looking representatives [mainichi.jp] when at events.

Re:

[gnick]

...wouldn't it just be easier to genetically engineer cows without souls?

But the soul's the best part! Mmmm... Fillet of soul...

Re:Isnt fake meat called...

[xaxa]

Tofu is made from soy beans and so will not have the 8 essential amino acids that humans can't make themselves. And so it is not a viable replacement for meat.

Actually, Soybeans are one of the few sources of all the essential amino acids [wikipedia.org].

It's a non-issue anyway, since meals with a couple of vegetables often cover all the essential amino acids anyway (beans on toast is one often-cited example).

Re:Isnt fake meat called...

[DreadPiratePizz]

In their raw form yes. However when processed and integrated into food, all of those amino acids and proteins are broken down, leaving it useless. Soy also prevents the body from being able to properly absorb zinc, which is why some scientists think that autism is on the rise (lots of parents use soy milk to feed their children, and zinc is a key element in brian development). I can provide references for this that are NOT wikipedia, and are peer reviewed. Howell, E, MD - - - Enzyme Nutrition Avery 1985 Twogood, D - - No Milk - - Wilhelmina Press 1992 Price, W DDS - - - Nutrition and Physical Degeneration Keats 1999 Leviton, R - - - Tofu, Tempeh, Miso, and Other Soyfoods p.12 Keats Publishing, 1982

Re:

[xaxa]

There's probably peer-reviewed science saying the opposite though (I've read it in a journal, but I don't know when or where).

As with all these things, a balanced diet seems the best idea -- and a large amount of soy isn't balanced, just as the stereotypical American diet isn't balanced. Unfortunately, there are people who go crazy and decide to feed very young children soy milk, soy baby food, etc instead of a decent diet, just like there are mums that give their kids cola in a bottle.

Cloning Tissue or Whole Animal?

[eldavojohn]

The question I always had about this- if they can take one sample from one animal and clone it in a vat and feed this world, will the vegans be ok with that?

Are they cloning the sample or the animal? If it's just a sample piece of tissue, I would imagine most would be fine with it. If they are cloning the entire animal, it's still a physically separate organism with a central nervous system that is attached to a cerebrum. It's still feeling pain so I would think all Vegans would be opposed to it.

Re:Cloning Tissue or Whole Animal?

[gunnk]

Hmmm... I could clone my own tissue for sale and put up a giant sign that reads "Eat Me".

Might be worth it.

Another use:

[Gription]

Hmmm... I could clone my own tissue for sale and put up a giant sign that reads "Eat Me". Might be worth it.

You could market it to help settle divorce desputes...

"Here is that pound of flesh you ordered..."

Re:

[pipatron]

No fucking way! That's outrageous!

It would never be the same as the original.

hmm

[strack]

I like PETA, but I couldn't eat a whole one.

Re:hmm

[Zappa]

PETA ?
Is this an acronym for "People Eating Tasty Animals" ?

Re:

[owlnation]

I like PETA, but I couldn't eat a whole one.

Probably, but I'd try eating Alicia Silverstone just to be sure.

Vegans != Hive mind.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

The question I always had about this- if they can take one sample from one animal and clone it in a vat and feed this world, will the vegans be ok with that?

Just like people who comment on slashdot, vegans have a wider variety of opinions & reasons to arrive at their dietary choice. Trying to ask them collectively what they think about something like this is useless.

It would be like asking the slashdot crowd "would you buy Microsoft products if they open sourced them"

For those who prefer car analogies, it would be like asking

For those who prefer car analogies

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

There is never any point finishing a car analogy on slashdot....

Silly.

[jpellino]

If they're vegans for more than one narrow reason (which they seem to be) this will not make them happy.

I can't recall the comedian, but someone once noted "Why do vegetarians need to make their food (tofu pups, veggieburgers) look like meat they simply wont eat? You don't see monks keeping blow-up dolls just hanging around."

While...

[Icarus1919]

While I applaud the intent here, I gotta say that if people have a problem with genetically modified vegetables, then meat grown in a laboratory will DEFINITELY not appeal to them. This would be a classic case of a concept that people will find instinctively suspicious and disgusting.

Re:While...

[SatanicPuppy]

Jesus, it's not about being a liberal. The problem with GM plants is that they still throw out a bunch of pollen, and pollute existing seed lines. It's just bad science.

When the GM meat gets out of the tank and starts humping un-gm'd cows, I'll have problems with it. Otherwise, hell, if it tastes good, I'm there.

Eat the PETA members

[TheMeuge]

Maybe it's just me, but I think that movements such as PETA are a sign of deep issues within our society. We have people who are so completely satiated and content with their lives, that they are willing to spend vast amounts of their time, effort, and money, in order to achieve something so truly inane.

We have hunger, diseases, war... and all these people want to do is to get everybody to stop eating animals. Considering that it was likely the consumption of large amounts of animal protein that allowed humanity to evolve rather rapidly in the last stage of our evolution, I find PETA's goals rather ironic.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

PETA isn't against taking animal life

[Reality Master 201]

That's a commonly held misconception. They're in favor of ethical treatment of animals, which for them precludes farming. PETA actually offers free euthanasia for sick animals for people that can't afford to have it done by vets.

As for abortion, it's highly ironic that many of those who get riled up by killing of a pre-human lump of cells are just fine with their government getting into a non-defensive war and driving up food prices around the world through it's subsidy of corn based ethanol. There's this weird paradox in the pro-life movement that unborn life is elevated to sacredness but actual humans living on earth already who have memories and consciousness can be chucked aside without protest.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Answer to your question

[Lord Byron II]

It depends on why they're vegan. If it is to stop animal cruelty, then vat-o-meat should be fine. If it for health reasons, then vat-o-meat will have just as much fat and cholesterol as the real stuff.

Re:

[Vellmont]

If it for health reasons

Health reasons? There's plenty of meat that's quite healthy for you. Most fish is low in saturated fat and cholesterol. Chicken is pretty OK. Buffalo tastes very similar to beef, but has lower saturated fat. Vegans are vegans for political reasons. These are people that don't eat gummi bears because it contains ground up bones, and don't wear anything that has leather in it. I've heard of extreme wack-jobs that won't eat honey because we've enslaved the bees. It ain't just ab

Re:Answer to your question

[R2.0]

"vat-o-meat will have just as much fat and cholesterol as the real stuff."

Actually, probably not. As I understand it, all the techniques of "culturing" cells are directed toward making all the cells the same - if there are different types of cells in the culture, it is considered a failure. So "cultured meat" would be ALL muscle cells, with no fat cells or connective tissue. Which, while pleasing the health conscious, would be a culinary disaster - picture the toughest, driest steak on the planet.

One solution would be to culture genetically engineered fat cells with little bad cholesterol, and then grind it in with the cultured meat. So the choices would be hamburgers and sausages that probably taste worse than tofu, or real "once had hooves" meat.

I'm thinking that prize will remain unclaimed for a long time.

I really support this.

[kinabrew]

I was a vegetarian for nine years, and only started eating meat again last year, for health reasons(only chicken, since I hate the taste of all other meat)

If meat can be grown that doesn't have a central nervous system and so can't feel pain, I would feel much better about eating what little meat I do eat.

Careful with those cost specifications...

[Baldrson]

While it is laudable that more companies are sponsoring prize competitions, greater care must be taken when specifying things like "cost" or, as in the case of the Progressive Automotive X-Prize [progressiv...xprize.org] being "production capable", etc. That's why in my specification of the O-Prize [geocities.com], which substitutes vegan omega-3 oils for fish oils, I avoided specifying those things. Rather, I just guaranteed a monthly market of a certain dollar amount, with sales going to the lowest bidder:

Introduction

The O-Prize is designed to realize the great potential of oil from algae [unh.edu] with the lowest risk over the shortest time.

The potential of algae oil is to, in stages:

1) Enhance neurological development via nutritional supplementation with omega-3 fatty acids and,
2) Provide an abundant renewable source of green or environmentally friendly fuel oil.

A fixed dollar amount is withdrawn from the prize fund each month to purchase algae oil from the lowest price source(s) certified for the target market. That quantity of algae oil is then resold to the target market and the funds are added to the prize fund. When the lowest price certified sources can compete with the target market, that stage of the O-Prize has finished.

The O-Prize is designed to let algae cultivation techniques mature in two stages, building both technology and popular support for both environmentally friendly and humanitarian purposes.

Probably not ...

[YeeHaW_Jelte]

"The question I always had about this- if they can take one sample from one animal and clone it in a vat and feed this world, will the vegans be ok with that?"

They're not very rational. They'll probably demand you release the sample from its captivity.

All kidding aside, I'm a veggie myself and have a hard time being sympathetic to the vegan cause -- it's just so unrealistic.

Free farm animals will only result in the demise of the particular species ... ever seen a farm pig or a farm cow in the wild?

Current biological thinking is that domesticated animals were drawn into human habitat because their own habitat was taken over by more fit animals. Humans simply domesticated these animals, but otherwise they wouldn't have stood a chance in the wild. Following this reasoning, releasing farm animals would just condemn them to starvation, a horrible death.

Don't get me wrong, I'm strongly opposed to using farm animals as an industrial product, as this is what is common in bioindustry at the moment, but we're in symbiosis with these species ... freeing them is not the answer. Treating them well and with respect is.

Re:a farm pig or a farm cow in the wild?

[raddan]

Yes, and they are an ecological disaster [wikipedia.org].

Re:

[khallow]

As I see it, there's an implied contract between humans and the plants and animals we use: "If you feed us, we'll take care of you and help you propagate," I think this is important because in the future, it can affect the reputation of our descendants. This may seem odd given that the human race is currently responsible for the extinction of a considerable number of species each year. However, we have no relationship with those species other than that some of them were in our way. But with cattle and corn,

Torchwood did it (and did it, and did it..)

[Rob T Firefly]

If scientists are swiping there ideas from Torchwood episodes [wikipedia.org] nowadays, they'd better be prepared to start shagging each other and coming back from the dead on a regular basis as well.

Re:

[OldeTimeGeek]

If scientists are swiping there ideas from Torchwood episodes

It seems that Torchwood's writers aren't above using other's ideas to good benefit. The creature in that episode was suspiciously like Chicken Little [technovelgy.com] from Fred Pohl and Cyril M Kornbluth's The Space Merchants.

At last PETA and I agree on something

[QuantumG]

But, Ms. Newkirk said, the decision to sponsor a prize caused "a near civil war in our office," since so many PETA members are repulsed by the thought of eating animal tissue, even if no animals are killed.

I think you mean "holy war".

Other than that, yeah, good show.. I'm a big fan of growing food in vats instead of animals on grain and parts of other animals.

For a start, it makes real permanent space stations all that more feasible.

Oblig. Neuromancer Quote

[lobiusmoop]

Molly and Armitage ate in silence, while Case sawed shakily
at his steak, reducing it to uneaten bite-sized fragments, which
he pushed around in the rich sauce, finally abandoning the
whole thing.
          "Jesus," Molly said, her own plate empty, "gimme that.
You know what this costs?" She took his plate. 'They gotta
raise a whole animal for years and then they kill it. This isn't
vat stuff." She forked a mouthful up and chewed.

A real question

[ciaohound]

Back in January, Hallmark Meat Packing got caught slaughtering sick animals, resulting in the largest meat recall in US history. Some of the animals slaughtered couldn't stand on their own feet.

What will we test to determine "fit to consume" when meat is grown in a vat?

yes

[onemorehour]

As a vegan, I can at least speak for myself: the answer is definitely "yes."

Veganism is neither irrational nor difficult to understand; if you're making an animal suffer unnecessarily, vegans are against it. It's amazing to me how such a simple position seems to confuse people.

Re:

[onemorehour]

So, if an animal dies of old age, vegans wouldn't mind eating it? If a cow gives milk without suffering, vegans will drink the milk?

I can only speak for myself, but the quick answers are "yes, of course, but... why?" to the first, and "yes, of course, but saying that there's no suffering involved might mean a rather complicated situation."

I'm not a vegan so please set me straight if I'm wrong, but I thought that vegans disprove of anything coming from animals (meat, milk, eggs), regardless if the animal suffered or not.

I'm happy to respond, and I appreciate that you're going out on a limb and seem honest and genuinely interested. I can assure you that vegans, at least in theory, only disapprove of animals suffering unnecessarily. They might also take a slightly broader view of what animal suffering means than other

SO..

[apodyopsis]

So..

can they alter the meat as well? less fat? more protein? extra vitamins? or can large corporations make them more addictive?

"buy your McBurger, now with the latest McD meat profiling taste and additives"

A paradise predicted in "The Space Merchants"

[originalhack]

Skum-skimming wasn't hard to learn. You got up at dawn. You gulped a breakfast sliced not long ago from Chicken Little and washed it down with Coffiest. You put on your coveralls and took the cargo net up to your tier. In blazing noon from sunrise to sunset you walked your acres of shallow tanks crusted with algae. If you walked slowly, every thirty seconds or so you spotted a patch at maturity, bursting with yummy carbohydrates. You skimmed the patch with your skimmer and slung it down the well, where it would be baled, or processed into glucose to feed Chicken Little, who would be sliced and packed to feed people from Baffinland to Little America. Every hour you could drink from your canteen and take a salt tablet. Every two hours you could take five minutes. At sunset you turned in your coveralls and went to dinner --- more slices from Chicken Little --- and then you were on your own. You could talk, you could read, you could go into trance before the dayroom hypnoteleset, you could shop, you could pick fights, you could drive yourself crazy thinking of what might have been, you could go to sleep.

In The Space Merchants (Frederick Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth, 1952), Chicken Little was a huge amorphous blob of growing meat that fed all of society. Much of the rest of Pohl's vision has become eerily true, consumers.

HHGTG

[TheLink]

How about like the HHGTG: Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

Instead of artificial meat, you breed a cow that _wants_ to be eaten, and will indicate so. :)

Why bother with artificial meat?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

The planet has almost seven billion people on it. That's a lot of meat, and we wouldn't be harming sweet little animals by eating them. I think we should start with the Americans. They're fat and lazy, so they're easy to catch - kind of like dodo birds without the feathers.

They'll fry up really nicely. And then we can start on the Chinese and the Indians. There's lots of them, so that's a herd that'll take a long time to cull out. In fact, we may never even need to eat the bony butts of east africa.

Just a modest proposal is all I'm suggesting...

RS

Nice idea, but...

[Duck of Death]

I've often had the same sort of idea - if a cow can take grass, water and energy and make steaks, why shouldn't we be able to do the same thing? Recently, however, I've decided that even if they figured out how to do it tomorrow, it would not be to our benefit. It would end up being like baby formula - a product that's been around for decades, keeps getting tweaked to add this or that nutrient or remove or reduce undesirable components, yet still can't compare to breast milk. Or it will end up being like margarine, touted for decades as healthier than butter until they discovered that trans fats in the margarine were much worse for you than the saturated fats in the butter.

If they could grow meat, they would be unable to resist the temptation to fiddle with it. Rather that simply duplicate the meat from a grass fed, non-corn finished animal, they would reduce the cholesterol, boost the omega-3's (or whatever omega is good for you right now), add beta-carotene, and fortify it with vitamin C and calcium ("a full day's supply in every burger"). Then, ten years later, there will be a report that eating too much factory meat causes liver failure. The food scientists will tweak the recipe, declare it safe and healthy and we're off to the races again.

I do think they'll figure out how to do it (the cow can do it, after all). I just think the food industry has a very consistent record that demonstrates their inability to improve on or even match what mother nature can do, despite all their claims that they can.

DD

Re:PETA?

[bluelip]

PETA loves meat. You do know it stands for People Eating Tasty Animals, right? :)

Re:

[giafly]

Why oppress animals to take DNA samples, why not just clone human flesh [courageunfettered.com]?

Why clone human flesh, why not just eat dead people? You know they'd eat you if they could [urbandictionary.com].

Re:What about human?

[SatanicPuppy]

There are actually some really good medical reasons for not being a cannibal...Basically you're probably not going to catch anything from the cow, because it's a cow, but a human? Make sure yours is extra well-done.

Re:Interesting...

[Hijacked Public]

My experience leads me to believe that you are unusual among vegans, or even among people who are fashionably vegetarian for some short period of time.

For many of your dietary bretheren giving up the opportunity to sit in coffee shop wearing pantaloons and blurt out pseudo facts about how meat eaters are killing themselves and the planet and all the animals would be too much to bear. I think they would continue to oppose in vitro meat just to preserve that pastime.

Re:

[vertinox]

My experience leads me to believe that you are unusual among vegans, or even among people who are fashionably vegetarian for some short period of time.

I like a nice bloody steaks more than most people, but most of the time I won't eat meet like the poster above. Its not because I care for the environment or feel bad for the animals, but if I just keep the meat intake on the lowdown I seem to spend less time with stomach sickness related events (aka Montezuma's revenge which I'm prone too) and I can keep a h

Re:

[dintech]

I think he was talking about you actually...

Re:

[snarfies]

In other words, you act like a smug shitcock when somebody takes the time out to try to make you a little more comfortable.

Re:

[SatanicPuppy]

Agreed with the sibling post. I've known vegetarians who were vegetarians for health reasons, but never vegans who were vegan for health reasons...Lot of the vegans I know won't eat anything that was remotely an animal byproduct, to the point of only eating certain M&M's because one of the dyes isn't completely animal-free.

Most people just don't rank their health that highly. I am glad to see PETA finally doing something productive however...If your real goal is to prevent animal suffering, then this is

Re:

[Jodaxia]

Umm.. M&Ms are make of MILK chocolate. Last time I checked, milk isn't made in petri dishes.

Re:Interesting...

[Hatta]

You know, we evolved canine teeth for a reason. Do you really think it's healthy not to use them?

Re:Interesting...

[Stanistani]

You don't chew with canines - you tear stuff apart. I use my canines every time I eat chicken off the bone, or ribs, or even some fruit and veggies.

*RIP-SNARL-GNASH-TEAR-GRRR*

Another dead carrot...

Kinda sorta the point!

[clonan]

If it were viable right NOW there would be no need for the X-prize.

This sort of contest provide direction and potentially takes some of the sting out of development.

The hope is that by 2012 a process will become available that McDonald's, KFC and the others can perfect.

It should be very exciting!

Re:

[Ash Vince]

Then McDonalds, KFC etc. would have it perfected already!!

No, probably not and for the reason I will outline below.

Several years ago I remember reading an article in Wired title "Overcoming Yuk". I actually managed to find a link here:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/6.01/morton_pr.html [wired.com]

Now since I am currently at work and do not have time to read the full artical (This is slashdot, after all) I will mention what I took from it on my first reading, not what it actually says.

I understood it to be commentary on how the future of scientific advancement revolved aro