Hacker News Reader

Comment by tivert | Hacker News Reader

> We already use several processes that are similar to lab grown meat. Ie beer and cheese are a bunch of cells dumped into a growth medium. Hell bread rises because of yeasts in a growth medium.

"Similar" is not the same. In all those cases you cite, you're using non-animal cells that are very close to wild to modify existing food in relatively minor ways.

If "meat" was bacterial sludge or yeast blocks, it would be a lot more practical to grow in a lab, but it's not. Meat is things like chicken muscle cells, which are not evolved to grow outside the support of a complex organism.

View on HN

If your definition of food extends to everything, then yes. In all of these products (and lab grown meat) you take low-value starter materials and make them food through microbial processes. Without yeast we wouldn't really be eating wheat to the same extent as we do (except unleavened bread...)

> In all of these products (and lab grown meat) you take low-value starter materials and make them food through microbial processes.

You are missing the key point. Not all "microbial processes" are the same: they can have massively different characteristics. Lab grown meat 1) uses exceedingly fragile microbes and 2) makes extensive modifications to the food (complete transformation). Making beer 3) uses much more robust microbes and 4) makes less extensive modifications to the food (i.e. metabolize a fraction of the carbs into a microbially-toxic substance called alcohol).

If your understanding can't make these significant distinctions, it's too fuzzy to be very good.

The assumption that these cells cannot be hardy assumes a great deal about this process. It’s lab grown meat not just lab grown beef.

From the perspective of human health we can use non mammalian cells for meat such as fish, reptile, or even invertebrates. That greatly changed the risks from things like viral or bacterial infection.

There’s a massive tradeoff in terms of the need for an immune system vs antibiotics vs near perfect sterilization. Avoiding contamination is extremely difficult but if possible solves many problems.

> The assumption that these cells cannot be hardy assumes a great deal about this process. It’s lab grown meat not just lab grown beef.

IIRC, none of the issues are specific to beef cells. They're issues with growing animal cells in a bioreactor.

> From the perspective of human health we can use non mammalian cells for meat such as fish, reptile, or even invertebrates. That greatly changed the risks from things like viral or bacterial infection.

Maybe for viral infection, but that would definitely not solve any issues for bacterial infections.

> Avoiding contamination is extremely difficult but if possible solves many problems.

Just like perfectly secure, bug-free code is extremely difficult but if possible solves many problems. But we all know how viable that is (e.g. you can manage it at a small scale at great expensive, but good luck trying it at a large scale).

> They're issues with growing animal cells in a bioreactor.

There’s major differences in growing different cells in a bioreactor. At the extreme end some cell lines are almost as hardy as bacteria.

> bug-free code

Producing some bug free code isn’t difficult, always producing bug free code is impossible. Similarly, a sterilization first approach is likely to occasionally fail but not every batch would fail.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com