Lab-Grown Chicken Is Now Legal for Sale in the US

the GTM for fake/cultured meats generally goes through restaurants first. its easy to train a few chefs to cook properly, partner with them to make meals that taste great. Much better solution than buying in a grocery and lettting anyone yolo.

Even 5 lbs a month per family seems extremely conservative. My family of two, not four, goes through more like 15-20 lbs of chicken a month.

lab grown meat is not vegan as it uses FBS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum) as a growth media for all mammalian cells

I don't think it will be cost-competitive with all other means of turning energy into delicious, meat-like and digestible food.

Ironically, my response as an omnivore making the switch to more chicken over beef is “yuck, not meat.” I actually like the vegan (fried) chicken substitutes that are available nowadays as well as stuff like almond cheese that stands on its own.

It’ll take a while to get over the internal resistance to the fact that it’s still basically ultra processed meat substitute. I’ve grown tissue culture in a lab and that does not sound even remotely appetizing to me. It doesn’t even qualify in my mind as a whole food, which is the problem with so many of the vegan substitutes

> I’m curious how other vegetarians and vegans feel about eating lab-grown meat?

Focusing only on the opinions about other people: eventually, there is going to be less meat. They're going to get less of this physiologically delightful thing. It's inevitable.

For like 4-8% of the population, like me, they don't need the delight of meat. Fine. But that still leaves 92% who eat meat as long as it is possible to do so. It will be interesting to see how many people become vegan not because of any moral reason, but because it helps them e.g. cope with extraordinarily high prices.

> Now I wonder if this is how everyone with a normal omnivore diet reacts to all those plant-based meats.

As an omnivore and lifelong enjoyer of meat, the modern meat alternatives like beyond or impossible are great. They don’t reheat well, but the macros are good and they’re super tasty when fresh.

The older stuff tho, yuck. Tastes funky and the macros are all wrong. Much prefer cottage cheese as a protein source, no fake meat required.

And that’s my main gripe with fake meats: there’s a whole world of amazing delicious vegetarian meals that don’t need meat fake or otherwise. I’d much rather have those than a fake steak.

I'm not a vegetarian but my gut reaction is this yuck, you're literally eating tumors. Or am I wrong?

I currently don't like the implementation as it relies on FBS, which relies on the unethical practices I became vegetarian (and am becoming vegan) to avoid. The core concept is fine though, and I'd eat it. I didn't make this choice because I hated the taste of meat.

Honestly though, I think vegan meat replacements are pretty much a solved problem already as far as I'm concerned. Between Beyond and Impossible and all the more traditionally made meat substitutes I haven't missed meat in ages.

What I'm really finding difficult to replace, now that I'm trending towards complete veganism, is cheese. Some substitutes work ok in some contexts, but the state of vegan pizza, for instance, is extremely sad.

I've written about this phenomenon specifically with regard to intuitions and vegetarianism. Our intuitions are from system 1 thinking, which includes (for you and me) "yuck, meat". But those intuitions are downstream from things we have worked out from deliberate system 2 thinking.

So when I went vegetarian, it was very much not from an intuitive repulsion from meat (I loved meat), but from deliberate reasoning (system 2). But now that time has passed, I do have the "yuck, meat" response. It's like when you learn 12 x 12 = 144 for the first time, it takes work and effort. But then it becomes intuitive because you're so used to it, and your brain wants to cache that work.

So I imagine that after you reason about it for long enough (system 2), eventually your intuitions will update (system 1).

I’m vegetarian and I’m the same, I guess I don’t really see it as food and I don’t have any desire to eat it

> I’m curious how other vegetarians and vegans feel about eating lab-grown meat? My gut reaction to this is “yuck, meat”.

Interesting. I am very much a meat eater, and my gut reaction to this is "yuck, fake meat".

I am totally fine with vegan burger patties and such because it's simply processed plant materials. It's not close enough to meat for its fakeness to bother me. This lab grown flesh strikes a very specific note of revulsion.

If our two reactions are common, it would seem they're in a worst-of-both-worlds situation.

Veggie and can't wait. I'm veggie because the meat industry is, on the whole, horrendous to the lives of animals, is an industry of trauma for the people who kill animals day in day out, and because its unsustainable for the planet. I'm not a veggie because I dont think meat tastes great; there's no substitute for he depth of flavour that meat gives.

My partner is veggie, but also into classical yoga, which includes a lot of theory on health and diet.

They believe that food we consume comes first from air/water/sun. Veggies grow in the sun and consume air/water/earth.

She doesn't eat mushrooms or other nightshades because they don't grow in the sun.

It is less about 'meat' and something much simpler... anything that comes from secondary sources, like cows eating grass, shouldn't be eaten.

Since lab grown meat doesn't fall under the air/water/sun conditions, it is an easy no for her.

Generalizing a bit and admitting that this would vary across cultures: most vegans (who turned vegan for ethical reasons and have been vegan for quite sometime) would promote this for people who want to transition as well as to occasionally have this with non-vegans to show them what’s available. Left to themselves, they’d likely abstain from it for the most part since there are still some ethical questions about it (if FBS — fetal bovine serum — is used) and since there are a wide variety of foods already available to them anyway. It could be a once-in-a-while indulgence though.

Ethically I'm all right. If someone put it in my quesadilla by accident I wouldn't throw a fit. But aesthetically I can barely eat an Impossible Whopper because it's too close to the real thing. After years of not eating it I just don't think meat is very good. I used to get food poisoning regularly but not any more.

I think it's more because the medium used to grow the cells has to be so heavily processed it results in more waste. A chicken will grow in a dirty yard with enough water and corn meal while scratching for bugs and worms. A cell culture requires a nutrient bath that is completely sterile. So instead of just feeding the corn to the chickens you are processing a ton of corn to produce glucose and such...

I think eventually they will create bio reactors that can process corn like a chicken can, but it will essentially just be a chicken without a brain. Meat is honestly disgusting when you think too much about it.

At the current time, the label is positive marketing.

I'd love to have cruelty free meat.

It certainly involves a different moral calculus than eating a real chicken.