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Comment by adrianN | Hacker News Reader

They will eventually stop selling beef burgers made from real cows. Lab grown meat will replace them. I don't know enough about the current state of lab grown meat to give an estimate for XY, but it seems inevitable to me.

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When they do that it will take most american farmers down with them, along with all the people working in the meat plants. The environment is not good, but of course the alternative is unemployment, especially when most of the farms also go under.

I would prefer we help transition those people to new careers than continue to destroy the environment with beef production.

That would be nice. How many else are going to be focusing on that transition?

I'm not sure what you're getting at with this question.

Ground meat is almost certainly the lowest bar for substituting. I'd argue the artificial meat is already pretty close (although probably at a higher cost, at least at the low end). There are probably gourmet burgers that are still better--though high-end meat cuts are at least somewhat of a waste in a burger.

Somewhat amusingly, I first had an Impossible Burger not knowing that it was not real "meat." I didn't find out until a few months later. It tasted like a perfectly good burger to me.

[ADDED: Lab-grown is apparently more accurately used to specifically refer to food made from animal cells. I guess "plant-based" meat is the more common term with "meat" distinguishing from traditional vegi-burgers in the grocery freezer.]

Impossible Burger isn't lab-grown meat

What would you consider Impossible Burger, if not lab-grown meat?

A plant based substitute...? They aren't growing meat, have never claimed to be meat, and are marketing specifically to those who don't eat meat

A plant-based burger. Lab-grown meat is made from animal cells

The "lab-grown" term is [EDIT: sometimes and apparently incorrectly] used for plant-based meat substitutes like Impossible Burger. It probably shouldn't be, but it is.

I honestly don’t think there can be any argument there. Plant-based meat substitutes have been around for a long time, are emphatically not “lab grown meat”, and I have never heard anybody refer to them as such. That’s a distinct category which has also been receiving a lot of attention in the past few years.

For example:

https://www.cnet.com/news/meet-impossible-foods-lab-grown-ve...

http://www.makery.info/en/2018/05/07/jai-teste-limpossible-b...

I expect with actual lab-grown meat substitutes starting to get attention, people are more precise to distinguish between the substitutes today.

These say "lab-grown veggie burger" and "lab-grown Impossible Burger" but never "lab-grown meat"

I guarantee you that people are only doing this by accident when you see it.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lab-grown-meat/

I, too, used to confuse Memphis Meats with Impossible Food / Beyond Meat.

It's just that news of lab-grown meat and outfits like Impossible Food kinda sprung up at the same time in the news within the last 5 years and it's easy to confuse the endeavors. In fact, I see this misconception enough that I think IF/BM benefit from the confusion.

I have never heard anyone so confused that they can't tell the difference between "animal that was never alive" and "made from vegetable products". This isn't confusing, and I will need evidence to believe that it is "widely used". I don't think I've ever even heard someone attempt to conflate the two before you.

But I acknowledge that just because this is completely obvious to me and I've never met someone who was confused about the difference doesn't mean they don't exist.

I honestly don't care what people call the different types of meat substitutes. Plant-based meat seems a bit odd to me because it's not, you know, meat. But it seems to be the term in use.

Yes, I understand that there is a difference between grown from meat cells and made from plants with components that make it look and taste more like meat.

I haven't seen many offerings saying plant-based meat.

I've seen plant-based burger, plant-based sausage, etc.

There are only 579,000 results for that phrase from a Google search.

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22plant-based+meat%22&oq=%2...

102,000 of those are "plant-based meat alternatives". 46,700 are for "plant-based meat substitutes". I'd imagine there are quite a few other synonyms that continue to winnow it down.

There is no meat in it, lab-grown or otherwise. It is made of plants and chemicals. It just tastes similar and cooks similar and gets used similarly.

I suppose you could call falafel a lab-grown kibbeh or kofta ball? But nobody does.

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