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"Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 28, 2013, 3:14 pm
by Asheran Mojomaster
"In 2011, several articles sprouted up about in vitro meat, which is created from meat tissue grown in a lab. While this "frankenfood" might make some consumers uneasy, groups like PETA are in support.

After several years of development, the in vitro hamburger is nearly ready for its public debut. A recent New York Times article explores the potential impact of this test tube burger, created with 20,000 thin strips of cultured muscle tissue. While the potential for the burger's influence on the food system might be far-reaching, it isn't exactly coming to a plate near you -- yet:

But the meat is produced with materials — including fetal calf serum, used as a medium in which to grow the cells — that eventually would have to be replaced by similar materials of non-animal origin. And the burger was created at phenomenal cost — 250,000 euros, or about $325,000, provided by a donor who so far has remained anonymous. Large-scale manufacturing of cultured meat that could sit side by side with conventional meat in a supermarket and compete with it in price is at the very least a long way off.

The video above explains some of the potential benefits of this pricey lab creation. In vitro meat could reduce greenhouse gasses and free up land traditionally used for mass-scale farming. The video also claims that once the burger becomes cheap enough, it could also be used to reduce hunger and famine.

But before that happens, there are several other immediate concerns to figure out, such as public acceptance of eating meat that isn't exactly raised on a farm."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/1 ... 73893.html

It is still a while off, but I've read a few other articles about this, and the final idea is to grow meat without needing any components from animals at all.

If meat is grown in a lab, and no animal has to be touched to create it, then I wonder if most vegans will begin eating it. It is expensive now, but eventually it should make meat much cheaper and environmentally friendly. Natural meat production only yields about 10% of the energy put into it. Something like this could potentially push that up to 50%+ efficiency.

I expect someone to combine the ideas for this with 3D printing, and work toward printing our meat from basic materials.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 5:50 am
by Spang
The title of this thread should read: "Soon" omnis will have no excuse!

When this in vitro meat becomes an affordable reality at grocery stores and restaurants, you people should all be ovo-lacto vegetarians, at the very least.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 11:38 am
by Bubba Grizz
fuck that. By the time this gets to be affordable and once the stigma attached to the thought of it is gone, I'll either be dead already or won't have any teeth to chew it with. Until then I'll continue to grill up burgers, brats, and steaks.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 1:10 pm
by Leonaerd
In vitro meat could reduce greenhouse gasses and free up land traditionally used for mass-scale farming. The video also claims that once the burger becomes cheap enough, it could also be used to reduce hunger and famine.
Cool.
there are several other immediate concerns to figure out, such as public acceptance of eating meat that isn't exactly raised on a farm.
Meh. Either were Twinkies.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 1:35 pm
by Aslanna
Leonaerd wrote:
there are several other immediate concerns to figure out, such as public acceptance of eating meat that isn't exactly raised on a farm.
Meh. Either were Twinkies.
Twinkies weren't meat. I think.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 1:45 pm
by Spang
One of the ingredients in a Twinkie is beef fat.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 2:42 pm
by Leonaerd
My point was that murcans don't give a shit about whether or not food is natural. Look at the inside of a chicken mcnugget some time.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 3:23 pm
by Aslanna
Spang wrote:One of the ingredients in a Twinkie is beef fat.
That doesn't make them "meat' any more than gelatin makes Jell-O meat. Thanks for playing!

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 3:27 pm
by Spang
I never said Twinkies were meat. Also, gelatin is made from animals.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 4:48 pm
by Aslanna
Spang wrote:I never said Twinkies were meat. Also, gelatin is made from animals.
Uh.. No shit? I am 100% aware of where gelatin comes from. That was the whole point of my analogous statement. For someone who supposedly went to college you're kind of dumb sometimes when it comes to basic things like reading comprehension.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 6:08 pm
by Tyek
Spang wrote:The title of this thread should read: "Soon" omnis will have no excuse!

When this in vitro meat becomes an affordable reality at grocery stores and restaurants, you people should all be ovo-lacto vegetarians, at the very least.
Did you move even further into the Vegan lifestyle? Just curious.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 29, 2013, 7:13 pm
by Spang
Tyek wrote:Did you move even further into the Vegan lifestyle? Just curious.
I've gone from not eating animals, to not wearing animals, to not sitting in things made of animals, to not buying products tested on animals. So, yes?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 30, 2013, 11:49 am
by Leonaerd
Spang wrote:to not sitting in things made of animals
If you sneezed on a living animal and it got a cold, would you have to kill yourself?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 30, 2013, 1:41 pm
by Spang
According to the Vegan Handbook, 6th Ed.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 30, 2013, 2:10 pm
by Leonaerd
"Now with 50% more indoctrination."

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 31, 2013, 12:43 pm
by Chidoro

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 31, 2013, 12:50 pm
by Bubba Grizz
HAHAHAHAHAHAH

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: May 31, 2013, 12:53 pm
by Leonaerd
I really never thought I'd say this, but that youtube link has some good comments.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 5:37 am
by masteen
As long as it tastes good, i don't really care how my bacon is grown.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 1:44 pm
by Asheran Mojomaster
As soon as this stuff is ready for public consumption, and is the same price/cheaper than traditionally grown meat, I will likely switch to it 100%.

While I have no morale problem with eating meat, it would definitely be a big step forward for humans if we were no longer dependent on animals for our food.

We just need to find a way to get away from our dependence on specific plants as well! 3D printing with generic plant materials please!

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 2:18 pm
by Spang
Asheran Mojomaster wrote:...it would definitely be a big step forward for humans if we were no longer dependent on animals for our food.
Yes, if only there were already other foods out there with essential vitamins and minerals and protein that humans could eat. If only that were already true, we could lose our dependency on eating animals.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 3:08 pm
by Winnow
What's wrong with eating animals?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 3:20 pm
by Hesten
Yep, let's get home grown stuff, no need to murder chickens any more.....but someone better start a "family planning" thing for chickens or they will outnumber us a few years unless we eat their offspring :)

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 3:46 pm
by Spang

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 4:19 pm
by Winnow
Best short story about a population that only ate algae:

Larry Niven, Known Space, Bordered in Black:
[Show]
A hundred yards offshore, the Overcee floated nose up. Even seen from the airlock, the natives were obviously human. The telescope screen brought more detail.
They were no terrestrial race. Nine feet tall, men and women both, with wavy black hair growing from the eyebrows back to halfway down the spine, hanging almost to the knees. Their skins were dark, as dark as the darkest Negro, but they had chisel noses and long heads and small, thin-lipped mouths.
They paid no attention to the ship. They stood or sat or lay where they were, men and women and children jammed literally shoulder to shoulder. Most of the seaside population was grouped in large rings with men on the outside and women and children protected inside.
"All around the continent," said Wall.
Carv could no more have answered than he could have taken his eyes off the scope screen.
Every few minutes there was a seething in the mass as some group that was too far back pulled forward to reach the shore, the food supply. The mass pushed back. On the fringes of the circles there were bloody fights, slow fights in which there were apparently no rules at all.
"How?" said Carv. "How?"
Wall said, "Maybe a ship crashed. Maybe there was a caretaker's family here, and nobody ever came to pick them up. They must be the farmer's children, Carv."
"How long have they been here?"
"Thousands of years at least. Maybe tens or hundreds of thousands." Wall turned his empty eyes away from the screen. He swiveled his couch so he was looking at the back wall of the cabin. His dreary words flowed out into the cabin.
"Picture it, Carv. Nothing in the world but an ocean of algae and a few people. Then a few hundred people, then hundreds of thousands. They'd never have been allowed near here unless they'd had the bacteria cleaned out of them-- to keep the algae from being contaminated. Nothing to make tools out of, nothing but rock and bone. No way of smelting ores, because they wouldn't even have fire. There's nothing to burn. They had no diseases, no contraceptives, and no recreation but breeding. The population would have exploded like a bomb. Because nobody would starve to death, Carv. For thousands of years nobody would starve on Sirius B-IV."
"They're starving now."
"Some of them. The ones that can't reach the shore." Wall turned back to the scope screen. "One continual war," he said after awhile. "I'll bet their height comes from natural selection."
Carv hadn't moved for a long time. He had noticed that there were always a few men inside each protective circle, and that there were always men outside going inside and men inside going outside. Breeding more people to guard each circle. More people for Sirius B-IV.
The shore was a seething blackness. In infrared light it would have shown brightly, at a temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.
"Let's go home," said Wall.
"Okay."
***
"And did you?"
"No."
"In God's name, why not?"
"We couldn't. We had to see it all, Turnbull. I don't understand it, but we did, both of us. So I took the ship up and dropped it a kilometer inshore, and we got out and started walking toward the sea.
"Right away, we started finding skeletons. Some were clean. A lot of them looked like Egyptian mummies, skeletons with black dried skin stretched tight over the bones. Always there was a continuous low rustle of-- well, I guess it was conversation. From the beach. I don't know what they could have had to talk about.
"The skeletons got thicker as we went along. Some of them had daggers of splintered bone. One had a chipped stone fist ax. You see, Turnbull, they were intelligent. They could make tools, if they could find anything to make tools out of.
"After we'd been walking awhile we saw that some of the skeletons were alive. Dying and drying under that overcast blue sky. I'd thought that sky was pretty once. Now it was-- horrible. You could see a shifting blue beam spear down on the sand and sweep across it like a spotlight until it picked out a mummy. Sometimes the mummy would turn over and cover its eyes.
"Wall's face was livid, like a dead man's. I knew it wasn't just the light. We'd been walking about five minutes, and the dead and living skeletons were all around us. The live ones all stared at us, apathetically, but still staring, as if we were the only things in the world worth looking at. If they had anything to wonder with, they must have been wondering what it was that could move and still not be human. We couldn't have looked human to them. We had shoes and coveralls on, and we were too small.
"Wall said, 'I've been wondering about the clean skeletons. There shouldn't be any decay bacteria here.'"
"I didn't answer. I was thinking how much this looked like a combination of Hell and Belsen. The only thing that might have made it tolerable was the surrealistic blue lighting. We couldn't really believe what we were seeing.
"'There weren't enough fats in the algae,' said Wall. 'There was enough of everything else, but no fats.'"
"We were closer to the beach now. And some of the mummies were beginning to stir. I watched a pair behind a dune who looked like they were trying to kill each other, and then suddenly I realized what Wall had said.
"I took his arm and turned to go back. Some of the long skeletons were trying to get up. I knew what they were thinking. There may be meat in those limp coverings. Wet meat, with water in it. There just may. I pulled at Wall and started to run.
"He couldn't run. He tried to pull loose. I had to leave him. They couldn't catch me, they were too starved, and I was jumping like a grasshopper. But they got Wall, all right. I heard his destruct capsule go off. Just a muffled pop."
"So you came home."
"Uh huh." Rappaport looked up like a man waking from a nightmare. "It took seven months. All alone."
"Any idea why Wall killed himself?"
"You crazy? He didn't want to get eaten."
"Then why wouldn't he run?"
"It wasn't that he wanted to kill himself, Turnbull. He just decided it wasn't worthwhile saving himself. Another six months in the Overcee, with the blind spots pulling at his eyes and that nightmare of a world constantly on his mind-- it wasn't worth it."
"I'll bet the Overcee was a pigpen before you blew it up."

Rappaport flushed. "What's that to you?"
"You didn't think it was worthwhile either. When a Belter stops being neat it's because he wants to die. A dirty ship is deadly. The air plant gets fouled. Things float around loose, ready to knock your brains out when the drive goes on. You forget where you put the meteor patches--"
"All right. I made it, didn't I?"
"And now you think we should give up space."
Rappaport's voice went squeaky with emotion. "Turnbull, aren't you convinced yet? We've got a paradise here, and you want to leave it for-- that. Why? Why?"
"To build other paradises, maybe. Ours didn't happen by accident. Our ancestors did it all, starting with not much more than what was on Sirius B-IV."
"They had a helluva lot more." A faint slurring told that the bourbon was finally getting to Rappaport.
"Maybe they did at that. But now there's a better reason. These people you left on the beach. They need our help. And with a new Overcee, we can give it to them. What do they need most, Carver? Trees or meat animals?"
"Animals." Rappaport shuddered and drank.
"Well-- that could be argued. But pass it. First we'll have to make soil." Turnbull leaned back in his chair, face upturned, talking half to himself. "Algae mixed with crushed rock. Bacteria to break the rock down. Earthworms. Then grass..."
"Got it all planned out, do you? And you'll talk the UN into it, too. Turnbull, you're good. But you've missed something."
"Better tell me now then."
Rappaport got carefully to his feet. He came over to the desk, just a little unsteadily, and leaned on it so that he stared down into Turnbull's eyes from a foot away. "You've been assuming that those people on the beach really were the farmer's race. That Sirius B-IV has been deserted for a long, long time. But what if some kind of carnivore seeded that planet? Then what? The algae wouldn't be for them. They'd let the algae grow, plant food animals, then go away until the animals were jammed shoulder to shoulder along the coast. Food animals! You understand, Turnbull?"
"Yes. I hadn't thought of that. And they'd breed them for size..."
The room was deadly quiet.
"Well?"
"Well, we'll simply have to take that chance, won't we?"
And that's what will happen in Spang's utopian all veggie world!

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 7:26 pm
by Zaelath
Spang wrote:
Asheran Mojomaster wrote:...it would definitely be a big step forward for humans if we were no longer dependent on animals for our food.
Yes, if only there were already other foods out there with essential vitamins and minerals and protein that humans could eat. If only that were already true, we could lose our dependency on eating animals.
You know how when the Mormons knock on your door and attempt to convert you and you think "What a fucking waste of time?"

Yeah, that.

Just because you're a late convert wierdo doesn't mean that you can convert anyone here, if you were going to you would have. Now you're even worse than the fucking Mormons because you're knocking on the same fucking door every week.

Are you mental?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 7:33 pm
by Spang
Zaelath wrote:You know how when the Mormons knock on your door and attempt to convert you and you think "What a fucking waste of time?"
I'm not going door-to-door with this stuff.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 2, 2013, 8:38 pm
by Aslanna
Haven't we went over all this in that in the other thread? Ah well at least it's somewhat entertaining.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 18, 2013, 3:44 am
by Asheran Mojomaster
Spang wrote:
Asheran Mojomaster wrote:...it would definitely be a big step forward for humans if we were no longer dependent on animals for our food.
Yes, if only there were already other foods out there with essential vitamins and minerals and protein that humans could eat. If only that were already true, we could lose our dependency on eating animals.
But I like meat :D . Like I said, I have no morale objections to eating meat, and I feel sorry for those that have hang ups like that.

Yeah, if we could produce meat without them, that would be nice. More land for other uses, less waste, and lower risk of some random disease wiping out tons of the food we need.

Until then, I'll take a nice bloody steak any time I can.

It would be nice if we could get away from the need to use plants for food too. If we could design a process to produce complex foods from basic materials more efficiently than plants, that would be great!

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 18, 2013, 8:41 am
by Aabidano
Aslanna wrote:Haven't we went over all this in that in the other thread? Ah well at least it's somewhat entertaining.
It was, has since descended into simply annoying.

Wonder if this test tube meat will have the vitamins we can't synthesize ourselves? Actual ones, not lab created which frequently while being "there" aren't usable by the body. If they aren't there's no benefit. Might as well be eating Olestra.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 18, 2013, 12:35 pm
by Spang
Yes, hopefully this lab loaf has all of those essential vitamins that can only be found in dead animals.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 19, 2013, 8:38 pm
by Leonaerd
Aabidano wrote: Wonder if this test tube meat will have the vitamins we can't synthesize ourselves? Actual ones, not lab created which frequently while being "there" aren't usable by the body. If they aren't there's no benefit. Might as well be eating Olestra.
The broscientist in me imagines these being vitamin powerhouses. The closer to stem cell, the better for you, right?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 25, 2013, 6:42 pm
by Zaelath
http://news.yahoo.com/vegan-sellout-lis ... 00340.html

Just in case you were thinking of back-sliding, shit be noted.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 25, 2013, 7:45 pm
by Aslanna
One more reason to not even bother in the first place.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 1:20 am
by Spang
It's not really a bother being vegan. If you know how to cook food and eat it, you can probably go vegan quite effortlessly.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 8:25 am
by Aabidano
But how to avoid that holier than thou "I'm a vegan" syndrome and the cloud of smug that nearly always develops right afterwards?

Wonder if there's a supplement to take care of that? Pine nut enemas maybe?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 10:05 am
by Bubba Grizz
Careful not to lose your super powers ala Scott Pilgrim vs The World!

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 11:01 am
by Winnow
I had a nice prime rib dinner last weekend at a restaurant. I purposely tried to fill my head with images of a slaughterhouse while I ate it but it did no good. I kept on enjoying my meal.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 2:05 pm
by Spang
Aabidano wrote:But how to avoid that holier than thou "I'm a vegan" syndrome and the cloud of smug that nearly always develops right afterwards?
If challenging the bullshit that you people spew is holier than thou "I'm a vegan" syndrome, then I guess one would need to ignore said bullshit.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 2:54 pm
by Boogahz
You're the dumbass that claimed that photosynthesis is man-made all on your own

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 2:57 pm
by Spang
I claimed no such thing.

Also, it's who claimed, not that claimed, dumbass.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 3:53 pm
by Leonaerd
Spang wrote:I claimed no such thing.

Also, it's who claimed, not that claimed, dumbass.
What is who claimed, Spang?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 26, 2013, 8:05 pm
by Winnow
Is you is, or is you isn't a vegan?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 27, 2013, 1:53 pm
by Spang

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 27, 2013, 2:57 pm
by Chidoro
yeah, that mental midget is right up your alley

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 27, 2013, 7:33 pm
by Spang
Says the guy who thinks eating meat is macho.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 27, 2013, 8:01 pm
by Aslanna
So women who eat meat are trying to be macho?

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 27, 2013, 8:09 pm
by Aabidano

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 27, 2013, 9:04 pm
by Spang
Aslanna wrote:So women who eat meat are trying to be macho?
You'll have to ask the neanderthals who think eating meat is macho.

Re: "Soon" vegans will have no excuse!

Posted: June 27, 2013, 9:46 pm
by Dakanaf
If we weren't supposed to eat meat then it shouldn't be made out of food. Animals eat plants and other animals, we happen to be able to digest both. No one has a problem if you choose to not eat meat. They have a problem with you being a preachy douche bag about it.