When Meat is not Murder

[caludia]

from the Guardian -

When meat is not murder

Would you eat steak if it had been grown in a petri dish?

Ian Sample, science correspondent

Saturday August 13, 2005

The Guardian

It is the ultimate conundrum for vegetarians who think that meat is murder: a revolution in processed food that will see fresh meat grown from animal cells without a single cow, sheep or pig being killed.

Researchers have published details in a biotechnology journal describing a new technique which they hailed as the answer to the world's food shortage. Lumps of meat would be cultured in laboratory vats rather than carved from livestock reared on a farm.

Article continues

Scientists have adapted the cutting-edge medical technique of tissue engineering, where individual cells are multiplied into whole tissues, and applied them to food production. "With a single cell, you could theoretically produce the world's annual meat supply," said Jason Matheny, an agricultural scientist at the University of Maryland.

According to researchers, meat grown in laboratories would be more environmentally friendly and could be tailored to be healthier than farm-reared meat by controlling its nutrient content and screening it for food-borne diseases.

Vegetarians might also be tempted because the cells needed to grow chunks of meat can be taken without harming the donor animal.

Experiments for Nasa, the US space agency, have already shown that morsels of edible fish can be grown in petri dishes, though no one has yet eaten the food.

Mr Matheny and his colleagues have taken the prospect of "cultured meat" a step further by working out how to produce it on an industrial scale. They envisage muscle cells growing on huge sheets that would be regularly stretched to exercise the cells as they grow. Once enough cells had grown, they would be scraped off and shaped into processed meat products such as chicken nuggets.

"If you didn't stretch them, you would be eating mush," said Mr Matheny.

The idea of doing away with traditional livestock and growing steaks from scratch dates back at least 70 years. In a horizon-scanning essay from 1932, Winston Churchill said: "Fifty years hence we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium."

Several decades too late, Churchill's vision finally looks set to become a reality.

Lab-raised steaks will be off the menu for some time though. Scientists believe that while tissue engineering is advanced enough to grow bland, homogeneous meat, tasty and textured cuts will have to wait.

"Right now, it would be possible to produce something like spam at an incredibly high cost, but the know-how to grow something that has structure, such as a steak, is a long way off," said Mr Matheny.

Kerry Bennett, of the Vegetarian Society, said: "This is certainly an interesting development, and one that is bound to prompt many different responses from individual vegetarians - largely depending on why those individuals have chosen vegetarianism.

"The Vegetarian Society is concerned that while this has the potential to decrease the number of meat-producing animals in factory farms, there are still a number of question marks regarding the origins of the cells and the method of harvesting.

"It won't appeal to someone who gave up meat because they think it's morally wrong to eat flesh or someone who doesn't want to eat anything unnatural," Ms Bennett added.

"Personally I wouldn't want to, but I suppose if they're going to make chicken nuggets with it, then it's probably not going to taste much different."

[bloodbob]

Alot of people would call this murder since well essential its a clone.

[Rev]

bloody hell

more wank

and more centralisation and corporateisation of our foodsupply

whatever happened to ecology?

cow eats grass, cow get throat cut and is chopped up, cow ends up on my plate, my sewage is treated and finally ends up helping grass grow

all fuelled by the nuclear fusion ball in the sky

[Hagakure]

its not really a clone in the popular use of the word. vegetarians should theoretically have no issue with it as it is alive but not a "life".

i probably would be hesitant eating it but if it tastes good and has same nutritional value i may give it a go.

if meat production went to this method you could have large factories that would take up a tiny fraction of land that is now used for farming.

all that land destroyed by cattle hoofs could be regenerated to its natural pristine state.

i think the real way to go will be big cell culture factories of new organisms - why bother trying to make something already available when you have so many GM options at your fingertips?

genetically modifying fungi into something that tastes amazing, grows easily, and is extremely nutritious - that is the way we should be heading (and realistically it probably is the direcion we are heading).

who said problems are solved by technology not politics? i think it was a french philosopher

i see a time when our food and energy requirements will be able to be met by mechanisms that are so efficient that the damage they do to the evironment will be minimal.

[Prophet]

Lol Rev, i think that is the best way too, good old fashioned grass fed beast

 

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i think the real way to go will be big cell culture factories of new organisms - why bother trying to make something already available when you have so many GM options at your fingertips?

 

genetically modifying fungi into something that tastes amazing, grows easily, and is extremely nutritious - that is the way we should be heading (and realistically it probably is the direcion we are heading).

 

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Man why do we need genetic modification? i think it is totally unneccessary. We already have a huge variety of food sources which are highly nutritious and easy to grow. We just need to learn how to produce them in an ecologically sustainable manner. GM isn't going to provide the solution. I think it is a dangerous thing messing around with genetics of organisms. Very soon you wont know what you are eating, it is bad enough as it is now.

[Hagakure]

we have had genetic modification for millions of years.

humans have been controlling it since the birth of agriculture.

genetic modification techniques now means we can speed up the process.

why do we need it?

well if you take a look at this planet there are some big concerns. gm can address these.

wouldnt you prefer acres upon acres of natural wilderness with a stunning degree of biodiversity to a whole lot of paddocks filled with cattle?

one possibilty with biotech foods.

plus when you look at the number of hungry mouths in africa it is pretty clear we need to fix our food sources if we are all going to enjoy a greater standard of living.

face it - ecologically sustainable farming will only be possible through gm.

wearing any cotton? cotton uses shitloads of pesticides. GM cotton means that a lot of pesticides is no longer required.

now there will be uneccesary GM and it is possible that some of it might go wrong. that is why i dont really care if i convert you on the issue - it is good to have this level of pressure in a way as it means that the stuff that does come through will be incredibly safe.

[Prophet]

GM is only a recent innovation. There is a difference between selective breeding and transferring genes between domains and kingdoms such as between plant and animal.

 

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genetic modification techniques now means we can speed up the process

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correct me if i'm wrong but plant animal/plant bacteria/plant etc genetic tranfer does not occur naturally. It is not speeding up the process, it is an unnatural process.

 

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why do we need it?

 

well if you take a look at this planet there are some big concerns. gm can address these.

 

wouldnt you prefer acres upon acres of natural wilderness with a stunning degree of biodiversity to a whole lot of paddocks filled with cattle?

 

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and genetic modification is going to fix all these problems? i don't see that happening. It seems to be adding to the problem. We have had gm now for some time and the problem keeps getting worse.

 

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plus when you look at the number of hungry mouths in africa it is pretty clear we need to fix our food sources if we are all going to enjoy a greater standard of living.

 

face it - ecologically sustainable farming will only be possible through

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so why isn't GM helping them now? the west has more than enough food to feed Africa. It is more of a problem about greed of governments and power hungry people.

There are other ecological and sustainable ways of providing food for the planet without having to produce GM crops/organisms.

[occidentalis]

Ah, the gm debate rears it's head again. I'll take the bait.

 

Hagakure:

wouldnt you prefer acres upon acres of natural wilderness with a stunning degree of biodiversity to a whole lot of paddocks filled with cattle?

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The concept of wilderness is inseperably bound to the ethical and philosophical systems which drive environmental destruction. You present two options - one which is an unattainable utopia and one which is obviously undesirable - and then say GM is the only thing that will give us a choice between them. Who's paying you?

 

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plus when you look at the number of hungry mouths in africa it is pretty clear we need to fix our food sources if we are all going to enjoy a greater standard of living.

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No, it's pretty clear we have to fix our global economic system and cancel the debt of such countries so their people can concentrate on building sustainable local economies rather than growing tobacco, sugar, cocoa, coffee, heroin, and cocaine (ok, and cotton and corn and a few other things ) for rich white people.

 

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face it - ecologically sustainable farming will only be possible through gm.

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Do you by chance work for monsanto?

 

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wearing any cotton? cotton uses shitloads of pesticides. GM cotton means that a lot of pesticides is no longer required.

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I haven't researched this much but I'm told that cotton farmers have actually cleaned up their act (in Aus anyway) a great deal over the last few years. Hemp?

I'm not opposed to the modification of an organism's DNA per se. We are all biochemical computers and there is nothing morally wrong with running new or different programs in us.

However the people and groups that are behind it do not care in the slightest about human or environmental health. They want to make money and they will do fucking anything if it will get them a buck.

GM is an incredibly powerful technology, which does offer real benefits, and it may well be part of what we do in the distant future. But at this point in time our culture is too sick for us to be able to use it responsibly.

[Hagakure]

one last post before i head off

 

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correct me if i'm wrong but plant animal/plant bacteria/plant etc genetic tranfer does not occur naturally. It is not speeding up the process, it is an unnatural process.

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it does happen but pretty fucking rarely - you are correct there. but look at things like the eye - evolved independently about 8 times they think. we are just given propertites that could eventuate in millions of years with carefull breeding but why wait.

 

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and genetic modification is going to fix all these problems? i don't see that happening. It seems to be adding to the problem. We have had gm now for some time and the problem keeps getting worse.

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bullshit arguments. how has it made the problem worse? dude you are a shit debater. hows about some examples rather than rhetoric. what exactly is "the problem" you refer to anyway

 

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so why isn't GM helping them now? the west has more than enough food to feed Africa. It is more of a problem about greed of governments and power hungry people.

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well gm isnt helping them now because it is in very early days. think of crops that prvide much greater yields per unit of water, salt resistant, high mineral resistant. some short term solutions so people will be able to grow where previous crops failed. but i think vats are the way so we can restore environment to natural state - thats much further off though.

hmmm im late. better leave it at this. lets hear some more on the actual meat topic people - as much as i love taking on prophet in battle i dont want to hyjak the thread.

[onz]

Sure I'll try some, after its been properly analysed.

I generally find those who are anti-gm are either not in understanding the objective science involved to get to the gm plant, or too focused on what may happen instead on what will probably happen. The fear is sparked by speculation. The confidence is sparked by realisation.

Scientific research should NEVER be funded by the government. It is the dominating poison in science today.

[Rev]

 

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The concept of wilderness is inseperably bound to the ethical and philosophical systems which drive environmental destruction.

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so true

wilderness is a recent philosophical invention

it doesnt actually exist

'wilderness' is very very close to the concept of 'Terra nullius'

 

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I generally find those who are anti-gm are either not in understanding the objective science involved to get to the gm plant

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I have a degree in molecular biology and im anti-GM. Most GM is about making square pegs fit round holes - like taking perpetual monocultures of overfed overbred stressed plants and animals and trying to squeeze more out of them - even when we have a global surplus and depressed returns.

I think its utterly stupid to be pushing this angle when we have totally neglected the science of the underlying substrate that supports the whole system - the soil, the microfauna and the carbon cycle. Thats where we need to be pushing the funds to - entymology, soil ecology, plant microbe interactions

and we must find a way to take the end product of huamn life processes and make it safe to put back on the fields or else we are all doomed as the nutrient strip mining can only go on so long. our land is dying

Cattle arent bad for the environment if you manage them right in the right climates. I could show you places where where the grass is thick and lush, the soil is deep and dark and the cows are fat. These soils reamin productive because they have an ecology that is (almost - note nutrient losses and lack of return) sustainable.

These places arent wilderness they are very much lived in but there is plenty of room for native wildlife and vegetation in corridors, gullies and creeklines. Compared to ANY cropping country GM, conventional or organic a cattle pasture is well alive. Round here you see eagles, echidnas, platypus, goannas, dragons, pademelons, bandicoots, wallabies, roos, wild dogs, pigs, hares, rabbits, pythons, snakes and a multitude of wierd insects and birdlife

space for the wild and agriculture arent incompatible if we make agriculture mimic natural ecosystems. Most land degradation is caused by trying to fits the unmatched pegs and holes again... and by sheer neglect or abuse by landholders. I d0 think that society must underwrite farmers more but in return the farmers must maintain high environmental standards. at the moment there is no such mutual obligation and it is a real problem.

so many people have independently and cooperatively developed systems that work to make high quality meat and produce in a sustaibnable way but these people dont get funding - rather GE technology and supermarket chain corporate farming get the $$$ and set their own agenda

unlike said earlier i advocate that technology cannot solve our problems only politics and social change can. Technological bandaids like GM food and nuclear power do not address the fundamental inequities of our global political system.

i grow my own where i can, avoid GM where i can, buy local where i can, and ill not be touching this vat meat shite with a long pole

BTW we already have fungi that taste good and are good for us and grow on waste or low grade/toxic food products

they are mushrooms and food microbes like those that make cheeses, beer and tempeh

and they can be grow at home and are accessible to developing countries at low cost and with little expenditure as opposed to the high tech corporate meatworks outlined

[ 14. August 2005, 16:09: Message edited by: Rev ]

[Prophet]

 

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and genetic modification is going to fix all these problems? i don't see that happening. It seems to be adding to the problem. We have had gm now for some time and the problem keeps getting worse.

 

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bullshit arguments. how has it made the problem worse? dude you are a shit debater. hows about some examples rather than rhetoric. what exactly is "the problem" you refer to anyway

 

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I might be a shit debater, maybe if i was a good debator i would be a politician or something and making shitloads of money.

The problem is the money factor. Monsanto and friends and only in it for the money. They don't give a damn about starving africans etc and they would be selling these GM crops/seeds not giving them away. These plant varieties would be patented and subject to regulation by those who produced them. I also think the advantages and greatly over-exaggerated.

Like i said before i think we have more than enough genetic diversity at the moment, we just need to make proper use of it and understand the environment better...

Amen to what Rev said.

[woof woof woof]

Personally I would rather live in a healthy world and run after my food!

To each his own.

I have my opinion about vegetarians. Rather keep it to myself then to start the neverending discussion about who is right, because this type of discussion is just another emotional ground battle. Peace

[ramon]

I generally find those who are anti-gm are either not in understanding the objective science involved to get to the gm plant, or too focused on what may happen instead on what will probably happen. The fear is sparked by speculation. The confidence is sparked by realisation.

 

DO you have any idea of how much pollution Monsanto is allready responsible for on this planet. Don't think there is a single place on this planet they haven't managed to polloute.

I would be less concerned about GM if the GM companies did not as first order of business ensure they are free of any future liabilities for any unitended consequensces.

Would this be necessary if they thought there products are totally safe.

[Legba]

quote:

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If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? -Jo Brand

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[Hagakure]

Popeye:

I generally find those who are anti-gm are either not in understanding the objective science involved to get to the gm plant, or too focused on what may happen instead on what will probably happen. The fear is sparked by speculation. The confidence is sparked by realisation.

 

DO you have any idea of how much pollution Monsanto is allready responsible for on this planet. Don't think there is a single place on this planet they haven't managed to polloute.

I would be less concerned about GM if the GM companies did not as first order of business ensure they are free of any future liabilities for any unitended consequensces.

Would this be necessary if they thought there products are totally safe.

monsanto are responsible for some big scandals but these have nothing to do with GMOs

and all companies make sure their asses are covered, not an admission of guilt.

my head is all foggy today so i will keep it brief.

GM used responsibly will be able to fix some big problems that we have today. we can limit toxic pesticides, fix malnutrition in third world countries aswell as simple things like making foods better for you.

it is possible for the technology to be abused but that is why we have regulatory bodies etc in place aswell as pressure fromt the public.

and if your argument is "people are just doing this for money" well thats with pretty much every single achievement that has pushed along humanity.

as i said though i dont really care if i convert the masses. its good to have that pressure to keep people in check. it is powerfull stuff.

[Rev]

Bacchant:

 

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If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? -Jo Brand  

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LOL

Its ironic that one of vegetarianism favourite foods - soybeans

are one of GM's favourites also

and the most avid conscious consumers of soy are mostly anti-GM

tho soy is in frikkin everything these days from car paint to choc milk

personally i hate the bloody things for personal reasons

[ 15. August 2005, 09:18: Message edited by: Rev ]

[ramon]

monsanto are responsible for some big scandals but these have nothing to do with GMOs

 

Sure due to the huge public outcry they have not managed to pollute our enviroment with GMO's yet but I think that past behaviour is the best measure of how they might behave in the future and this leaves me less then sure they will act resposibly

we can limit toxic pesticides,

It seems that GM will have the opposite result as they make thinks resistant to pesticides so you can drench the ground in them and not hurt the plant you are trying to grow i.e roundup ready GMO's. Not to mention the risk of this resistance to pesticides passing on to weeds.

I am not against GM per say but it should be done in labs and not in fields with only a 100 metre buffer between similar plants

[nabraxas]

on that DNA show they went to Monsanto's lab, & showed 2 cotton plants. 1 was being eaten by catapillars the other had been altered to include a pesticide that killed catapillars muching on it.

is that really such a good thing? either you end up killing off a whole breed ov catapillar--what consequences there? do you think Monsanto cares?

OR the catapillars adapt & find a new food source--what consequences there?--more work for Monsanto , no doubt

[Hagakure]

they kill off these catapillars with pesticides normally. this just means no more sprays.

resistance in catapillar populations may happen over time so to limit this there are certain designs for fields involving buffer zones which are not gm.

the idea is that if there are healthy populations there the odd butterfly with a resistance will have that gene diluted out.

in terms of roundup ready resistance they have done pretty thourough testing that the resistance gene cannot cross species. weeds may develop resistance over time but that is why buffer zones are proposed in this case aswell.

when it comes to plants that have these mechanisms that have a highly selective phenotype a lot of testing needs to be done. i will not blanket advocate their use - there are issues involved.

there are many different types of genetic modification that would still be labelled as GM but are much less risky. i think i heard of one group trying to knock out the protein that causes allergic reactions in people who cannot eat peanuts. that type of gm would be less risky but in this climate of fear the amount of red tape etc is incredible.

i think GM will do some real good, but yeah we have to be carefull and rigourous in our testing.

unfortunately every now and again greenpeace etc destroy the fields that are testing these new GMOs to see if they are safe or not.

[Rev]

re BT genes

BT was the worst thing yet

they took the bacillus thuringensis toxin and made the plant express it constantly

this has several effects

all parts amke the BT toxin - the leaf , the corn kernel (human food) and the pollen (beneficials food)

because all teg planst made it it VERY strongly selected for resistance and resistant insects showed up with in a couple seasons

newer management techniques integrate sacrificial crops where non GE strips are grow for the wild type insect so it can persst and lower the resistant genotype in the population

using BT also fucked up one of the best weapons organic agriculture had - a coincidence?

Had they been interested in science rather than profit theyd have waited and linked it to some insect damage systems in the planst so its only expressed at the cut site in response to a certain level of damage due to insect feeding

as for buffer zone they are full of shit

In mol biol the proffessor was taling about this and i asked if insect vectosr were taken into cosnideration and they said no - the trials were done based on wind movemnet only

in Canola which is cross pollinated by bees this is madness - bees can travel several km foraging for pollen. the GE pollen may not be 5 m away it might turn up in next years seed harvested 500m away- And canola is a serious crop weed when its not wanted and glyphosate used to be good way to get rid of it

what kind of shortsighted idiot would not factor in insect dissemination of pollen in an insect pollinated plant

and add to this that cross pollination rates vary enormously acoss teh globe depending on insect types

for example in brazil many otherwise perfct flowered beans hybridise easily because of local bees.

likewise bumblebees greatky increase tomato crospollinations as will some native aussie bee who use the same buzz pollination.

The people who say 'trust us , its safe' cannot be trusted at all because they know shit all about what they are doing

they might know a lot about enzymes and subcellular workinsg but they have insufficient clue about the macroscopic factors and workings

and when stuff goes wrong its always 'unforseen'

But really i think the technical issues are just diversions from the real issue. I dont think GE food is a 'frankenfood', and i think the dangers to the biosphere for most thinsg are going to be mostly negligible

but they do do some stupid stupid things - like putting vaccines into bananas or into cows milk - great! what happens when thse inevitably get into the normal stocks. They might say it wont happen but thats crap. cuttings get taken and animals wander or get rustled out in th real world- and then these NO WAY for joe public to know if what they are growing/eating is expressing these potentially allergenic proteins

what scares me the most are the social and economic implications. Like agricultue being run by big business more than it already is, about the hidden cost of GE seeds, about litigation against farmers over gene patents and restrictions on seed saving. About undermining the right to refuse GM food or labelling.

Really about who owns the staff of life in our society. is it going to be our shared inheritance or is ist going to be privatised and monopolised.

[ 16. August 2005, 15:13: Message edited by: Rev ]

[Anodyne]

Prophet, you are correct that GM plants are produced by "unnatural" methods. However, this doesn't necessarily mean that they are bad - the intent might be, but I'm talking about the technology itself, not Monsanto's world-domination plans. A lot of people seem to argue against Monsanto, rather than GM. Yes, Monsanto are fucked up, but they'd be fucked even without GM produce.

With genetic/genomic study, we can have a lot more understanding of the functions of certain genes, and can decide which should be expressed - whether they confer pest-resistance, increased nutritional value, greater size, shorter growing season, cold tolerance, etc. These are all traits which have been bred for "naturally". So Hagakure was right, we are just speeding up the process - the methods might be "unnatural", but the end product could be just the same.

And BTW, you are talking about transgenics - not all genetic modifications involve tranfer of genes between species, but even in those that do - remember that a huge portion of DNA is common to all living things - this is why you can cross species and even kingdom barriers and still produce functional organisms - many of the genes are just the same (it's just that it's easier to find out what they do in small, fast-growing critters like bacteria).

 

quote:

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GM used responsibly will be able to fix some big problems that we have today. we can limit toxic pesticides, fix malnutrition in third world countries aswell as simple things like making foods better for you.

 

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Yup, so hands up who thinks that it will be used well. Anyone? The thing is, we have enough food to feed everyone, what we're lacking is equal distribution.

I do think that using food plants to produce medicines is a ridiculous, unnecessary, and very risky ideas. Why the hell do it? There's no reason. You could do it using non-food plants just as well, without the risk of contaminating the food-supply. This is one aspect of GM that I can't support.

And as for the starting topic - I'm a vegetarian, but not because it kills animals. I just dislike the industry - forests cut down to grow grain & legumes for us to eat, OK, that's not so great. But forest cut down to grow 4-10 times as grain/legumes as we need, just because we want the protein to pass through an animal first, is just silly. I can't immediately see any major problems with the cultured meat (aside from the taste & texture), but I wonder about the costs, both to the buyer, and to the environment. How do they grow it, how do they feed it?

[apothecary]

Anodyne, I hear this argument a lot and would like to voice some thoughts on it.

Natural breeding process vs GM is not the same thing "just accelerated". Just because we have found the gene that increases the nutritional value of a single grain of wheat by 200%, does not mean we should "implement" it.

What comes into the plant, goes out of the soil. 200% increase in nutrition means a proportional decrease in soil nutrients!

The arugment is against issues like this one. People buy GM seeds (imagine they were subsidised by the government or whatever non evil corporation you feel satisfies the criteria) and plant them, and then next season, the only thing that can grow in the depleted soil is the same crop! Or nothing (except mushrooms )!

This leads to a homogenous crop country/state wide, and you're guaranteed to end up with a situation much like the one in Ireland when that potato disease wiped out the main staple of the entire country.

The plant has its own mechanisms built in to bring out the best of itself, as far as nature will allow. It will not overdo itself, or it will not be able to survive next season! This is a natural safety mechanism, and one that we should not bypass, simply because we can.

[ 18. August 2005, 06:01: Message edited by: apothecary ]

[caludia]

Bacchant:

 

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If we aren't supposed to eat animals, then why are they made out of meat? -Jo Brand  

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Precisely! That's exactly why i'm known to enjoy eating children from time to time

[occidentalis]

Anodyne:

remember that a huge portion of DNA is common to all living things - this is why you  can cross species and even kingdom barriers and still produce functional organisms - many of the genes are just the same

A minor point, but worth clearing up - the reason that transgenics is possible is not because organisms share any particular DNA sequences, but because they share the mechanisms for transcription and translation of DNA. Even if all organisms were 99% different to each other (the 1% shared coding for the systems that enable gene expression) then any organism could express genes from another.