Hacker News Reader

Comment by 64operator | Hacker News Reader

It's also tough because nobody really wants this. I've asked around and none of the vegans, vegetarians, or meat eaters I know are even vaguely interested in this. Reactions range from "huh" to "I'll never eat fake meat." I wont eat it either, it's dehumanizing.

View on HN

I want this. I'll eat it. I'd be willing to pay some amount more than the current cost of regular meat (including the pricier more ethically-raised meat).

Yahoo reports about a quarter of vegans say they would eat it.[0] MSU survey found that 35% of people overall would eat cultured meat[1], including a majority of people aged 18-40)[2].

It's not the majority of the population, but it's certainly not 0%, and certainly appears to be well into double-digit percentages.

People are price-sensitive, so if it costs more than regular meat it will have a tough time gaining significant marketshare, but there's very clearly a sizable portion of the population who do want this, anecdotal surveys of your friends notwithstanding.

[0] https://news.yahoo.com/most-vegans-support-lab-grown-1208550...

[1] https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/michigan-state-university-poll...

[2] https://theconversation.com/would-you-eat-meat-from-a-lab-co...

To add the other side. Every single one of my friends are excited for lab grown meat. The potential for a cleaner and more ethical meat plus the potential for new and better/different tasting meat is a plus for everyone in my circle.

The energy inputs alone preclude any thought of it being ethical.

What are the energy inputs and how do they compare with meat?

What aren't they, really? That's what I'd like to know.

Meat is resource intensive and certainly more resource intensive than eating vegetables directly. Meat is so inefficient that we grow most of our crops to feed meat, for example.

Why is this difference presumably not an ethical concern for you, but it is with lab-grown meat?

Differentiating on energy intensiveness sounds like an empirical claim, so I'm going to ask about the empirics.

You can't eat grass, and most ungulates can. If you're concerned about your personal footprint, it's not hard (in the US) to buy locally-raised, small-farm grass-fed beef.

Interesting, I definitely know people who are looking forward to this. Some would be willing to pay a price premium for it, and others would wait until it is the same price or lower than regular meat.

If it ever actually comes to market there will be a huge marketing push to make it seem like or better than normal meat, and to reframe or make people not think about how the product is made. There's lots of things that are pretty gross when you think about them, but have been marketed and made palatable. I think they'll be able to create people who want the product by reframing what the product is, once they /have/ a product.

It's not 'lab grown meat', it's 'cruelty free meat' or 'eco steak.'

Every politician from the midwest, every meat industry lobbyist, and every livestock farmer will make damn sure that won't happen without a fight.

Also the vast majority of the public, who eat meat. I would sacrifice your right to free speech before I sacrificed my ability to eat meat.

I'll add to your anecdotal evidence by saying I am a vegetarian and I am interested in this. So somebody does really want this, just not people "around" you.

Same here, I don't get why people are craving this but I accept that they do. And it's much better ethically than the current raise, abuse and slaughter process. Let's just hope it's also better environmentally.

I'm an occasional-meat kinda eater, and yeah, I'll just go all-veggie (with eggs and milk—you can pry those from my cold, dead fingers, I'll farm my own if that's the only way to get it) before eating this stuff. If I want to fill gaps in nutrition with shit from a lab, I can just start taking vitamins. I dunno, maybe if it were super-cheap—well under the cost of farmed meat, like, 20% the price—I might use it some just because hey, cheap protein, but otherwise, no.

Many people overlook the implications of choices. I realized this when I purchased the Just Eggs. I don't purchase 1 or 2 bottle per months, but it is good to have.

yeah it might be prime time to start a flank of church that includes eating real meat from free range beef cattle, no sarcasm, puns intended… plus imagine if we actually let the real cattle dwindle enough to the point where commercial or infrastructure failure would leave us with a sudden large gap in available meat, seems like sustainable local farming is the only wise solution, not more factory farms with even less cows

Can a modern military about to enter WWIII susbsist on root marm? Let's find out.

Yea, I'll give up real meat when the elites do.

If you had to pay the actual cost of it instead of the subsidized cost, you'd probably eat a lot less of it.

Couldn't you say this about nearly everything? Energy green or non, non-meat foodstuffs, medicines, education, mail? Let's cut all subsidies across the board.

Well, In these cases, I think Elites will win and there will be more poor people.

With WWIII coming the poor people problem has been solved.

It's the same with minimizing my carbon footprint. As soon as Al Gore and Bill Gates stop flying I'm all in.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com