As a thinking experiment, let us consider that on the 1st of January of 2025 it is announced that an advance making possible growing any kind of animal tissue in laboratory conditions as been achieved and that it is possible to scale it in order to achieve industrial grade production level.

There is no limit on which animal tissues can be grown, so, any species is achieveable, only being needed a small cell sample from an animal to start production, and the cultivated tissues are safe for consumption.

There won’t be any perceiveable price change to the end consummer, as the growing is a complex and labour intensive process, requiring specialized equipments and personnel.

Would you change to this new diet option?

  • jet@hackertalks.comEnglish
    5·
    1 day ago

    I would be wildly optimistic, but very cautious.

    I’d want to see multi-year randomized control trials comparing the bioavailability of not only protein, but also vitamins and minerals from the synthetic meat and liver, to natural meat and liver.

    Assuming the RCTs show no issues, then I would happily move over.

    Modern meat products are on a spectrum as well, it’s not just having the meat, it’s what the meat ate before it became me that’s important. Grass-fed, versus grain fed for beef. Insect, and protein for chickens, grain fed for chickens etc. antibiotics, hormones being supplemented into the feed to improve yields.

    One massive problem the industry globally suffers from is overpromising. Just like multivitamins, which are very poorly bioavailable, and mostly peed out, they promise a lot but don’t deliver much.

    Factors I would look for:

    • can somebody sustain life eating only the synthetic meat for multiple years?
    • oxidative stress, and oxidation in the synthetic food?
    • The temptation to engineer sugar, and carbohydrates, directly into the meat to increase sales yields.

    Green sustainability:

    • can the synthetic meat be produced globally?
    • Will poor farmers in the middle of nowhere be improved or hurt by this? Will they have access to the synthetic meat?
    • in the event global logistics fail, like an a war, will moving over to synthetic meat severely hurt critical infrastructure and ability to feed populations?