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."
works for everything! (Score:2, Funny)
Tofu? (Score:2, Interesting)
They have that its called Tofu.... honestly I don't see how you could "grow" meat.
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That would require a lot of genetic engineering... I don't claim to be an expert on such things, but basically you'd have to eliminate the genes that grow everything but the meat. Then you'd have to give it sustenance somehow so it would grow.
Of course, it would still be "alive" before killing it but just as much as plants are.
Stem cells? (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course, I'm not sure that this would produce meat in the conventional sense that we think of it: a bunch of muscle cells in a jar wouldn't taste much like filet mignon, because they wouldn't be formed into those muscular structures, which are then exercised while the animal is alive, have a certain fat content, etc. In short, meat is more than just muscle tissue, it's a part of a particular animal. I have this feeling that the net result of trying to grow meat in jars would be closer to tofu than beef. Maybe it would be acceptable for foods that end up being processed beyond recognition anyway (hamburgers, sausage), but I doubt it would work for beef.
If anyone who's more schooled in biology wants to fill in my misunderstandings, I'd be interested.
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.
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And in response to this cotton, corn, chicken, and possibly soon beef, becomes ubiquitous and cheap for the consumer and a huge majority of the population has a noticable increase in quality of life at the same (inflation adjusted) cost.
Yes, it is very sad that the traditional (highly inefficient) family farm is going away to be replaced by giant corporate mega farms which pay low salaries for what is basically minimally skilled labor. However, the result that I had to find another occupation rather tha
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http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn2066 [newscientist.com]
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.
Re:Tofu? (Score:4, Interesting)
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It doesn't cost much more (Score:2)
I can buy organic beef at my local supermarket for about double the cost of regular beef. There has to be some point between factory farms and organic farms which is still cost effective and can be marketed to the average consumer. We are seeing organic & "air-chilled", "premium" chicken breasts advertised on TV and these are evidently selling very well.
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Wow, you're getting ripped off.
The organic beef at my local supermarket is only about 20% more than the "regular" type. My wife and I picked up two cuts from each type, and were surprised at how much more tender and better tasting the organic beef was. We've only been buying the organic beef ever since.
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And why is it that farmers use those expensive chemicals? Maybe they're idiots? Maybe they own so much stock in Monsanto that they think they can boost their dividends by buying more chemicals? No, it turns out that the chemicals give the farmers more beef per dollar spent (fewer dollars spent per unit of beef, if you prefer). That's why they buy the expensive chemicals. Organic beef does cost more to produce (maybe not double, maybe not more th
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Don't be daft. In Amerika there are no breasts on TV.
Re:Tofu? (Score:4, Funny)
It would probably be more economic to just grow vat people with simple feeding requirements and a finger to push the factory button. That way the upper class could more efficiently use their vast resources to maintain their inefficient, old-fashioned naturally-grown selves
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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.
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Re:Tofu? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
If, on the other hand, you rely on an army of strangers to grow captive animals in large, overcrowded, stinking buildings, feed them massive doses of antibiotics to keep the inevitable disease outbreaks in check, fatten them up with genetically engineered hormones and "interesting" feed materials (including, up until recently, the nastier parts of their deceased compatriots), butcher them on an assembly line, then wrap the results in petroleum-based film to be delivered to local grocery store for you to buy.... then no, that's not very natural at all.
I'm a meat eater myself -- but I don't kid myself about my diet being "natural" in any sense of the word.
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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
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http://angryflower.com/vegeta.gif [angryflower.com]
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Free Waterfall Junior: "No it isn't. We taught a lion to eat tofu."
Lion: *cough* *pause* *cough*
Re:Tofu? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've tasted steak, and I've tasted tofu, and they are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.
honestly I don't see how you could "grow" meat.
I honestly don't see how they can pack a billion transistors onto a chip the size of my thumbnail, but somehow they do it anyway... fortunately human progress is not limited by the scope of any one individual's imagination.
Re:Tofu? (Score:5, Funny)
I prefer imitation tofu (Score:5, Funny)
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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 yo
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Just label it. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think we know enough about the process and long term issues to go nuts with this now. Test it. Test the hell out of it.
But let me choose whether or not to buy it.
Re:This is being done with pigs already (Score:4, Informative)
Vegan advocates love to trot this out in their "fact-sheets", and it's always interesting to see which particular Pimental source they use. It's like they draw it out of a hat or something, because it's always a different citation (same author, same factoid, but worded ever-so-slightly differently). A long while back I tracked down the article it was from (at the time) here [washington.edu]. (pdf) That one is from 1997, I believe. There is also a 2004 [cornell.edu] edition. (another darn pdf)
(from the latter article) [....] [....] [* The previous article put this at 150 to 200 mm per year, a range of 1.5-2 million liters/ha, but also noted that "production is low under such arid conditions"...which only means that fewer head/ha is supported, not that it is a less efficient use, since those "arid conditions" wouldn't support much of anything. Maybe nopalitos.]Now for the quote-mining:
As I recall from my childhood when my grandfather was raising cattle, he never irrigated. And even though he doesn't have cattle anymore, he still grows and cuts hay for his neighbors who do. No irrigation. But it would be rather disingenuous to point out how much water that actually uses vs. how much it would have required to produce a comparable amount of a given crop (assuming it could survive the heat and the depredations of the deer, hogs, rabbits, etc). The water requirement for the former is spread out over a larger area and can be met by limited rainfall with the proper selection of grasses, but for the latter it is not spread out and would most certainly require additional input. It's therefore a more efficient use of the land and water resources, and not at all "wasteful and irresponsible". Quite unlike "Vegsource".
Just you wait.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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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.
FUD (Score:5, Insightful)
Lean steaks are also tasty. The 'dangers' of fat are vastly overrated, the body needs fats to function properly. You'll find that excessive carbohydrates will do you more harm than anything. And a lack of protein is more dangerous than too much. You can eat 200g of protein a day without ill effect, but eat less and you end up losing significant strength.
Americans are fat because of too many processed foods filled with starch and sugar. The general health of Americans would be better if they cut out the donuts, cokes cakes, breads etc. and replaced them with more natural foods like steak, chicken and lamb. You only have to look at the sagging arms of most Americans to see they're not eating too much protein!
Meat is not expensive or inefficient. There is enough land for everyone to have enough meat, no-one in America is starving. People probably eat less meat now than ever, so talk about depleting at rapid rates is sheer scaremongering.
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Processed foods are very much a problem. That inc
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The body needs, IIRC, 3 grams of linoleic acid a day, plus some trace amounts from other sources. Most people get MUCH more than that.
You'll find that excessive carbohydrates will do you more harm than anything.
It's important, and you allude to it later, that the quality of carbohydrate is critical. Most Americans eat lots of WHITE processed flour and sugar. It's stuff that INSTANTLY triggers an insulin reaction, and
Completely and totally wrong. (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, we need very little fat though. Most people eat FAR more than needed, and we don't need any saturated fat, which is much worse for us, and is what you get from meat.
"You'll find that excessive carbohydrates will do you more harm than anything."
No, excessive calories from any source will make you fat. Excessive carbs that break down to glucose very quickly will spike your blood sugar, and its theorized that that may i
Growing meat... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Growing meat... (Score:5, Informative)
Unless you can exercise the meat that is "grown" it will be mostly tasteless.
Actually, it's exactly the opposite. It's fat that gives meat flavor, not lean "exercised" meat. In fact, Kobe Beef, which is widely recognized as tender and flavorful uses steers that are specifically fattenened up and never exercised.
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Re:Growing meat... (Score:4, Informative)
Tender cuts are NOT tasty cuts. They're much easier to cook, and they're *tender* of course, easy to chew, and traditionally favoured for those reasons.
You want a tasty cut of meat, go get a brisket. Tough as hell, takes about two days to cook it right because you want to marinate it and slow-cook it to overcome the toughness so you can chew the sucker, but it's tasty beyond belief. Tenderloin can't compete at all, for taste, it's just a lot easier to prepare.
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Ethical issues? (Score:2)
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pr0n (Score:4, Funny)
That sounds like the plot of a b-horror-porn movie starring a resurrected John Holmes.
Panic! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, right. Steaks made from clones. No potential for "media induced panic" there!
Re:Panic! (Score:5, Funny)
Steaks made from clones.
Can't you just see the horror movie?
Dr. Jackson stared in horror at the meat growing vats as he slowly realized what had happened. He felt growing nausea, his stomach threatening to turn his delicious former meal into a mouth-fired projectile.
His assistant saw the look on his. "Dr. Jackson -- what is it? What's the matter?"
He slowly turned to her. He couldn't help but imagine the juicy, tender beef passing her lips -- or what he thought was beef.
"My God, Janice. It all makes sense. When I added the beef cells to the cloning solution -- the cut on my finger -- the blood, the blood THE BLOOD --" he couldn't continue.
"No!" Janice screamed, her hands holding her mouth. "But -- that was months ago --"
Dr. Jackson slowly nodded. "The entire East Coast has been eating -- ME!"
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And you say that like it is a bad thing. You know, cannibals say we taste of chicken, and I for one like chicken.
Re:Panic! (Score:5, Funny)
Bravo! I'd definitely go see that movie! Make sure Samuel L. Jackson stars.
OTOH, if and when human muscle can be grown in a vat, will the taboo against eating human flesh fade away? After all, it's not hurting anyone... I can imagine it starting as an outre stunt, and then becoming an underground thing, before eventually moving on to become a minor fashion, and eventually becoming a fact of life. Imagine the marketing they could do at the grocery store: "Genuine Paris Hilton breasts and thighs, $3.99/lb"
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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?
This would seem to be safer than regular beef (Score:2, Redundant)
Unrelated (Score:2)
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:Finally, our own meat. (Score:5, Funny)
Sincerely,
The Soylent Corporation
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I think the lesson there is to never eat anything labeled "mystery meat".
NO, not our own 'meat'. (Score:2)
Then discover that it still involves raising beef, then slaughtering them. In the meantime, they'll also be living on feed lots, and pumped full of hormones and anti-biotics just like they are now. Wonder why you've got nice tits, big boy?
Vegetarians will have great problems with this. If you grow meat in a vat, it's not going to work. You need to have muscle, and that muscle has to be worked. Are you going to run it via an old Compaq running Windows 98? Here: have some of this stuff, we used the 2.6.
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Obligatory mangled quotation (Score:5, Funny)
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With some extra sauce please.
CowboyNeal (Score:2)
Wouldnt this make the cowboy profession obsolete? And this comming from a self proclaimed cowboy?
Cloned McBeef... (Score:2)
With apologies to Norm and Cliff... (Score:2)
What's bef?
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:
Forget beef... (Score:5, Funny)
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Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
BtAF has already covered this... (Score:3, Funny)
Delicacy (Score:2, Funny)
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.
I don't care about cloned beef... (Score:2)
WHAT ethical issues... (Score:5, Insightful)
This can lead to only one thing... (Score:3, Funny)
Personally, I'd Like to See This Progress to... (Score:2, Funny)
Obligatory HHGTG reference (Score:5, Funny)
What about Diversity? (Score:4, Insightful)
Long Pig (Score:5, Funny)
Let's take it to next logical step. Why not clone human flesh? I mean after all there'd be no ethical issues involved with it. They could take those new ethicly created stem cell lines to make human meat. And since breast milk is the best, why clone giant boobies to produce all of our dairy needs. No I see no ethical problems at all.
We Can't Event Get FARM Raise Right! (Score:3, Informative)
Gurgle... meat... gurgle. Damn, now I'm hungry.
Might have the thaw that wild boar bacon I have in the freezer. That stuff is like crack, but with more cholesterol.
Corn-Beef coming soon (Score:3, Funny)
Dang dang. Why isn't it coming soon?
Won't kill the market for old-fashioned cowmeat (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe I'm thinking too cyberpunk here.
WE're using the cows? (Score:3, Interesting)
Ethical issues? (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't accept the idea that the cow would be happier never living. Never having been a cow, I can't really say. But to me, it seems ethically stronger to raise the cow as a creature (under reasonable conditions) rather than a meat culture.
(I don't think this is what the article is discussing anyway.)
Curse you, you insensitive scientists! (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to have you throw it all away...
With your cursed science...
But think of the contrast, this could have religious extremists and PETA on the SAME SIDE in an arguement
Bird Flu (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I for one.. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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As a vagitarian I... oh never mind.
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That means, well, more than just tech. Such as the ethical questions that come with tech. Deal with it.
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Doing something just because an old book told you to is bad enough. Now you are saying it's okay to do something because an old book didn't say not to?
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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.
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