I always wondered why they tried to mimic "real" meat rather than just making it its own thing. Gluten free cakes are another example. I suppose you need to first penetrate the market/general consciousness first before inventing a whole novel food.
Wouldn't you be able to do this with ordinary processed meat today?
I remember as a kid, we once ate some kind of filled chicken nugget thing, which would have been pulped chicken glued back together into a pouch. I thought it was pretty tasty, but in hindsight its probably good that I only got to eat it a couple times, because typing it out now it sounds disgusting and super unhealthy.
> Then, suddenly, the nausea hit... The problem was not the flavor, not the texture, but the knowing. The Knowing. Knowing about the fat tank, about the sticky white substance...
I feel like squeamish people are probably not the best ones to write about novel meat products...
I'm pretty sure it's just the taste of meat that the author didn't like. My half-sister don't eat most meat for taste reasons, and the nausea after tasting beef the author describe sound exactly like her reactions.
Dairy is a legit nightmare factory for the cattle involved.
Constant rape. Constant separation from off spring. Tons of hormones and medication to keep infections down.
They are so stressed physically and emotionally that their lifespans are 50% or lower of what they should be. Dairy cattle routinely just die from stress.
Its also insanely bad for the environment.
I grew up ranching and have seen dairy operations plenty of times. They're disgusting cruelty factories.
Every time we eat a snack or food that involves dairy, remember that it is completely unnecessary to include dairy.
"Our Daily Bread" is a very interesting documentary on modern industrial agriculture, just shows what happens, no commentaries whatsoever.
The last part shows the slaughterhouse process (at least live cow to half beef carcass anyway), fair warning you can't unsee that but imo more people could benefit from knowing how their burgers are made.
From the "Dirty Jobs" TV serie: "Custom Meat Processor" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1788060/ that includes some self censorship to be able to show it in TV.
Disclaimer: I'm not a vegetarian, but I dislike wasting meat. Something like "eat what you kill" but with in the supermarket in the middle.
It used to be that kids as young as five year old were made to kill small animals like bunnies and chickens as a learning experience, but a bunch of people found this problematic so it isn't as common anymore.
I’ll be honest, I’d lie my ass off if I was the author.
I don’t eat meat for ethical/health/climate reasons. You bet your ass I’m singing the praises of lab grown meat if I had that kind of platform. Instead, they used their voice to say how icky pretend meat is. It honestly pisses me off lol.
That's just plain lying. And when people actually tasted the meat they'd call your bluff. In fact I have to assume that many have tasted it and have noped out.
I've seen plenty of videos from slaughter houses, mostly ones activists use to point at the cruelty going on inside, but it never made me feel uncomfortable.
And it's so stupid honestly. Why is this making them queasy, but not the slaughterhouses, the industrial farms, the cattle pumped with antibiotics to prevent infections from the open wounds inflicted by their terrible environment, etc. I'd take cells grown in a vat over dead animals everyday.
This is such a stupid line, it makes me wonder if this article just wasn't paid for by a meat industry lobby. Meat industry who we know for a fact is already putting a lot of energy into fighting alternatives, like impossible meat.
Because, as the arcticle states, the author comes from the position of whether to eat meat at all, so no meat vs. lab meat, not lab meat vs. slaughterhouse meat, as you imply.
it is sad how the lobbying of old evil industries like tobacco and animal-killing can convince the politicians and the public to outlaw and demonize their less-evil competition like vaping and lab-grown meat to make sure to hold on to the status quo.
but why write more than 7000 words to communicate a simple point (lab-grown meat was promised 1-2 decades ago but failed to arrive and won't arrive in the foreseeable future)?
Is it just pure lobbying or perhaps also consumer preference? Because there’s plenty of money to be made across the entire agriculture and food and production spectrum in the processing of the goop that goes into these types of products. I think a lot of people honestly would rather eat a real vegetarian diet (Indian, etc) than the ultra processed soy beans and various chemical binders wearing a meat Halloween costume.
> the ultra processed soy beans and various chemical binders wearing a meat Halloween costume.
This reads like propaganda. Take tofurkey for example, it's just seitan and tofu and the same "chemical binders" you'll see in every other product in the freezer aisle.
And tofu is only as "ultra-processed" as cheese or bread is.
Yeah, tofu is not even in the same class as the synthetic burgers. Take a second and go read their ingredient lists. I’m gonna go with the Indian or falafel meal, which happens to be delicious. Which I think is the choice consumers are making.
I dont think people who would consider a full vegetarian/vegan diet without supplementary products that look like "meat" are the target consumer base for these products. The money is in a consumer base that does not want to fully commit to a certain diet, know that the meat industry is bad for the planet and is unsure on how to go about it.
Personally I'd rather eat highly processed soy beans over parts of a dead animal.
Eating is something one does several times a day every day of their lives. It must be done regardless of how broke or in how much of a hurry you are. I applaud anyone who chooses to add this stress to their daily lives voluntarily till the end of their days, but I'm not going to demonize someone for choosing to reject the time-intensive thing in favor of an alternative that's completely normal, cheaper, and faster.
I wouldn't have an issue with consuming meat if people wouldn't neglect how wrong the state of the industry is at scale. Eating meat might have been normal throughout humanity, but the industry scale meat production is everything but normal. Its ruining peoples health, normalizes the atrocities happening in farms on a daily basis and generally treats animals horribly. If you eat meat at least do it with a consciousness.
you've never purchased something, then had someone question that purchase? the reflex to defend yourself, even knowing an action is morally wrong, is very strong, and we need to find a better way to help these people divest without losing "face"
I'm a bit surprised that we got disembodied intelligence before we got deathless meat. If you'd told me in the year 2000 that one of these would happen, I'd have put my money on the meat.
Because there is much less demand for deathless meat. Milk + eggs + legumes are good enough for many vegetarians. They're even cheaper than real meat in most places. On the other hand, human intelligence, by definition, can't be affordable for someone on a middle income.
Also we still don't really know what we mean by intelligence, even though we've now invented a version of it. You'd have thought that question would need some more investigation before we could build it, but here we are.
I had long given up on lab-grown meat. It started feeling like fusion, always around the corner, but never there (or at least not in an affordable way).
What replaced almost all ground beef (except in burgers) for me, was Jackfruit. More specifically, the combination 90% pea protein, 10% jackfruit. Granules that can be rehydrated with boiling water in 2 minutes, price competitive with discounter mince, no extra ingredients, no high carb count. It has a good texture and tastes mostly like whatever you season it with.
For me I eat similar thing from eatplanted.com, when they have discounts, otherwise it's still too expensive, but if price was lower I'd eat it all the time, it's that delicious.
You should specify an example of what you're talking about maybe? I see a lotao brand jackfruit 'mince' - not sure there's a US equivalent with those macro characteristics.
Lotao is the one I use, DM has a house-brand with the same percentages. I thought the US would have something similar, but at least ChatGPT didn’t find anything.
Would it make the meat industry more ethical if happy drugs were made available to animals? If I had to choose between a meaningful (even if I didn’t know it when living), blissful unnatural life and none at all, I’d choose the former.
It’s the negative affect and suffering (stress, pain, boredom etc) that is the bad part of eating animals.
(I think— I know others have thought more than I on this topic)
It just seems like an easier tech solution might be promising
What I find interesting about this whole discourse is that the lived experience of animals matters to people. At all.
Just a hundred, two hundred years ago we made the Elephant rifle, because a normal gun couldn't bring it down, but it was a fun sport to go out and kill just for the heck of it. No one cared about the animals.
It seems like we are living in an age of suicidal empathy and I'm not sure how we got here.
Throughout history there have always been people who were vegan or plant based who cared about animals.
We live in a society which has traditionally silenced those voices. The USA, especially, screams about how killing and stealing is a righteous/earned right. Not exercising that right is leaving much on the table. Americans gotta keep up with the Joneses, and that historically included excess cruelty to animals(this includes "savage" people like blacks and browns).
Lots of religious groups advocate for less animal cruelty and consumption.
I too could, theoretically be thrilled to be drugged to the gills when I'm killed. I however, can consent. Animals cannot. But we know that animals can think. Regardless of debating the ethics of consuming them, this adds an additional ethical quagmire of is it ethically sound to drug non-consenting, thinking species.
Not really. Similar to giving drugs to lower class people so they can bear the unbearable life. For an indiviual, sure, life probably feels better in a narrow sense, but is it more ethical? No.
Its literally the least efficient way of producing calories when we factor in all the costs, especially to the environment and health.
The entire point of meat in 2026(since industrialization of meat) is excess and waste. Its a rich people food that was introduced to the masses to make a profit.
Interesting, the question for me is why eat ultra-processed meat simulacra, that don't taste particularly nice, like impossible and beyond burgers? It is possible to home cook far healthier and more delicious veggie burgers with seitan, mushrooms, lentils, etcetera. Ultimately, this whole meat substitute market is targeting a niche that doesn't exist at anything like the scale envisioned, because it competes with low cost meat on the one hand and low cost plant-based burgers on the other, and is worse than both on all relevant metrics.
Like, they're close enough for a vegetarian/vegan to get something that reminds them of the taste, but for a frequent meat eater it's not even close sadly. I keep trying from time to time.
As for why, it's much easier to replace the product than it is to replace the need.
I never understood exactly who is the target audience.
If I were a vegan/vegetarian for ethical or religious reasons I don’t think I would want food that reminds me of meat.
As an occasional meat eater that also enjoys the many natural options for plant-based protein, why would I want something that replicates taste/texture of something I can already eat?
Those are pretty good in their own right, but they really aren’t much like meat in my opinion. They’re similar, but they are quite obviously not meat within the first few bites.
What about the health nastiness that comes along with ultra processed food? Why not just go full blown veggie or vegan? Theres some amazing recipes out there that are healthy as well.
People have fetishized animals so much that creating synthetic goop in the form of flesh somehow got billions in founding. Omnivores eat meat, even herbivores do it sometimes, get over it.
Eh, I eat meat almost daily (chicken breast) and I'm fully aware of what entails the butchering of animals. Even had a pet rabbit at my grandfather's when I was a kid, that one day disappeared and the next day we ate rabbit meat. Just like when I cleaned up the squirrel that was torn in half by my cats, I see it all as a part of life.
Doesn't mean that I wouldn't prefer if it all came from grown meat, rather than the entire industry that we have now. If the taste, texture and looks are the same, why shouldn't we switch (if those 3 factors are the only important ones)?
Because every second super processed food is reveled to be carcinogenic or harmful in the long term, why would you take the risk if there is a good alternative? Btw I am also against industrial scale animal farms, those are problematic too, not from a morale but health perspective.
(This reminded me why I stopped reading magazines: they have low information density. They are more creative writing, journaling rather than terse and factual)
My take away on the answer to the headline question is:
Currently the lab grown meat is too expensive and not good tasting enough to compete with real meat and plant based alternatives exist so - not it’s time yet.
I eat meat and like it, but I also feel kind of sorry for cows, sheep, pigs, chickens etc.
I was initially positive about lab grown meat, but then you realise that Kraft Foods or someone will get hold of it and turn it into the most unhealthy slop you could imagine.
There are plenty of things to dislike about beef, but the hunks of it found at the meat counter are one of most unaltered, natural state food items in the store. The sea salt wins that competition but not much else does. Compared to broccoli or an apple, even feed lot beef is pristine. The nutrient difference between an ancient auroch and a modern steer is mostly the proportion of fat.
There might not be much of a market for it. Vegetarians and vegans are used to industrially processed protein substitutes but most of them don't really want meat and its flavor. In contrast, many non-vegetarians want natural high-quality products from real animals, they don't want to eat industrially processed lab meat. A market would have been low-cost ultra-processed meat products but for that it seems that lab grown meat is too expensive.
This can still change though, if the products of animal farming were to become more expensive and with higher mandatory quality standards, as they in my opinion should be.
Man, I'm so glad I don't trade stocks.
I was so convinced that these meatless meats were going to be the next big thing.
One thing I think they missed out on was getting to 'close enough' and 'much cheaper' and then just pivoting.
Like, why stay with simulating the 5 or so animals we harvest? Just go off and make up new ones!
Like, here's a jackalope burger, or a unicorn burger or something. Tie into marketing!
"Exclusive to BurgerKing, the Iron Man 5 burger! Now through August 29th only!"
Put in some strange spices, vary the texture, give it a red and gold swirl, let the imagination run wild.
Can you imagine what business a Spiderman burger patty or sausage link would do? K-Pop demon hunters branded chicken-ish nugget like things?
I always wondered why they tried to mimic "real" meat rather than just making it its own thing. Gluten free cakes are another example. I suppose you need to first penetrate the market/general consciousness first before inventing a whole novel food.
Wouldn't you be able to do this with ordinary processed meat today?
I remember as a kid, we once ate some kind of filled chicken nugget thing, which would have been pulped chicken glued back together into a pouch. I thought it was pretty tasty, but in hindsight its probably good that I only got to eat it a couple times, because typing it out now it sounds disgusting and super unhealthy.
> Then, suddenly, the nausea hit... The problem was not the flavor, not the texture, but the knowing. The Knowing. Knowing about the fat tank, about the sticky white substance...
I feel like squeamish people are probably not the best ones to write about novel meat products...
I'm pretty sure it's just the taste of meat that the author didn't like. My half-sister don't eat most meat for taste reasons, and the nausea after tasting beef the author describe sound exactly like her reactions.
Need to make these people visit a slaughterhouse.
Me, having recently moved to rural Ireland: “the cows were mooing and wailing horribly last night, were they being slaughtered?”
Farmer Neighbor (not the one with the cows): “oh, no that’s just when they take the calves away for veal”
As a parent I feel worse about dairy than beef…
Dairy is a legit nightmare factory for the cattle involved.
Constant rape. Constant separation from off spring. Tons of hormones and medication to keep infections down.
They are so stressed physically and emotionally that their lifespans are 50% or lower of what they should be. Dairy cattle routinely just die from stress.
Its also insanely bad for the environment.
I grew up ranching and have seen dairy operations plenty of times. They're disgusting cruelty factories.
Every time we eat a snack or food that involves dairy, remember that it is completely unnecessary to include dairy.
"Our Daily Bread" is a very interesting documentary on modern industrial agriculture, just shows what happens, no commentaries whatsoever.
The last part shows the slaughterhouse process (at least live cow to half beef carcass anyway), fair warning you can't unsee that but imo more people could benefit from knowing how their burgers are made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbkKITF_7SE&t=5196s
From the "Dirty Jobs" TV serie: "Custom Meat Processor" https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1788060/ that includes some self censorship to be able to show it in TV.
Disclaimer: I'm not a vegetarian, but I dislike wasting meat. Something like "eat what you kill" but with in the supermarket in the middle.
So a tank is problematic, but a slaughter house is fine?
Nah, these are the same folks that have never watched earthlings.
If we made it so before one could eat meat of the animal, it had to personally kill and watch the animal die, we’d eat less meat.
It should be a requirement
Depends how it is done, but can also have the opposite effect of making people more used to cruel behavior.
I do like what they did for example:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/world/europe/norway-schoo...
It used to be that kids as young as five year old were made to kill small animals like bunnies and chickens as a learning experience, but a bunch of people found this problematic so it isn't as common anymore.
I guess it depens on the preson. The author claims they haven't eaten meat since 2007.
I’ll be honest, I’d lie my ass off if I was the author.
I don’t eat meat for ethical/health/climate reasons. You bet your ass I’m singing the praises of lab grown meat if I had that kind of platform. Instead, they used their voice to say how icky pretend meat is. It honestly pisses me off lol.
Why? Vegetables are cheaper, tastier and overall less icky.
Why what? I feel like you didn’t read my comment.
That's just plain lying. And when people actually tasted the meat they'd call your bluff. In fact I have to assume that many have tasted it and have noped out.
> And when people actually tasted the meat they'd call your bluff
Per the article, all the other folk seemed to enjoy the lab grown meat just fine
> that’s just plain lying
Yeah I said that.
Yea.. like.. look into the sheeps eyes as you cut it's throat and then tell me again how a lab is "icky".
Honestly speaking, yes.
I've seen plenty of videos from slaughter houses, mostly ones activists use to point at the cruelty going on inside, but it never made me feel uncomfortable.
And it's so stupid honestly. Why is this making them queasy, but not the slaughterhouses, the industrial farms, the cattle pumped with antibiotics to prevent infections from the open wounds inflicted by their terrible environment, etc. I'd take cells grown in a vat over dead animals everyday.
This is such a stupid line, it makes me wonder if this article just wasn't paid for by a meat industry lobby. Meat industry who we know for a fact is already putting a lot of energy into fighting alternatives, like impossible meat.
Because, as the arcticle states, the author comes from the position of whether to eat meat at all, so no meat vs. lab meat, not lab meat vs. slaughterhouse meat, as you imply.
it is sad how the lobbying of old evil industries like tobacco and animal-killing can convince the politicians and the public to outlaw and demonize their less-evil competition like vaping and lab-grown meat to make sure to hold on to the status quo.
but why write more than 7000 words to communicate a simple point (lab-grown meat was promised 1-2 decades ago but failed to arrive and won't arrive in the foreseeable future)?
It doesn't seem like there's this finished product ready to go that's just cost-prohibitive because of malicious regulation.
So at this point it's not even clear that anyone is actually losing their grip on the status quo...
Is it just pure lobbying or perhaps also consumer preference? Because there’s plenty of money to be made across the entire agriculture and food and production spectrum in the processing of the goop that goes into these types of products. I think a lot of people honestly would rather eat a real vegetarian diet (Indian, etc) than the ultra processed soy beans and various chemical binders wearing a meat Halloween costume.
> the ultra processed soy beans and various chemical binders wearing a meat Halloween costume.
This reads like propaganda. Take tofurkey for example, it's just seitan and tofu and the same "chemical binders" you'll see in every other product in the freezer aisle.
And tofu is only as "ultra-processed" as cheese or bread is.
Yeah, tofu is not even in the same class as the synthetic burgers. Take a second and go read their ingredient lists. I’m gonna go with the Indian or falafel meal, which happens to be delicious. Which I think is the choice consumers are making.
I dont think people who would consider a full vegetarian/vegan diet without supplementary products that look like "meat" are the target consumer base for these products. The money is in a consumer base that does not want to fully commit to a certain diet, know that the meat industry is bad for the planet and is unsure on how to go about it.
Personally I'd rather eat highly processed soy beans over parts of a dead animal.
Not that simple, about 5% of the world population has G6PD deficiency and can get sick or die from a diet based on many kind of beans.
I would consider a vegetarian diet, but I can't eat lentils, hummus and beans every day without getting sick (ant my case is quite mild)
So they could just buy supplements and other vegetables?
"Just" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Eating is something one does several times a day every day of their lives. It must be done regardless of how broke or in how much of a hurry you are. I applaud anyone who chooses to add this stress to their daily lives voluntarily till the end of their days, but I'm not going to demonize someone for choosing to reject the time-intensive thing in favor of an alternative that's completely normal, cheaper, and faster.
I wouldn't have an issue with consuming meat if people wouldn't neglect how wrong the state of the industry is at scale. Eating meat might have been normal throughout humanity, but the industry scale meat production is everything but normal. Its ruining peoples health, normalizes the atrocities happening in farms on a daily basis and generally treats animals horribly. If you eat meat at least do it with a consciousness.
you've never purchased something, then had someone question that purchase? the reflex to defend yourself, even knowing an action is morally wrong, is very strong, and we need to find a better way to help these people divest without losing "face"
We need to raise people to stop blaming others and just accept responsibility for our actions.
Plenty of folks can take criticism.
> less-evil competition like vaping
You mean the e-waste generating companies that actively target children with their highly addictive products?
I'm a bit surprised that we got disembodied intelligence before we got deathless meat. If you'd told me in the year 2000 that one of these would happen, I'd have put my money on the meat.
Hardware is harder than software.
But "disembodied" intelligence is also built on top of massive amounts of hardware advances and infrastructure investment.
Right, but photoengraving is hardware at its easiest—which is not to say that it's easy at the level the industry has now taken it to.
Because there is much less demand for deathless meat. Milk + eggs + legumes are good enough for many vegetarians. They're even cheaper than real meat in most places. On the other hand, human intelligence, by definition, can't be affordable for someone on a middle income.
Also we still don't really know what we mean by intelligence, even though we've now invented a version of it. You'd have thought that question would need some more investigation before we could build it, but here we are.
Lol milk is not deathless in the least.
This is a great example of how the propaganda is working.
I had long given up on lab-grown meat. It started feeling like fusion, always around the corner, but never there (or at least not in an affordable way).
What replaced almost all ground beef (except in burgers) for me, was Jackfruit. More specifically, the combination 90% pea protein, 10% jackfruit. Granules that can be rehydrated with boiling water in 2 minutes, price competitive with discounter mince, no extra ingredients, no high carb count. It has a good texture and tastes mostly like whatever you season it with.
For me I eat similar thing from eatplanted.com, when they have discounts, otherwise it's still too expensive, but if price was lower I'd eat it all the time, it's that delicious.
Planted has the issues most meat replacements have, a lot of ingredients, and a higher carb count. Not an issue for everyone, but it is for me.
Planted: 10 ingredients, 5.6g/100g carbs in the finished product
Pea/Jackfruit granules: 2 ingredients, 1.9g/100g carbs in the dry product (so roughly 0.8g/100g in the finished product)
You should specify an example of what you're talking about maybe? I see a lotao brand jackfruit 'mince' - not sure there's a US equivalent with those macro characteristics.
Lotao is the one I use, DM has a house-brand with the same percentages. I thought the US would have something similar, but at least ChatGPT didn’t find anything.
Would it make the meat industry more ethical if happy drugs were made available to animals? If I had to choose between a meaningful (even if I didn’t know it when living), blissful unnatural life and none at all, I’d choose the former.
It’s the negative affect and suffering (stress, pain, boredom etc) that is the bad part of eating animals.
(I think— I know others have thought more than I on this topic)
It just seems like an easier tech solution might be promising
What I find interesting about this whole discourse is that the lived experience of animals matters to people. At all.
Just a hundred, two hundred years ago we made the Elephant rifle, because a normal gun couldn't bring it down, but it was a fun sport to go out and kill just for the heck of it. No one cared about the animals.
It seems like we are living in an age of suicidal empathy and I'm not sure how we got here.
You're mistaken that nobody cared about animals.
Throughout history there have always been people who were vegan or plant based who cared about animals.
We live in a society which has traditionally silenced those voices. The USA, especially, screams about how killing and stealing is a righteous/earned right. Not exercising that right is leaving much on the table. Americans gotta keep up with the Joneses, and that historically included excess cruelty to animals(this includes "savage" people like blacks and browns).
Lots of religious groups advocate for less animal cruelty and consumption.
The problem is that the happy drugs will, in some detectable concentrations, end up in meat.
(A smaller problem is that humans will start using the drugs if the distribution is not tightly controlled.)
I too could, theoretically be thrilled to be drugged to the gills when I'm killed. I however, can consent. Animals cannot. But we know that animals can think. Regardless of debating the ethics of consuming them, this adds an additional ethical quagmire of is it ethically sound to drug non-consenting, thinking species.
Ha yes the blissful experience of drug addiction
solve the land use problem for growing cattle feed if you want it to be maximally ethical.
Not really. Similar to giving drugs to lower class people so they can bear the unbearable life. For an indiviual, sure, life probably feels better in a narrow sense, but is it more ethical? No.
Turns out that nature is a lot more efficient at producing meat; I don’t think this will change for a while, if ever.
Bugs for chickens, grasses/grains for cattle and omnivorous pigs are their own kind of bio-reactor…
Calling meat production "efficient" is hilarious.
Its literally the least efficient way of producing calories when we factor in all the costs, especially to the environment and health.
The entire point of meat in 2026(since industrialization of meat) is excess and waste. Its a rich people food that was introduced to the masses to make a profit.
Why eat meat at all is the big question? Impossible and Beyond satisfy the taste and craving without the nastiness.
Interesting, the question for me is why eat ultra-processed meat simulacra, that don't taste particularly nice, like impossible and beyond burgers? It is possible to home cook far healthier and more delicious veggie burgers with seitan, mushrooms, lentils, etcetera. Ultimately, this whole meat substitute market is targeting a niche that doesn't exist at anything like the scale envisioned, because it competes with low cost meat on the one hand and low cost plant-based burgers on the other, and is worse than both on all relevant metrics.
They really don't.
Like, they're close enough for a vegetarian/vegan to get something that reminds them of the taste, but for a frequent meat eater it's not even close sadly. I keep trying from time to time.
As for why, it's much easier to replace the product than it is to replace the need.
These statements remind me of fitness influencer's showcasing their healthy brownies which "totally taste like the real thing".
I never understood exactly who is the target audience.
If I were a vegan/vegetarian for ethical or religious reasons I don’t think I would want food that reminds me of meat.
As an occasional meat eater that also enjoys the many natural options for plant-based protein, why would I want something that replicates taste/texture of something I can already eat?
I am a meat lover that understands that eating real meat is way too large a drain on our planet's resources.
To me, the progress vegan meat has made is an absolute godsend.
I used to eagerly anticipate the lab-grown meat revolution, but with the quality of current vegan alternatives, it just seems no longer necessary.
Vegetarian for 10+ years. Love the odd impossible burger, otherwise I don’t miss meat or fish at all - the thought doesn’t enter my mind
Costs more, tastes worse and is ultra-processed.
Those are pretty good in their own right, but they really aren’t much like meat in my opinion. They’re similar, but they are quite obviously not meat within the first few bites.
What about the health nastiness that comes along with ultra processed food? Why not just go full blown veggie or vegan? Theres some amazing recipes out there that are healthy as well.
People have fetishized animals so much that creating synthetic goop in the form of flesh somehow got billions in founding. Omnivores eat meat, even herbivores do it sometimes, get over it.
It’s not the meat eating that’s the problem. It’s the industrial farming that we’ve instituted in the last 75 years.
Cows can be treated nicely, given a field to romp in, fun toys, and then euthanized quickly without causing them fear.
But that means leaving wide open space that’s not making the shareholders enough extra money and therefore we don’t do it. Instead, we torture them.
It also destroys that land and the environment.
The land we use for ranching isn't empty or useless. That's just what resource extractors always say.
Eh, I eat meat almost daily (chicken breast) and I'm fully aware of what entails the butchering of animals. Even had a pet rabbit at my grandfather's when I was a kid, that one day disappeared and the next day we ate rabbit meat. Just like when I cleaned up the squirrel that was torn in half by my cats, I see it all as a part of life.
Doesn't mean that I wouldn't prefer if it all came from grown meat, rather than the entire industry that we have now. If the taste, texture and looks are the same, why shouldn't we switch (if those 3 factors are the only important ones)?
Because every second super processed food is reveled to be carcinogenic or harmful in the long term, why would you take the risk if there is a good alternative? Btw I am also against industrial scale animal farms, those are problematic too, not from a morale but health perspective.
To a large extent it's probably explainable through meat industry lobbyism and shadow campaigns over the years.
I was hoping for Deathless Meat [1] Looks like this does not happen anytime soon.
[1] see https://www.daniel-suarez.com/changeagentsynopsis.html
(This reminded me why I stopped reading magazines: they have low information density. They are more creative writing, journaling rather than terse and factual)
My take away on the answer to the headline question is:
Currently the lab grown meat is too expensive and not good tasting enough to compete with real meat and plant based alternatives exist so - not it’s time yet.
I eat meat and like it, but I also feel kind of sorry for cows, sheep, pigs, chickens etc.
I was initially positive about lab grown meat, but then you realise that Kraft Foods or someone will get hold of it and turn it into the most unhealthy slop you could imagine.
I think like you, but they have managed to turned non-lab grown meat into unhealthy slop, too.
There are plenty of things to dislike about beef, but the hunks of it found at the meat counter are one of most unaltered, natural state food items in the store. The sea salt wins that competition but not much else does. Compared to broccoli or an apple, even feed lot beef is pristine. The nutrient difference between an ancient auroch and a modern steer is mostly the proportion of fat.
Fair. You do need to pick your sources carefully.
There might not be much of a market for it. Vegetarians and vegans are used to industrially processed protein substitutes but most of them don't really want meat and its flavor. In contrast, many non-vegetarians want natural high-quality products from real animals, they don't want to eat industrially processed lab meat. A market would have been low-cost ultra-processed meat products but for that it seems that lab grown meat is too expensive.
This can still change though, if the products of animal farming were to become more expensive and with higher mandatory quality standards, as they in my opinion should be.