Environment

5241 readers

3 users here now

Environmental and ecological discussion, particularly of things like weather and other natural phenomena (especially if they're not breaking news).

See also our Nature and Gardening community for discussion centered around things like hiking, animals in their natural habitat, and gardening (urban or rural).

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 4 years ago

MODERATORS

New Lab-Grown Meat Breakthrough Beats Traditional Beef by a Mile With 90% Less Land Use, 80% Less Water, and Dramatically Lower Emissions (www.barchart.com)

submitted 1 week ago by remington@beehaw.org to c/environment@beehaw.org

5 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 5 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 9 points 1 week ago (1 children)

sigh...

Cultivated meat is produced by growing animal cells in controlled bioreactors rather than raising and slaughtering livestock. Scientists extract a small sample of animal cells and provide them with nutrients, growth factors, and a controlled environment that allows the cells to multiply and form muscle tissue. The resulting product is biologically identical to conventional meat at the cellular level but does not require pastureland, feed crops, or large herds of animals.

Those nutrients and growth factors come from Fetal Bovine Serum.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 3 points 1 week ago

First off, this article is about the growth scaffold, and the entire breakthrough was achieved by not using an animal-based one:

Recent research has yielded a promising advance in cultivated meat production that could materially improve scalability and cost-efficiency. Scientists at University College London have developed a method to convert yeast left over from brewing into edible scaffold material on which animal cells can grow, offering a potential alternative to expensive synthetic or plant-derived scaffolds and helping address one of the biggest bottlenecks in cultivated meat manufacturing.

Secondly, there are a bunch of plant-based, FBS-alternative cell feeds ('nutrients and growth factors') on the market, and pretty much every lab-grown meat company out there is either already using them or moving as much of their production to them as possible, for a number of reasons.

The world is never going to stop eating meat, but the sooner we move to cultured meats instead of slaughtered farm animals, the sooner we significantly lower the amount of animal suffering and environmental impact.

[–] t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 points 1 week ago

I've found a lot of non-religious vegans who object to meat consumption on the supposed grounds of animal cruelty, also oppose lab-grown meat.

One of the the arguments I've seen used in the past is the high water usage and emissions of early lab-grown meat products. Once development brings those down, like in this case, I'll be interested to see whether they still remain anti-meat.

Once you strip away sentience, you only really have 'living entity' left, which plants also are.

[–] Megaman_EXE@beehaw.org 6 points 1 week ago

I would be so down for lab grown meat. No suffering? Sign me up

[–] sanzky@beehaw.org 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I gave up meat like 7 years ago. I used to be a “meat guy” before that.

curiously, I found that quitting meat was not as hard as I expected. I ate fish for one year as a transition and then I also gave up that. I’ve tried to give up cheese an eggs three times and failed.

(edit.. I forgot the point I was going to make) anyway. I don’t even want lab grown meat. I don’t crave it or want it.

not to say lab grown meat is not a great idea, but maybe just a transitional help