For the record, the CPC disagrees with you and their body consists of thousands of engineers and historically cares a lot about food production. Though they are focusing on different meat products, namely eggs and pig skin. Eggs imo are far more likely to succeed here in the near future based on the research I've read in China. I remember researching how much funding this is getting in each country and China was funding this research on a scale of 10-1 over the West.
I’m open to being proven wrong but I just don’t think it’s viable. It’s not as simple as throwing a few cells in a bioreactor.
To make this commercially viable you would have to develop a very efficient supply chain to produce all the complex nutrients and hormones necessary to grown animal tissues in vitro. You would have to do this without relying on the byproducts of animal agriculture as is currently the case. Most of the research I’ve read kind of hand waves away that issue.
Next, you have to culture animal tissues at an industrial scale. This is the challenge some researchers are trying to address. I think this may be possible but it’s unlikely to be very efficient. You still need to “feed” your cells over a long period of time as muscle tissue does not grow quickly, even when stimulated with hormones.
Lastly, if you somehow find solutions to all those problems I think it’s unlikely you’ll have a product that closely imitates the taste an texture of meat. Animal tissues are complex. They contain a variety of cell types and extra cellular proteins that no attempt at lab grown meat has come close to replicating. I think it’s next to impossible for them to get cells to grow into a complex tissue like they would in vivo. So instead you’ll be left trying to cobble together a cell based mush full of antibiotics and growth hormones into something that looks edible.
The alternative is just using plant protein as a basis for meat alternatives. That’s something the CPC is also supporting. Personally I’m already pretty impressed by what’s available now. Improving it to a point where people will be comfortable giving up meat seems much more viable in my opinion than lab grown meat.
I'm not saying that this is ready to ship in the most ethical fashion tomorrow, but it does have the capacity to be far more ethical than current meat production soon (and by Chinese estimates, they are discussing the magic year of 2030 for mass egg production). I'm a big fan of plant based meat products too, but some of those can be very unhealthy to eat, especially for people with strict diets (low fodmap) where meat is easier to digest.
For the record, the CPC disagrees with you and their body consists of thousands of engineers and historically cares a lot about food production. Though they are focusing on different meat products, namely eggs and pig skin. Eggs imo are far more likely to succeed here in the near future based on the research I've read in China. I remember researching how much funding this is getting in each country and China was funding this research on a scale of 10-1 over the West.
I’m open to being proven wrong but I just don’t think it’s viable. It’s not as simple as throwing a few cells in a bioreactor.
To make this commercially viable you would have to develop a very efficient supply chain to produce all the complex nutrients and hormones necessary to grown animal tissues in vitro. You would have to do this without relying on the byproducts of animal agriculture as is currently the case. Most of the research I’ve read kind of hand waves away that issue.
Next, you have to culture animal tissues at an industrial scale. This is the challenge some researchers are trying to address. I think this may be possible but it’s unlikely to be very efficient. You still need to “feed” your cells over a long period of time as muscle tissue does not grow quickly, even when stimulated with hormones.
Lastly, if you somehow find solutions to all those problems I think it’s unlikely you’ll have a product that closely imitates the taste an texture of meat. Animal tissues are complex. They contain a variety of cell types and extra cellular proteins that no attempt at lab grown meat has come close to replicating. I think it’s next to impossible for them to get cells to grow into a complex tissue like they would in vivo. So instead you’ll be left trying to cobble together a cell based mush full of antibiotics and growth hormones into something that looks edible.
The alternative is just using plant protein as a basis for meat alternatives. That’s something the CPC is also supporting. Personally I’m already pretty impressed by what’s available now. Improving it to a point where people will be comfortable giving up meat seems much more viable in my opinion than lab grown meat.
I'm not saying that this is ready to ship in the most ethical fashion tomorrow, but it does have the capacity to be far more ethical than current meat production soon (and by Chinese estimates, they are discussing the magic year of 2030 for mass egg production). I'm a big fan of plant based meat products too, but some of those can be very unhealthy to eat, especially for people with strict diets (low fodmap) where meat is easier to digest.