Saturday, February 17, 2018

Could Lab Grown Meat & Fish Feed the World Sustainably?


                                  Comments due by Feb. 23, 2018

Finless Food (is) a company growing fish flesh in their laboratory, aiming to feed the 5,000 and then some without needing to kill a single animal. It was founded in 2016 by university buddies Mike Selden and Brian Wyrwas, bright-eyed biochemists in their mid-20s who are on a mission to save the oceans and bring affordable, contaminant-free fish to the masses.
Finless Foods is the first firm to enter the race to take cellular agriculture – meat grown outside of animals – to market with marine, as opposed to land animals. In 2013, the godfather of what is also known as cultured or in-vitro meat, Professor Mark Post from Maastricht University, unveiled the first ever cultured beefburger- no livestock required. It was dry and anaemic, but, says Post, “it showed it could be done.” Three years later, San Francisco startup Memphis Meats delivered a succulent beef meatball, following up this year with fried chicken and duck a l’orange. Meanwhile, Hampton Creek foods (also in San Francisco) are boldly promising they will be selling cultured poultry as soon as the end of next year.
Selden and Wyrwas’s lab was only established in March 2017, and as Selden says, “Fish cell culture was really not a thing. Human cell cultures - we do that all the time and there’s all sorts of papers on animal culture, but for fish, Brian had to invent a protocol to do that.” Yet by the end of our first conversation I am invited to taste their first prototype. “We’re small but we’re moving very quickly, and so are the investors,” says Selden, with the robotic urgency of someone who dedicates every waking hour to their vocation.
 He bristles at the phrases “Frankenmeat” and “lab-grown meat”, insisting that “they’re not fair or accurate”. He makes his point by comparing the process of culturing meat cells to another passion of his: brewing beer. That hallowed, ancient process tends to happen in giant, sterile, sealed fermenters, which are not unlike the bioreactors that will be used for culturing meat in industrial quantities. Trusty beer, he points out, “is often prototyped in a facility that looks like a laboratory: it’s white, everyone’s wearing lab coats and gloves, and is using lab equipment. So if we’re lab-grown meat, then beer is lab-grown beer. We’re not going to have armies of scientists sitting over petri dishes forever.”
The technology for culturing animal cells was originally developed for medical use; in fact Post, whose early burger attempt was funded by Google co-founder Sergey Brin, had a background in repairing heart tissue. An early attempt by academics to culture fish (the results of which were published in 2002) tested the processes as a potential renewable protein source for astronauts embarking on a four-year schlep to Mars…https://video.unrulymedia.com/native/opt-out-icon2.png
The principle for culturing cells is relatively straightforward. Animal cells can be obtained harmlessly by biopsy from a living beast, or in the case of Finless, says Selden, “We have an agreement with the aquarium at the bay that whenever a fish dies, they call me and I jump in a car, pick up the fish, bring it back and Brian cultures it up.” By “culturing up” he means feeding the cells in a solution of salts, carbohydrates and proteins. “Typical division time for most animals is about 24 hours,” he says. Whether you’ve got two cells or two tonnes, you’ll have double a day later, although this may get faster.
The greatest challenge lies in making the process affordable enough to scale-up production and be competitively priced. An alternative needs to be found for the animal serum – commonly foetal bovine serum – that’s currently used to kick-start cell division. “It’s about $500 a litre, and it’s totally against the mission of our company,” says Selden. “We’re trying to make food that doesn’t harm animals and it’s kind of doing the opposite. Also, animal serum is variable from batch to batch.”
I visit Finless Foods’ lab ahead of the prototype tasting. They’re moving to new bespoke quarters later this year, but in the meantime share a workspace with various young companies developing biotech solutions to the world’s problems. We pass Clara Foods, which has created the world’s first animal-free egg, and a centrifuge whizzing around something to do with regenerating “the nipple-areolar complex” for women after mastectomies. Senior scientist at Finless, Jihyun Kim, proudly invites me to peer through her microscope at fish cells developing in a beaker of clear, pink liquid resembling the run-off from defrosting pork. A pattern has formed on the bottom of the beaker – the slightest sliver of fish. It doesn’t look appetising, but neither do the contents of an abattoir.
Selden, Post and the other cultured meat startups exude confidence aboutsolving the serum puzzle: with venture capitalists to keep sweet, and stiff competition, a certain swagger must be displayed at all times. The serum provides proteins called growth factors. “We’re trying to find which growth factors are most important for fish cell growth,” says Selden, “and we’re making those ourselves in-house.”
They produce them in a similar way to how human insulin is made for peoplewith diabetes. Up until 1978, medical insulin was extracted from ground pig or cow pancreases. These days we can genetically modify yeast or bacteria to produce human insulin. Similarly, the serum alternative will involve putting fish DNA inside yeasts, “which then act as little protein factories”. Selden assures GMO haters that this doesn’t mean the meat cells are GM, “but they used proteins produced by a GMO to signal them into dividing and growing.”
At Finless Foods they say they’ll have a blue-fin tuna product ready for market in late 2019. Post is more conservative; he says he is happy with his product, but is at least three years from selling one. As well as working on his own serum alternative, he is seeking to replace the bovine collagen he uses “so the cells can find each other and form a fibre.”
Hi-tech, plant-based protein alternatives, meanwhile, are starting to give meat a run for its money. Los Angeles-based Beyond Meat makes chicken strips largely from a protein in peas, and beefburgers that bleed beetroot juice. After Bill Gates tried a Beyond Chicken taco, he blogged about being fooled into thinking it was the real thing. Meanwhile the Impossible burger exploded out of Silicon Valley and is available in restaurants across the US. It is uncannily beef-like, oozing cholesterol-free fat and pink through the middle. Impossible’s not-so-secret ingredient is heme, a compound that is abundant in meat but can be sourced from plants. According to Impossible’s blurb, heme is what makes “meat sizzle, bleed and taste gloriously meaty.”
But in the eyes of the cultured meat trailblazers, fancy vegetarian food will never have mass appeal. Demand for meat, and fish, is only going one way. “The question is, which product can satisfy the craving of the population for meat?” posits Post. “At the moment it’s there and it’s increasing ... culturing is going to cover the entire gamut of meats that are out there. It will be much more difficult to achieve that goal with vegetable-based proteins.” This is a sentiment the Chinese government has got behind, announcing a $300m investment in cultured meat produced in Israel. The US may be among the world’s most carnivorous nations, but as China’s economy swells, the planet’s most populous country is catching up.
When you tell people about growing animal muscle and fat cells in factories, the initial reaction is invariably revulsion. But after you point out the ethical and health benefits, they warm to the prospect. Cultured meat doesn’t involve intensively farming and slaughtering animals, nor the associated environmental and animal-cruelty costs, not to mention the risks of human contamination with disease, antibiotics, pesticides and – in the oceans – mercury and plastics. Fish farming, which accounts for over half of global fish consumption, increasingly relies on pesticides, fungicides and antibiotics, which pollute open water surrounding the captive fish. Aquaculture also employs inhumane methods to physically detach parasites from the fish. Farmed fish are not even immune to absorbing mercury and toxic industrial byproducts such as PCBs and dioxins, although being in shallower water reduces their exposure.
This is why companies such as Hampton Creek and Memphis Meats are referring to their produce as “clean meat”, and it’s catching on: clean meat, clean conscience…
Without a brain, cultured meat can indeed be thought of as almost plantlike. “If you look under a microscope, you see the same cell structures as you would meat from an animal,” says Koert Van Mensvoort, director of the Next Nature Network, a non-profit organisation in Amsterdam that investigates how technology transforms our relationship with nature. “But there’s a different story there that forces us to reevaluate our positions.” Which is partly why he thinks the new culinary possibilities created by cultured meat should be explored, rather than seeing it as replacing the sausages and burgers we’re so familiar with…
How a clean-meat revolution could affect the landscape and environment is riddled with ifs and buts, not helped by the secrecy among the startups. Hanna Tuomisto, a specialist in the environmental impacts of food production at the University of Helsinki, started investigating the implications at Oxford University in 2008. Feeding the cells is one thing, but to convert a mush of them into muscle-like structures adds a second layer of energy burn, and she can only guess at the expenditure involved. “When we estimate energy consumption,” she says, “it’s at the same level as beef or higher now, but there is lots of uncertainty in bioreactor design and the scales we are looking at now are quite small.” Culturing fish cells will probably use less energy than land animal cells, because fish cells will merrily reproduce at room temperature.
However, if the land freed up by moving from intensive farming to cultured meat was used to grow bioenergy crops (a big if), this could mitigate the carbon generated by culturing. Post, meanwhile, thinks enterprising farmers might switch to crops that could provide the nutrients for cultured meat factories. Either way, converting the grassland we use for grazing would have serious drawbacks. Grassland has higher biodiversity than arable land, and converting grassland to arable land would release, Tuomisto says, “a lot of carbon from the soil.”…
The world’s first cultured fish tasting takes place on an afternoon in early September, as the mist rolls over San Francisco from the bay. Silicon Valley chef Laurine Wickett will be preparing the fish at her gleaming catering kitchens. Before she fries the five bite-sized, cultured-carp croquettes she has made, she describes the raw paste of harvested cells within them as having a delicate flavour of the sea, a little like the water in an oyster shell. As I suppress thoughts of beakers of pink liquid and taste my perfectly-cooked croquette, I find it both delicious and disappointing. It’s only 25% fish and the subtle carp flavour is eclipsed by the potato. I just about detect a pleasant aftertaste of the sea, though not fish as such. But then, far from a polished product from a development kitchen, this is a first prototype  a benchmark of scientific progress. Selden and Wyrwas only tasted their fish for the first time a few days before.
Despite the stingy fish-to-potato ratio, each tiny croquette had cost $200 (£150), working out at about $19,000 (£14,380)-per-pound of fish. But such is the speed of technological advance that they’ve already slashed that by more than half.
Afterwards, Selden and Wywras are flushed with the raw elation of having given birth to something important, and they talk frenetically about strategies for developing a more mature fishy flavour, expansion into fresh premises and the structural wonders their newly recruited tissue engineer will create. Next stop: cultured sashimi.
(edited from an article by Amy Fleming for the Guardian)

18 comments:

  1. I have looked into lab grown meat in the past because it is a fascinating issue, especially considering factory farming releases more carbon dioxide and methane that other human sources, such as cars. As an environmental studies major, I have sat in countless classes lecturing me to become vegetarian or vegan for the sake of the planet and many of my friends and classmates have willingly made the switch. However, try as I might, I have not been able to jump into the world of vegetarianism, especially since I am also an athlete, which requires me to eat lots of protein to recover. If lab grown meet became a mainstream thing, it would provide a great alternative for people who see the downsides in regular farming but still want to eat meat or are just not capable to switching to an all-vegetable diet.
    However, whether this could feed the world sustainably or not is another issue. These labs still require land to be built and it is quite possible that they will release a lot of fossil fuels once manufacturing becomes necessary on a factory scale. Plus, to many, the idea of lab-grown meet is as appealing as purified water once people know where it comes from. Therefore, a paradigm shift would be necessary for people to embrace this new idea and for it to become more acceptable than regular farming. Finally, I would hope a full analysis into the health benefits or drawbacks would be done because, like GMOs, there is no telling what our manipulation of nature can result in, especially in regards to human and ecosystem health.

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  2. There are both good and bad sides to lab grow meat and fish. Starting with the good side, lab grown meat and fish can be beneficial socially and economically. Economically speaking, this new lab-grown meat can create a new industry, and by creating this new business, in other words, this new industry it can help to generate more jobs for the population. Also, with this introduction of this new business, the increasing demand for meat around the world can be met more efficiently. The human population is constantly growing, where by 2060, it is expected to increase by 9.5 billion. And while the population is increasing, the goal is for the standards of living across several poorer nations to also improve so the need for meat will be increasing. According to a recent study, the need for meat in the United States will increase by 8 percent, in Europe by 7 percent, and lastly in Asia the increase will be by 56 percent. So this new introduction of the lab grown meat can be significant for places that are going to be higher in demand for meat like Asia, which can lead to sustainability toward the end of world hunger and poverty. Socially speaking, animal rights groups may favor this new introduction since in factory farming many animals face very poor conditions, so this lab-grown meat can be welcomed with wide open arms. The new cultured meat can also be better for the environment because as opposed to the large-scale farming where more land is being used, more energy and water, and more greenhouse emissions, the cultured meat does not require this.
    However, when we take a look at the bad sides we can also see that there can be many social and economic side effects here as well. The livestock sector employs a large amount of people across the world. Economically speaking, this introduction of the cultured meat can create jobs but it can also destroy many as well. If this cultured meat sector becomes successful, many people who are employed by factory farms can be negatively affected if the demand for the factory farm meats decreases. And although I shared my idea that less energy, water, land and less greenhouse emissions would be used with cultured meat, this does not eliminate the heat and electricity that is required for the production of the cultured meat so ultimately, this can create environmental damage. Although animal rights would favor the new cultured meat since animals aren’t in the poor conditions, animal suffering is not completely eliminated. In the production of this cultured meat, animal cells are still needed, and I am sure the animals will have to go through something invasive to them.
    There are bad and good sides to this new cultured meet but whether sustainability will be reached is a question in the works which I personally believe will remain unanswered for a longer.

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  3. The idea of eating a burger that was grown in a lab sounds a little far fetched. Believe it or not, but lab grown meat might make its way to grocery stores. Is this new production sustainable? Will consumers be willing to switch to this cellular agriculture? Scientists are confident that cultured meat will reduce issues like greenhouse gas emissions, overfishing, animal welfare and stop the abundance of monoculture crop fields. It is also said that this meat would be produced in sterile labs, instead of large, overcrowded farms where conventional meat is made. On the other hand, it is very time consuming and expensive to accomplish. A team of scientists grew a burger that took about 20,000 strips of muscle to make and a cost of about $330,000. That is an absurd amount of money to produce one piece of meat! To reduce the the price, scientists will have to figure out a new way to grow cells more efficiently. Another factor to keep in mind is whether this process will have an effect on farmers jobs. Instead of raising livestock, will they have to grow crops? Or can this perhaps leave them jobless? The way scientists are mixing technology with meat is too complicated. Lab grown meat and fish might be environmentally friendly, but our culture revolves around meat and I personally do not think Americans will favor lab grown, test tube meat.

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  4. Peidong YANG
    It is really incredible for me to know that scientists are developing lab-grown meat. For the first impression to most people, it must be regarded as “Frankenmeat” and unable to be eaten. Nevertheless, this idea is generated due to the increasing pressure from the booming worldwide population. Larger population means larger demand on meat supply. Therefore, growing meat or fish in labs is absolutely one possible method to solve this grave problem, and also has great potential commercial profits. Scientists take tissues from animal’s muscle, then extract stem cells from tissues, and finally grow muscle cells under tension. This process sounds quite feasible and according to scientists, these lab-grown meat is same with normal meat in taste, but much cleaner due to no contact with pollutants, and chemicals. Cultured meat doesn’t involve intensively farming and slaughtering animals, nor the associated environmental and animal-cruelty costs. For example, cows will release a lot of carbon dioxide and increase the global warning, and fishing industry increasingly employs pesticides, fungicides and antibiotics to enhance the amount of fishes, causing pollution to ocean and rivers. What’s more, over-fishing is disturbing the ecosystem balance by lessening the amount and kind of fishes. Therefore, lab-grown meat definitely has many benefits.
    However, this technology still face a lot of difficulties, and the greatest challenge lies in making the process affordable enough to scale-up production and be competitively priced. Since the technology is just in its initial development stage, scientists still need to conquer many technological challenges to make lab-grown meat more reliable. As for capital problem, this industry still need to attract more investors to bring in more fund to maintaining operations.

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  5. Xin Jiang
    According to relevant report data, the global population will increase from the current 7.5 billion to 9.8 billion by 2050, meanwhile, people's demand for food will increase by 70% over now. More food demand means that people have to expand the scale of agriculture and stockbreeding. According to the current mode of agricultural production, we will encounter difficulties in 2030.
    The production of food requires technical progress. Besides raising the utilization rate of land, many scientists and companies are working on using biotechnology to produce protein foods such as meat and milk.
    In addition to the fact that the mouthfeel and nutrition are not significantly different from those of the normally cultured animal meat, "cell farming" also means less killing animals. In addition,"cell agriculture" consumes much less land and water than the traditional livestock husbandry in mass production. From a biological science point of view, the "fish farming" technique produces fish that is truly fish meat and is essentially different from the artificial foods that contain a variety of additives in industrial processes.
    Unfortunately, for most people who do not know this technology, the meat products produced in the laboratory are still not acceptable.To make people accept the results of technological progress, we still have a long way to go.

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  6. In America alone we eat billions of pounds of beef a year, that puts a major demand on our livestock farmers and also causes a problem for the planet. Each cow consumes about 11,000 gallons of water a year. And worldwide livestock may be responsible for 15% of greenhouse gas emissions. So I'm not suggesting we stop eating meat and become Vegan, but this can be a way we eat way fewer animals. The biggest issue would be how to make lab grown meat economically feasible for these companies to continue to produce. Then in turn offer it at price point, that the lowest income family can afford. But even if this process does become economically and environmentally stable, I still don't see it being the number one choice for producers or consumers. Animal agriculture is a way of life for people all around the world and not just for consumption. Animals are used to produce manure, even used as a way to barter items and then used for it's labor. We also have to think about how eating this way is a luxury others can't afford. We can look at fast food chains like McDonald's for instance and the burgers they sell every second of the day. I believe we are still a long way from getting lab grown meat to feed the world sustainably.

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  7. DeShawn McLeod

    When I first started reading this article, a huge red flag waved in my head. When scientists, via corporations, started genetically modifying food, this shifted the healthcare industry into providing mandatory medicines that people need to live on for their entire lives. We still don’t know the affects of mass produced genetically modified foods and yet, with the inception of meat via stem cells this seems terribly concerning. There’s a reason other countries don’t accept U.S. aid, when it comes in the form of food. Why is that?

    Another question that popped up in my head was: why do humans eat so much meat? Is this scientific solution responding to a culture problem or a food problem? Human’s don’t need as much meat as we consume, yet don’t feel adequately full if we don’t consume meat – myself included. The idea this solution erected out of raises an important question: do humans need to look at their culture instead of trying to feed the unhealthy one they have now?

    Learning about this, this is actually scary. Humans keep trying to use technological advancement in order to fuel unhealthy ways of living without looking at why projects like these start (and are invested in) in the first place. I sometimes wonder what American culture would look like if gluttony and greed were not in the fabric of our culture.

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  8. The idea of lab-made meat is an interesting concept that I have never thought about before. The fact that no animals would have to die in order to provide meat is revolutionary, but I wonder how many people would actually be on board. There are some people who love to eat meat, and I wonder if they would even try such a thing as lab-made meat. Also, vegetarians who have been avoiding meat, would this feel like cheating? After all, it is still "meat". The extremely high prices do not shock me, I am sure that as the process gets perfected the price would drop way down. In my opinion, it is definitely something that I would be willing to try, but I can't say that this is a realistic option for majority of people.

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  9. After reading this article both sides of the argument for lab grown fish and meats were stated and had valid points. Since veganism and vegetarianism is increasing in popularity, especially in younger generations, this industry has a huge potential for growth. Though it may be more expensive, especially in the short run, there is a demand for this type of product. People also are willing to pay more for products that they believe are good, for the environment and themselves. This has been proven with organic foods and non-GMO products. If companies like Finless Food can prove that their products actually protect and promote the prosperity of the environment, then there is a huge opportunity for success and profit. This could then potentially increase the market for animal byproducts. However, because it is initially pricey to create and therefore purchase these products, it would be difficult to convince the public and investors that these types of foods can end world hunger. It is something that could maybe work in the long run or future, but the technology is far too new in my opinion to convincingly state it could end hunger.

    The article also discussed increase carbon emissions and loss of land and biodiversity due to these new sustainability practices. This also may pose a threat to how humans view and interact with nature. It may be a gateway into destroying our natural environment in order to solve another problem. The difficulty with this is that it is hard to measure in the early stages since everything is evolving and still developing. I personally do not know if I would be a large consumer of lab grown meat since I currently do not eat vegan or vegetarian products by choice, but it would be open to try it. As long as research and studies are done measuring the benefits and costs, then “fake” meat could be a very sustainable solution for both the environment and the produces and consumers.

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  10. The animal agriculture industry is an industry that causes extreme degradation to the environment. Animal agriculture is responsible for a large amount of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, deforestation, ocean dead zones, and the spread of disease. With that being said, I think that growing meat in labs could possibly be a good alternative to the animal agriculture industry we have today. Personally, I have been a vegetarian for over two years and have tried any meat alternatives like Beyond Burger, Impossible Burger, and Gardein. I also know that many people around the globe have been realizing how much damage the animal ag. industry does to the planet and have also opted to become vegetarian or vegan. The people I know who don't eat animal products aren't turned off by "fake meat" products like the post claims; most of the people I know are open to trying new things. It's also important to know that these products aren't meant to be something you incorporate into your everyday diet; they're meat for people who are transitioning into becoming vegetarian or vegan.
    I think growing meat in a lab could be another alternative for people who want to be environmentally conscious but want to keep meat in their diet. I think it's a great step in the right direction when it comes to sustainability. If we can eliminate animal cruelty, mass production and its negative externalities, and also reduce pollution we should do it.

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  11. The article above describes the introduction of new technology that has the potential to change the entire agricultural industry. The idea of meat made by scientists enters a vast amount of possibilities and benefits to society, while still posing many questions. Since this is such a new idea, there is still much that is unknown. However, I think that with the trends of today’s society and the increase in vegetarianism and animal rights activists, lab-made meat has the potential to really take off. I think that a large issue for them in the long run may be their heightened prices. While people are more inclined to pay more for a premium item (like vegan, non-GMO, organic), this puts that “premium” label on the meat, causing problems with it ever entering mainstream or becoming sustainable to feed the masses. If they are able to lower prices exponentially through continued advancement of technology, this may not be an issue, but making this a sustainable source of food could take a long, long time. The time and the price tag may not be enough to convince enough investors. Yes, they can market themselves off the idea that their production is ridding of bad animal treatment and contamination that is heavily found in fish farming. But, there are many counterarguments to whether they can confidently say that a mass production of lab meat would diminish carbon output. With an increase in this type of production, the amount of energy needed could meet the same amount used for beef. BUT, there still is the benefit that there would be a deduction in the amount of land used for grazing animals. Once again, counterarguments show that this grassland isn’t so bad, as it has high biodiversity and without it, there would be a lot more carbon released into the air from the soil. Ultimately, I think that currently there is too many variables with unknown outcomes to consider if this food source could be sustainable. It sounds like a great idea, but currently economics suggests otherwise.

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  12. Daniella Antolino

    This new technology and science that has been brought up is changing the world around us very fast. I thought this article was very interesting, I have never heard of growing fish or burgers from muscle cells. As the population grows we are eating and harvesting so many animals and shooting up these animals with growth hormones in order to feed the population. We are eating and destroying the environment and killing off these species faster than they can reproduce. This new technology can feed 5,000 people without killing a single animal, that sounds good right? For some people yes. There are pros and cons for the growing of the meat in laboratories. The people who are vegan or vegetarian because they are against animal cruelty and do not agree with the living conditions of animals may give this new technique a chance. This type of production may be a good thing then you tell people about growing animal muscle and fat cells in factories, the initial reaction is invariably revulsion. But after you point out the ethical and health benefits, they warm to the prospect. We aren't killing and torturing these animals we would be saving the lives of a bunch and the risks of human contamination with disease, antibiotics, pesticides and mercury and plastics. we will not have those problems buy growing the muscle tissue. There also is cons farmers, and jobs will be affected by using this method. It will also cost a lot to produce these meats meaning factory space. If this really takes off with there be a lot of pollution from these factories making the test tube meats? Overall, I think ethically it is a good idea, even though it doesn't sound appetizing it does produce a lot of meat without harming animals and economically it could help as well, save the animals which are a huge part of environmental sustainability. We need these animals in the ecosystem.

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  13. Nicholas ArciszewskiFebruary 23, 2018 at 4:38 PM

    This article was intriguing. It made me think of the documentary Food Inc. Where you see an inside look at big corporation agriculture methods. It is shocking. In order for the process of 'lab grown' food to be accepted, there needs to be more market exposure. I feel that since like the article says, we use many different 'lab grown' things in our lives; beer and insulin for example, consumers would be more for the movement with more knowledge. What was really interesting to me was how the fact that the food is 'clean'. For example mercury free, plastic free, pesticide free. However in the current situation it doesn't seem to be too plausible of a method to take over big corporations. The price is too high for consumers. As technology and methods advance however, the price is sure to decline. Also I found it interesting how by transforming the current farms to biotech labs the carbon emissions could be mitigated. This is a good movement towards environmental sustainability. I don't know if I would personally be into eating lab grown foods, but if it meant preserving the prosperity of our Earth this would be a good global effort.

    Nicholas Arciszewski

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  14. As an environmental science major, I'm quite familiar of this phenomenon of lab grown muscle tissue by the efforts of Sergey Brin as mentioned in the article above and have been well aware of the (sustainable) potentiality this can bring to our meat obsessed society. I also have recently become a vegetarian within the past year due to both environmental consciousness (CH4, CO2 emissions and animal cruelty) as well as personal knowledge (health risks in eating meats pumped with hormones). For someone who grew up eating meat and understanding that our anthropological history shows that humans. are. meat-eaters., I didn't know if becoming a vegetarian would at all agree with me but to my personal surprise I don't think I'll ever go back to my previous omnivorous ways. But, if I'm really craving a burger I go buy an impossible burger, which if you've never tried I do suggest! With that said, I am obviously going to argue that this process of lab growing meat could potentially be a major keystone to successfully shift our socioeconomic paradigm into a truly more sustainable one. Of course there will be many externalities associated with these facilities where lab grown meat will be produced (i.e. how much energy must be used for this process?) However, given my scientific background I believe it's safe to hypothesize that having lab grown meat facilities rather than factory slaughter houses could greatly benefit our environment.
    I think it would also not be as disobliging as it may seem to deviate society's assumed perspective that lab grown meat is uncanny or grotesque simply due to the notion that people in our society feed their own children blue coloured candies that are literally made of harmful and addictive substances. I don't see why feeding them lab grown meat would be any more taboo. The article also mentions that these replicated tissues are not genetically modified but genetically replicated so at the surface, to me, almost seems more natural than eating a chicken with cancerous growths, pumped with hormones that can't stand on its own two legs that lives in the dark for the entirety of its life.
    I think one of the major precepts that is holding this entire industry from going more mainstream is the cost. As of right now the cost of doing this large scale is wildly expensive. However, I do believe there is enough knowledge and money in the world to successfully implement lab grown meats into the mainstream but the demand for it just simply must be high enough.

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    1. Maybe this meat eating norm can be phased out within a few decades just as many things are in our gig economy.

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  15. The idea of Lab grown meat is one that I have never been familiar with. I know my cousin who is a vegetarian told me to look into it but I never thought that it seemed really plausible. The concept is very interesting to say the least. I really think that by comparing the meat grown in labs to beer brewed is an interesting way to show perspective. One part I find rather interesting is that Finless Foods has a deal with an aquarium to use the cells from dead fish in order to help grow the food. When you think about it, what they are doing is very helpful to the environment and I think in a world when wildlife and aquatic life preservation is a very big topic of discussion this has the ability to please both sides of groups. Those who believe we need meat and fish to survive and those who believe veganism is the better option. As someone who eats a lot of chicken and meat, salmon, etc. I would not be opposed to trying lab grown food, however I feel that some people might get the wrong idea with a lab environment stereotype of it not being properly sanitized, etc. Especially after seeing a documentary such as Food Inc. or What the Health? it makes you really wonder exactly what we are putting into our system such as; GMO's pesticides, hormonal substances being fed to animals prior to being slaughtered, etc. I think that this is definitely something I could see being sold in grocery stores around the world and develop into something that expands greatly. I feel that with the advancements in technology and our desire for environmental sustainability, we will continue to see advancements such as this and I hope that this becomes a movement people get more behind, and who knows next time i'm in the grocery store I'll look for lab grown meat to give it a try.

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  16. Producing and eating sustainably-created, genetically-modified meats to meet the needs of our exponentially growing world population is an attractive concept. After this meat passes further regulation testing to ensure it will not have long-term impacts on the human body, I could really see this becoming a huge fad in the United States. Even with the current shift in our dominant paradigm to more converting to veganism every day, this concept would flourish in the US market. Veganism has become incredibly popular among younger generations of liberals making under $50,000 per year (“Vegan Demographics 2017”). Many have cited their many motivations to switch as taking a stance against animal cruelty in the meat industry, health benefits to plant-based diets, concerns for current norms’ impacts on our environment, social justice, and many other reasons (“Vegan Demographics 2017”). We should not be surprised if we continue to see veganism grow and younger generations take on these same beliefs that are emerging now. Future generations will look to this generation to shape the world they live in, just as every generation has previously done.

    Having any food product marketed as ‘sustainable’ is attractive. However, there is emphasis on the word ‘marketed’. Our previous posts have examined the impacts of capitalism on our current dominant paradigm and it seems that many of us in this class believe that capitalism can hinder sustainability. I researched “Finless Foods” to see if it is a for-profit or 501(c)(3), and I was not able to determine if it was. This is significant because the commodification and privatization of foods, genetically modified seeds, clean water, etc. does not create a sustainable world for everyone – just those who are able to afford one. This concept has the potential to really make a positive difference or to introduce harm into the world (or both, given that none of this is ever so black-and-white). I believe it will be incredibly fascinating to see the future course of genetically modified meats and foods, and I hope this presents opportunities to help cultivate a more sustainable world for all.


    Sources

    “Vegan Demographics 2017 - USA, and the world.” Vegan Bits, 23 May 2017, veganbits.com/vegan-demographics-2017/.

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  17. Liyuan Zhang
    I have heard the news that there is meat made by human to be served on table, yet I did not get to understand it until I read this article to develop some further thoughts about it. As a newly emerged product, there are supportive opinions and critics on the lab grown meat and fish. For those who do not into this idea, the meat and fish grown out of the lab or in the lines of factories just sound unnatural to them. Some of them are taken the meat grown in this way as “Frankenmeat”. Definitively, it is challenging to embrace this trend as it is not in accordance with our common sense. Producing meant in industrial quantities is tarrying to think about for some conservative ones. However, regardless of the attitude people holds about the lab grown meat, it has already come to our lives anyway. The ones who advocate this kind of meat claiming it as “clean meat” as they are grown out of a cell from the animals in a much more hygiene environment. But the question is that can the lab grown meat and fish been accepted by people and become a common alternative for people to choose. For the time now, there can be obstacles. One is that people may be reluctant of the new product produced in the lab. The other is that the impact or positive influence of the lab grown meat is now hard to tell without actual data to support.

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