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Comment by debacle | Hacker News Reader

Cultured meat is the ultimate processed food. It is to meat what a pop tart is to bread and fruit.

But when 95% of animal products are factory farmed globally, the processes already take away from the nutrition and heavily harm the environment.

Surely reducing the harm to the environment and animals is worth it...Not to mention the horrible conditions for the people who's job it is to kill animals all day in abattoirs?!

Where do you think the nutrients for cultivated meat are going to come from? Where do you think the byproducts are going to go?

Sustainably raised meat is the most environmentally friendly way to feed people.

> Where do you think the nutrients for cultivated meat are going to come from? Where do you think the byproducts are going to go?

Most likely the same places they already do.

Ideally, GM the cell lines and make them photovores or electrovores, have them synthesise their own nutrients from air and rock — but that's a way off.

> Sustainably raised meat is the most environmentally friendly way to feed people.

Not even today.

Right now, a lot of livestock is a middle-man between plants and us, and we could feed more people for less money just by eating a fraction of the crops that are used to feed the animals.

Meat is a preference, widely chosen as people get richer, it's not a "best option" in terms of health or economics.

I'm pretty certain the current processes require a growth medium that comes, partially, from other animals. That's not a hard requirement, however, and the answer "farmed algae" is a reasonable target as the process is refined.

For that you need sustainably grown plants, which are even more environnemental friendly if directly fed to human. They are possible at scale of present humanity, witch grass fed meat is not.

The most environmentally friendly is to not eat meat.

If you continue this ad absurdum, the only logical step would be to perform a variant of seppuku. I see relatively little sepukkus performed around me.

Your morbid sarcasm does not add anything to this conversation. GP doesn’t bring arguments neither but at least stays courteous.

That's because people don't get that absurd and just go vegetarian or vegan, or generally just try to eat a little less meat

As a vegan of four and a half year, I can confidently say being vegan is not similar to killing oneself.

I would be seriously concerned about sanitary situation where they grow meat, what kind of we-discover-in-future-it-increases-cancerXYZ-chance chemicals are used to keep it sterile enough.

I wish for this to be cheap effective replacement just like next Joe, but having former GF microbiologist I know how hard is to keep these things sterile even for few days. If there are nutrients for muscle cells, they are useful also for other microbes/fungus. And you literally need 1 tiny microscopic spore to get in, there is no immune system to weed it out, just chemicals that then permeate everything.

How is it more processed than cultured fungi cells, yeast, cheese…?

A better comparaison IMO would be a seedless/peelless GMO fruit compared to the original stuff that can survive in the wild.

Do you feel the same way about yoghurt?

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