Lab grown burger, would you eat it, if you could afford it?

Pumpkinseeds · 05-08-2013 01:09PM #1

I've just been watching the story of the worlds first lab grown burger on Sky news. Apparently it's a miracle breakthrough. I'm deeply suspicious of it, it just seems creepy to me and I'm a vegetarian. So what do you think, would you feel comfortable eating lab grown meat?

mutley18 · 05-08-2013 01:11PM

No chance. I'd rather walk up to a cow in a field and take a bite out of its arse.

becost · 05-08-2013 01:11PM

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

I've just been watching the story of the worlds first lab grown burger on Sky news. Apparently it's a miracle breakthrough. I'm deeply suspicious of it, it just seems creepy to me and I'm a vegetarian. So what do you think, would you feel comfortable eating lab grown meat?

Makes the idea of eating a horse meat burger sound so much more attractive.

Sunnyisland · 05-08-2013 01:13PM

The world's first lab-grown burger is to be unveiled and eaten at a news conference in London on Monday.

Scientists took cells from a cow and, at an institute in the Netherlands, turned them into strips of muscle which they combined to make a patty.

Researchers say the technology could be a sustainable way of meeting what they say is a growing demand for meat.

Critics say that eating less meat would be an easier way to tackle predicted food shortages.
We have a situation where 1.4 billion people in the world are overweight and obese, and at the same time one billion people worldwide go to bed hungry," she said.

"That's just weird and unacceptable. The solutions don't just lie with producing more food but changing the systems of supply and access and affordability so not just more food but better food gets to the people who need it."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22885969

Well after hours what you think ?
More lab grown burgers or back to the moo cows ?

My opinion I,am lovin it

shleedance · 05-08-2013 01:14PM

In a sense, they can finally take out the moral implications of eating meat.

How it tastes and what's in it are different matters, however.

wazky · 05-08-2013 01:14PM

Would it taste as well as horse though?

DrumSteve · 05-08-2013 01:14PM

Will probably still be better than McDonald's.

becost · 05-08-2013 01:15PM

Would vegetarians eat it??

LizT · 05-08-2013 01:15PM

Threads merged, please use the search function before starting a thread.

hare05 · 05-08-2013 01:23PM

Meat is meat. Fat, protein, nutrients, etc. That we can finally manufacture it without killing an animal should be a good thing for vegetarians / vegans, no? As for whether I'd be comfortable eating it... Unsure about how it would taste, but it's guaranteed to be the healthiest meat out there, having been made in a sterile environment.

I get why you feel the way you do. It's always unsettling to think that something that came from a chemistry lab is intended to be eaten by humans, but let's face facts here. There's a reason medicine made in labs is the standard and 'herbal treatments' are seen as quackery. The point of science is to take all arguments to their inevitable conclusions and find facts, comfort be damned, and the fact here is that lab grown meat is all but guaranteed to be safer, cleaner, healthier, less resource intensive and more ethically sound than slaughtering animals.

And if you still want to stay vegetarian, think of the benefits to you when the 70% of agricultural land used for livestock is freed up to grow more veg.

Czarcasm · 05-08-2013 01:25PM

I think it'd be merely a photocopy of a proper burger, and the more photocopies you make of photocopies, well, the quality decreases rapidly.

Have you seen what they're allowing to be classified as meat nowadays? Reconstituted offal.

shleedance · 05-08-2013 01:25PM

I think it's due to any long term health concerns from eating it, though. I doubt there would be many, even if it tastes horrible.

BizzyC · 05-08-2013 01:32PM

Hardly solves any problems...
People are starving in 3rd world countries, are we going to send them fecking burgers now?

No, we've just made sure the McDonalds has a sustainable source of meat for making kids fat.

Grayson · 05-08-2013 01:35PM

Czarcasm wrote: »

I think it'd be merely a photocopy of a proper burger, and the more photocopies you make of photocopies, well, the quality decreases rapidly.

Have you seen what they're allowing to be classified as meat nowadays? Reconstituted offal.

Offal is still meat.

Then again I'd eat the fake burger before I'd eat reconstituted offal. If only because of the technical name the reconstituted meat has.

Grayson · 05-08-2013 01:37PM

BizzyC wrote: »

Hardly solves any problems...
People are starving in 3rd world countries, are we going to send them fecking burgers now?

No, we've just made sure the McDonalds has a sustainable source of meat for making kids fat.

But if it enables land which is currently being used for meat to be re-tasked it could help world hunger. Meat is incredibly resource intensive. Using land to raise cattle is a waste plus you need to grow feed for them too.

Conmaicne Mara · 05-08-2013 01:39PM

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

would you feel comfortable eating lab grown meat?

Absolutely no way would I eat that. I want my meat to come from an animal not a petrie dish.

Lapin · 05-08-2013 01:40PM

London is a long way to go for a burger.

shleedance · 05-08-2013 01:40PM

BizzyC wrote: »

Hardly solves any problems...
People are starving in 3rd world countries, are we going to send them fecking burgers now?

No, we've just made sure the McDonalds has a sustainable source of meat for making kids fat.

Yes, because it's McDondald's fault for them being fat, not the kids being greedy eejits. :rolleyes:

wretcheddomain · 05-08-2013 01:41PM

hare05 wrote: »

There's a reason medicine made in labs is the standard and 'herbal treatments' are seen as quackery.

Herbal treatments are not seen as quackery and many of them have important and useful medicinal functions.

Homeopathy on the other hand is seen as quackery and rightfully so.

Bipolar Joe · 05-08-2013 02:02PM

wretcheddomain wrote: »

Herbal treatments are not seen as quackery and many of them have important and useful medicinal functions.

Homeopathy on the other hand is seen as quackery and rightfully so.

I think what he / she means is the crap like "Oh, you got brain cancer, take some echinacia and rub aloe vera on your spouse and it'll be fine." Herbal treatments work, but then medicine takes the thing that works in it and makes it so you don't have to eat an entire tree for your dicky elbow, because they crammed the one or two things that make you feel better into a pill.

CrazyRabbit · 05-08-2013 02:10PM

It can't be any worse than the heavily processed meat we currently consume. A lot of the animals we currently eat come from farms where they are fed various chemicals/hormones etc. At least coming from a lab, we'd be eating just pure meat.

becost · 05-08-2013 02:11PM

wretcheddomain wrote: »

Herbal treatments are not seen as quackery and many of them have important and useful medicinal functions.

Homeopathy on the other hand is seen as quackery and rightfully so.

I take herbal supplements every day and without them I'd be up in St. John of Gods.

Czarcasm · 05-08-2013 02:14PM

Grayson wrote: »

Offal is still meat.

Then again I'd eat the fake burger before I'd eat reconstituted offal. If only because of the technical name the reconstituted meat has.

Just reading that again made me involuntarily retch! It shouldn't be allowed classified as meat. I watched a program on channel 4 on it once, and on my next visit to the supermarket had a look at just how many meat products like sliced ham, burgers, etc, contained reconstituted meat.

Most own brand products contained a high percentage of it, and branded products to a lesser degree. I don't know did anyone here ever see how they plump up chicken breasts to make them look bigger (I know, I know, I was thinking it too!

) -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Gbwz3f-7s

kneemos · 05-08-2013 02:15PM

LizT wrote: »

Threads merged, please use the search function before starting a thread.

Wham bam....

AtomicHorror · 05-08-2013 02:18PM

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

Absolutely no way would I eat that. I want my meat to come from an animal not a petrie dish.

In what way is a petri dish more disgusting than an abattoir? I love my steak but I don't like to think about where it comes from. Most people similarly block out that thought. If we can eat meat that comes from a slaughterhouse and pretend that's not a bit disgusting, are you honestly suggesting we can't do the same for meat that comes from a lab or a factory?

05-08-2013 02:27PM

Like many press releases, people are getting carried away with the "burger" tagline.. It's pretty amazing that they achieved this.

The Backwards Man · 05-08-2013 02:39PM

No difference between the sweepings in an abbatoir and the sweepings in a lab. All burgers are shíte.

TheChizler · 05-08-2013 02:43PM

The Backwards Man wrote: »

No difference between the sweepings in an abbatoir and the sweepings in a lab. All burgers are shíte.

Except it's not sweepings in a lab, it's pure muscle they've grown, should make a very high quality burger in terms of content.

05-08-2013 02:50PM

If it was a case of do I mind eating lab-produced meat, then no I wouldn't mind.

However, it's being hailed as an environmentally friendly burger, which I haven't seen any proof of. It's certainly a good first step towards environmentally friendly burgers, but just because it doesn't require rearing an animal on land doesn't mean it's not using up many other resources.

It avoids a lot of the disadvantages of real meat, but does that mean that it's environmentally/ethically sound itself?

While I think it's a great achievement that needs attention and further development, I think people are getting a bit too overexcited.

inc21 · 05-08-2013 02:50PM

I'd eat it.
I have eaten bulls balls. First bite was very hard to take but it tasted superb.
Horse, cow, dog, cat, rat if its done well and tastes good it all fine by me.

April O Neill · 05-08-2013 02:53PM

Czarcasm wrote: »

Have you seen what they're allowing to be classified as meat nowadays? Reconstituted offal.

Offal is meat. Liver, kidneys etc. are offal.

Lab grown burger, would you eat it, if you could afford it?

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