Cloned Beef Coming Soon? 529
An anonymous reader writes "According to this article at Popular Science cloned beef may be coming soon. It talks about using meat within 48 hours of slaughter to allow cloning the best possible specimens, something that is not possible to determine while the animal is still alive. Apparently only 1 in 8000 animals is truly the best. Personally I'd love to see us progress to the point where it was possible to grow just the meat itself without the animal. That would end all the ethical issues with raising an animal for food, potential issues from mad cow disease, bird flu and whatever the next media induced panic is."
Tofu? (Score:2, Interesting)
They have that its called Tofu.... honestly I don't see how you could "grow" meat.
Re:Tofu? (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I would love to see us progress to the point where cows are well fed, happy and healthy. The meat will taste better, we'll be healthier and there's less cruelty to the cows. I would never eat meat grown in a lab.
Finally, our own meat. (Score:5, Interesting)
How can growing meat be seen as more repulsive than the murder assembly lines at slaughterhouses?
My more stable-minded vegetarian friends gladly welcome this - as their food choices are equally health and ethics based.
Don't go thinking that all vegitarians hate the taste of beef. That red meat has got some major building blocks in it - and meat is a very good source of the basic building blocks your body needs.
You can think of meat as "pre-fabricated" building materials for your body - since the animal who owned it before you has already done much of the work needed to convert the raw materials into useful proteins.
I love this idea, I would much rather make my own meat than take it from a nice, innocent bovine who happens to be using it at the moment.
And this actually brings up a somewhat...uh, weird question.
If meat is a great building-block food - and certain meats are better for certain things...then might we design the "perfect" meat for human consumption?...if so, and this is the disturbing part, might we actually splice our own DNA into the transgenic mix?
Could this be considered a form of cannibalism?
Ah the future, so fun to turn everything on it's head.
Re:Tofu? (Score:4, Interesting)
Needs good marketing, though (Score:4, Interesting)
Damn Interesting ran an article last year about NASA research into vat-grown meat for long space journeys [damninteresting.com]. It points out that "meat developed in this way is essentially a cultured muscle tumor", and so isn't very appetizing:
I don't think so. (Score:5, Interesting)
Consider that the dangerous bacteria and viruses you're talking about, would only have a single organism to target, and we'd run the risk of a single lucky virus taking out the world's entire meat supply.
Unless of course, they are right, and there is no evolution- and every organism is the same as it was when the planet was summoned into existence over the course of a particularly shady six day run. In which case, we have nothing to fear, because new viruses are not mutating into existance, and we only need to protect this meat from the dangers that exist right now and just wait until all the mad-cow viruses go extinct.
I'm not sure I want to live in either world, so excuse me while I go take a chew on this helpless animal here.
Re:I for one.. (Score:5, Interesting)
vegan (vgn, vjn) n. A vegetarian who eats plant products only, especially one who uses no products derived from animals, as fur or leather.
The dictionary definition doesn't distinguish them, why should we? We have a name for animal rights activists: animal rights activists. You calling someone who doesn't eat meat for diet reasons a "fakeatarian" is elitism, and purposfully insulting. Bad things!!! Just ask Germany. (a leap, I know, but I couldn't think of anything else).
Personally, I have always seen the dietary reasons as some of the best not to eat meat. Eating higher up the food pyramid means it takes more energy to feed you, which is inefficient and a little unfair considering that people starve in this world.
Note: I do eat meat, but that's because I am spoiled and like how it tastes.
Economics will take care of it (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, I happen to be vegetarian, but certainly not for your standard ethical reasons. I'm all for animal experimentation, for example. I just find that our country's meat-heavy diet is expensive and inefficient. We're depleting our fresh water aquifers at a rapid rate, trying to grow feed for our cattle. American's waists are expanding, in part from our high-calorie meat diet.
And, to end on a lighter note, here's a funny little story called They're Made Out of Meat [electricstory.com] that's hysterical.
Re:Economics will take care of it (Score:4, Interesting)
One of the _other_ big benefits of cloned meat would be that, once properly developed, it would consume far less resources to produce than traditional meat on the hoof. You wouldn't have to keep it around for as long before harvesting it, you wouldn't have to waste calories growing body parts that aren't of any nutritional use, and you probably wouldn't even need to waste resources growing grain or grass to feed it. You could grow a lot of it just using recycled organic waste.
Furthermore with sufficient development in the technology you could probably grow healthier cuts of meat with less saturated fat and other bad stuff.
Re:Panic! (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Would you eat vat grown meat?
2. Would you eat vat grown human meat?
3. Would you eat your body's meat grown in a vat?
Re:Tofu? (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I would love to see us progress to the point where cows are well fed, happy and healthy. The meat will taste better, we'll be healthier and there's less cruelty to the cows. I would never eat meat grown in a lab.
Why can't we just breed cows without brains, wouldn't that end all ethical issues.
WE're using the cows? (Score:3, Interesting)
Disaster Awaits (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually Cloning already occurs in cows though it isn't "Old Cell" cloning. It is embryo splitting and has been done for 20 years or more.
In agriculture the holy grail is this genetically perfect item that does only what you want it to do 100% efficiently and every time. There are several serious problems with achieving this. The first is that the production of a genetically identical crop base becomes a 100% threat of pathogens exploiting a weakenss and wiping out 100% of the crop in one fell swat. This is already becoming a serious threat. Then you get into the economic issues.
If you can grow the famous bug free 100% efficient crop (It really doesn't matter what it is) and have it match the market 100% then you have the goal of the farmers. At this point the farmer earns exactly nothing because there is no skill involved, and there is no cost differential to his competitors and such. This has happened to a great extent in Cotton, Corn, Wheat and Soy. With the advent of the perfect Cotton, production rose 5 times per acre and the price dropped by 2/3rds. The result was almost collapse of any profits in farming cotton and all the profits went to the seed companies.
As the "perfect chicken" invaded the chicken houses similar situations happend to the profits in raising chickens. The industry has reached a point of nearly zero profits. If this happens in cattle then the industry will be reduced to having literally no profits for the farmers. They will have achieved the magical world where they don't have to work hard to make the perfect crop and well they will have created themselves out of a job.
Those who don't like this economic reality had best start figuring out a new way to live because this is logically the holy grail of all the economic development types. It really doesn't matter what you do, they are trying to produce this situation. It strikes me of a situation where you are cured of what you suffered from and suffering from the cure.
Don't take this as negative to the proposals, just as a report of conditions. Have fun with what you do with this reality. We are going to see a lot more of it.
Re:Tofu? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ah, one of those people whose eaten some new-agers "tofu cooked in seasame seed oil" dish? If that's the only way you've ever eaten tofu (or soy, call it what you will) than what you've done is the same thing as killing a cow and eating the first bit of meat you can get from it raw. Tofu plays a part in a lot of food stuff that you'd never know in the form of TVP. I (and millions of others) have eaten thigns made with TVP that if you weren't told otherwise, would never guess it was tofu (you'd probably not be able to tell that it wasn't meat, infact). This isn't your grandmothers tofu anymore.
first of all most of us would be way less healthy
Care to back that up with a bit of fact?
given the diet and the number of people we would run into a huge problem cropwise, this would call for another environmental desaster.
If you don't happen to know much about biology let me let you in on a little fact: Meat comes from animals that eats.... CROPS! Yes indeed, billions of acres of grown foodstuff (ie: plant matter) is fed to aminals to produce meat! Wow! This is a big discovery to some, I know, but the bottom line is that by eating the grown plant matter directly you don't have the issues of waste associated with feeding and raising cattle and the like. Why is this a fact that eludes so many "intelligent" people?
Believe me, I've dealt with all these sorry excuses for meat eating. If you don't like being vegetarian that's fine but don't make shit up so that you can feel better about it.
In all honesty, I really don't beat on people for being meat eaters, my earlier comment was meant to be funny more than anything else, but when they make shit up to support their lifestyle it pisses me off.
Bird Flu (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Tofu? (Score:3, Interesting)
Only if you venture out into the wild armed with nothing but a spear and a loincloth, hunt down the animal, and stuff yourself with its still-warm raw flesh at the site of the kill.
So, the spear is natural? And the loincloth? Sounds to me like if you want to cordon off human use of technology (the stinking buildings, the trade with strangers, etc.) then you'd have to take us all the way back to being fruit-eating "gatherers" rather than "hunter-gatherers" that used teamwork, communication, and technology. This means taking us back to before the homonids branched off from the other primates.
I think that's rather silly. What makes the "homo-" family so successful it its natural mental ability to work together and produce technology that allows more efficient expansion. Whether that's a spear, atlatl, wheat (Did you know that for the last 8000 years wheat has been domestic only? That is, it will not grow or spread on its own, and is entirely dependant on humans?), farming, or corporate slaughterhouses, it all seems natural to me.
Re:At least 160 people have died (Score:3, Interesting)
Sorry, but these two statements fundamentally disagree with each other. A non-communicable disease that has killed 160 people is simply not a serious health risk.
Re:At least 160 people have died (Score:3, Interesting)