I once got in a really weird argument with a redditor who I simply suggested to that cultured meats will likely never scale up. I was so fascinated with how anxious the redditor seemed as they accused me of being a big Ag shill, then a VEGAN, then a Luddite who was try to dissuade the public. That the only problem is public perception.
I didn't even say it was going to be unhealthy if though it is going to be goo used to make burgers and chicken nuggets. I just said it's not going to happen because the laws of physics as detailed in a really good article below. And if anybody was insane enough to put billions into the kind of facilities you would need to mass produce this food then you are talking about $17 chicken nuggets that wouldn't even be vegan.
https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/
Not only that but the significant energy required for the clean room environments to grow these cells could make it even more carbon intensive then even beef agriculture.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2019.00005/full
They just started babbling that people's insane demand for meat dictates no other solution can be found. But people increasingly don't want slop like burgers or nuggets, carnivores want their steak medium done rare and basic bitch rack of lamb on easter. Why does the customer always have to be right? So what people want meat, they also want sport cars and mcmansions. People are shits and giving a select minority of them almost everything they could want is destroying this planet.
The primary societal function appears to be giving omnis another excuse to avoid veganism. Lab meat is just around the corner, I'll just wait for that!
It's not really related and fuck cars but I remember how one redditor lecture me how biodiesel is better then electric cars. I asked if they figured out the land use or nitrogen input problem and the redditor was like "oh just vertical agriculture and GMO crops". It really bothers me how some people don't actually try to understand how these things work and resort to magically thinking that CRISPR or Musk's new battery will solve everything.
Ah yes vertical farms, the farms only capable of growing salad greens and basil at scale. You’ll have to replace the sun with fusion before this shit becomes viable for a biodiesel feedstock at which point why aren’t you JUST POWERING YOUR CAR WITH THAT?!??!
Never understood why you need cultured meat for a burger patty. You're already drowning the patty in sauce and wrap it in a thick layer of salad and bread, i doubt anybody could tell the difference between meat, cultured meat and the more widespread meat substitutes in a blind test if we're talking about an actual burger instead of just the pure patty.
Not to mention that a jackfruit, grünkern or black bean patty tastes better than any of these to begin with. There's excellent vegan nuggets and fishsticks out there, too. For all the fast food stuff, there's already zero need to eat corpse parts.
A good ol' black bean burger is always so much better than one of those patties that tries to pretend to be meat.
on the same note, I wish they'd stop with like the "cashew cheese" and shit. it looks and sounds gross. it's ok to say it's a friggin cashew sauce or cashew butter (like peanut butter, not like butter) or whatever.
Haha yeah, I feel like there's a lot that doesn't need to try so hard to be like "hey look we eat meat too!!"
are black bean burger a thing that predates the beyond meat craze? Because ive been avoiding it for that reason.
personally I prefer veggie/mushroom burgers to black bean burgers. beans are good but they should be eaten slowly, not scarfed down
I tend to think of veggie burgers as "black bean burgers", but maybe I'm mixing up two different things? My favorite burgers usually have corn, beans, some peppers, and other veggies, shaped into a patty/fritter.
Dont know why anyone would want an imitation black bean burger, especially if it has to be made of animal parts. I'll stick to the real thing :bean:
There is a reason that all of the lab cultured meats focus almost exclusively on chicken nuggets.
It's because chicken breast is the simplest meat (just pure protein, no fat, no marbling)
And nuggets are a finely ground paste OF that (so any textural details in the chicken breast are even LESS relevant)And EVEN THEN, many people who've tried the lab-grown nuggets say that while it tastes good, there's something texturally off about it.
Watch this timestamp: https://youtu.be/S78YRBqZFik?t=431
They cook down the cell-culture liquid and they're left with the nuggets of chicken protein. You can see the nuggets wobble around a bit. That is not how chicken meat behaves, it's more similar to an egg or tofu.I think that the cells, due to being in static media, don't get the same "work" and "motion" signals that a real animal would get. Think about the chewiest cuts of meat, they're always on the hardest-working muscles (oxtail, shank etc). The tenderest cuts (breast, tenderloin) are on the most static, laziest muscles--but even these muscles get infinitely more stimulation than a petri dish, meaning that lab meat has a "tenderness" that approaches something like an omelette or tofu.
Basically they have a good product that comes CLOSE to simulating chicken nuggets, but they have an INCREDIBLY long way to go before they start simulating whole cuts of meat. Or even ground beef for burgers (where texture is key, and where the lion's share of animal emissions come from--replacing chicken isn't going to do jack for CO2 emissions tbqh)
As of right now, the only animal product that they're simulating perfectly is chicken stock
