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diamond rings come to mind, i dont know why some people have a bone to pick with lab-grown diamonds, does the horrible labor behind mining make the "real thing" better?

Not just products but life as a whole.

Too many people have the mentality of "If I suffered, you should to", or equate their value to their suffering "Suffering builds character", "You only slept 6 hours? Try 4 like me".

Humanity has an unhealthy obsession with suffering equating validation.

I didn't find an answer in my very limited search for what is actually used to grow the meat, so depending on what makes up the "stuff" that brings nutrients into the growing part, we may still need a lot of farmers for something like this. There's also no way the growing environment, which seeks to create an artificial "animal", is energyefficient.

I'll celebrate the day we don't need farmers, and I'll celebrate the day it'll be at least environmentally equivolent, but until I see evidence of those things, I'll be very sceptical of this stuff.

The moment corporations see they are cheaper, they'll start pushing for them, exaggerating their benefits like environmental impact as a propaganda tool.

But there would still be slaughtered meats for as long as there are rich assholes paying for "the true experience" or just because it's not something everyone gets to do and they like to feel unique and superior to the rest of humanity.
Knowing those out-of-touch monsters, they'd double down in 'the experience' by getting to slaughter the animal themselves or something like that.

i just want cheap blocks of TVP available in the store

we've had the technology to make TVP for decades, it's a perfectly fine replacement for meat if you just marinate it a bit, why the fuck is it not bog standard?

Nah that's real

Potatoes aren't even free so I doubt that is happening.

Cheaper food would be a good start, potatoes and rice are incredibly cheap foods.

At least in the US I'd say it's because the government pumps billions and billions in subsidies to the different farm sectors (70+ billion a year for beef alone). The products you mentioned don't get that funding and don't sell the volume either.

Lab grown food is legitimately super expensive to make though.

The tricky part of lab grown meat is you need to keep it from being infected.

Keep the factory perfectly sterile.

Any time a vat is colonised by fungi or bacteria or a virus its contents would have to be dumped and the equipment sterilised

That's going to be expensive.

It will need feedstock. It will produce waste CO2

Meanwhile a cow has an immune system and eats low quality grass.

Lab meat will not be able to compete with field grown meat

That's... A theory, pretty sure it's more that meat just tastes good though

Thats an interesting take. Most people don't eat meat specifically because its exploitative, they eat it because its easier (relatively) to get the needed nutrients through meat, and because its taste and texture are hard to replicate. Lab grown meat manages to do this (hopefully) without any exploitation.

I was mostly thinking about taste and texture. I never even considered that the CO2 impact might be worse. That sucks.

That's partly because they fail to market it well. Meat alternatives never taste the same. Trying to replace beef or pork or chicken will always fail to entice people that already enjoy meat.

It's better described as a new meat with new recipe/cooking requirements. You wouldn't complain about how much the assumed pork ribs didn't taste right if I told you they were beef ribs. You'd agree, because you wouldn't expect them to taste the same.

I agree. I remember when skim milk and margarine were supposed to be good for you. Beans and peas already exist, are cheap, store forever, and can be used in so many different ways. Fake meat feels like an overly complicated way to solve a problem that's already solved, with the added bonus that they could cause horrific health problems that won't be identified for decades.

Processed food isn't bad for you.. GMOs aren't bad for you.. that's the propaganda farmers use to keep you from making common sense choices.

"Processed" is anything that goes into a machine. You want your beef ground up? It's now processed. What's added in the processing is what you need to isolate and be weary of.

"Genetically Modified Organisms" includes bananas which have been selectively cultivated to provide more nutrition and reduce seed sizes. It's a result of intelligent agricultural practices to maximize food production and minimize inedible waste.

Plant based meat has been an incredible substitution for meat making it cruelty free without compromising much on taste or texture, if at all.

Lab grown is the next step, making genuine meat without slaughtering animals. I'm not aligned with PETA but I think an ideal future is one where we don't need to kill sentient life in order to have exactly what we do right now.

You can have your own opinion but at the very least be aware of the origin of your bias.

I just miss my wife