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Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

Polling my own bubble, I'm dubious about lab meat.

Across the board, it seems that people want lab grown meat for others. Vegans want omnivores to eat it. Omnivores think it'd be good for vegans.

Meanwhile, any mass market product is likely to be some sort of processed meat product. Sausage, mince chicken nugget or somesuch. These aren't generally premium products, so you need to go really low for price competitiveness.

It's cool. Don't get me wrong. I like technology. It just seems like a solution looking for a problem to me.

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If we priced externalities at their true societal cost, the problem of animal farming becomes clear very quickly. Reducing carbon emissions from animal agriculture is one of the bigger targets for helping reduce climate change. I don't think telling people to just not eat meat will work, so lab-grown meat seems like a promising solution to explore.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

Doesn’t lab grown meat need a lot of growth serum, which is currently extracted from pregnant animals? So as it stands it is not a solution to help reduce climate change (nor animal suffering). For that we’d need a more sustainable way of producing these serums. I’m not aware of any methods which are proven to work at scale.

Beats me! I don't expect it to be more efficient today, it's brand new tech. My hope is that it will be much more efficient as research continues & economies of scale start to kick in. It may well turn out to be a dead end, but until that's clear, I think it is exciting to think about.

There are non-FBS options now https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/upside-foods-develo...

> Doesn’t lab grown meat need a lot of growth serum, which is currently extracted from pregnant animals?

5 years ago it took ~50L of fetal bovine serum (FBS) to grow a burger, at around USD 400/L. FBS is made from the blood of unborn calves, which are taken from slaughtered cows.

All lab meat companies are obviously looking to reduce that input cost by finding a replacement.

I think one must keep in mind that the conceptual idea of eating cultured meat is one thing, and the practical economic reality is another.

If a cultured meat "chik'n nugget" is cheaper than a mechanically-reconstituted-real-chicken-meat nugget, and the quality is the same, lots of people will buy the cheaper cultured option.

The same logic applies for basically every fast food product, and also every Costco-bulk meat product.

There are some people that care deeply about the quality and sourcing of the meat they consume, and cultured meat is probably not for them. For most other meat eaters, price (assuming parity on quality with the equivalent low-cost option) is going to be the prime determinant.

Agreed.

I don't see the economic realities stacking up. The price of cheap, processed meat products is pretty low... and not all of the price is ingredients. It's a long way to the bottom.

Meanwhile, the higher end ethical consumers... it's hard to predict their consumer preferences/choices. I suppose some vegans want meat and some omnivores want to be vegan... but as I said, I'm dubious about these groups' real size.

This won't get to $1 per kg overnight. There probably needs to be adequate demand all along the continuum to fuel volume price reductions.

I also think it's naive to assume that environmental (eg energy/carbon savings) benefits will materialize. Its equally naive to assume eco consumers will buy the story otherwise, over the long term.

The main bull case seems to rely on overwhelming cost advantage. Where's the reason to think this will happen.?

My bubble mostly doesn't care. I would say my bubble isn't particularly naturalist or organic leaning so that might be it. I will definitely eat lab grown meat, especially for something like ground beef or chicken nuggets or sausage.

It seems a lot of people don't know or don't care where their food comes from, and to the extent they do know or care, they'd like the source to minimize harm.

If this alternative way of meat production can taste about the same and cost about the same, then I think people who like the taste of meat will be buy it.

Some vegans and vegetarians don't want it because they don't like the taste of animal meat, whether it came from a live animal or lab.

A lot of [well intentioned] arguments focus on lab grown meats as a "cheap" protein but I think if you want mass market adoption it should go in the other direction, like electric cars.

What if lab-grown meat can create flavor profiles that rival wagyu? What if protein and micronutrient ratios can be tweaked to give athletes an advantage over athletes that eat animal meat?

If we frame it as a "cheap sustainable alternative" some people will always scoff at it, but if instead it starts off as an exclusive delicacy the public will want it that much more.

I am an avid carnivore that hopes to consume only lab grown meat in the future. I've met many people like me. You may be underestimating the size of this group.

That said, like many others in these comments, I'll be waiting at least 10 years to understand the long term effects, if any.

> It just seems like a solution looking for a problem to me.

Vegans primary objection to eating meat is that it is murder.

Meat eaters primary issue with vegan cuisine is that it does not include meat.

Hope this helps!

> Meat eaters primary issue with vegan cuisine is that it does not include meat.

In my extended group of acquaintances, the distaste for typical vegan food isn't that it doesn't have meat, it's that it tries to pretend that it does and ends up being kinda gross as a result.

Those meats (btw, not a typical vegan food) are trying to be as close as possible to the real thing to help convert meat-eaters into vegans.

And they're doing good job - I know of some long term vegetarians/vegans who don't like some plant based meats not because it's gross, but because it's too similar to the real thing.

When you switch to plant-based, in time your tastes will change, and you'll no longer miss meat/cheese ... however unlikely it may seem to you now. Maybe because cheese & meat are addictive.

[0] https://nutritionfacts.org/video/autism-and-casein-from-cows...

[1] https://www.peta.org/blog/bacon-apologists-prove-that-meat-i...

[2] https://nutrientrich.com/diet-trapped/is-meat-addictive.html

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