permetaform | whoa, NEAT.

How cool! Thanks for the link. . .

=) np!

Have you ever read Oryx and Crake? One of its (many) disturbing images is that of a bioengineered chicken that is a bunch of giant blobby breast meat and a gullet, for feeding.

I guess this is marginally less ooky than that, but it still grosses me out.

o.0 huh. ::goes over to amazon.com to peek at book::

It's a wonderful book. I'm hot and cold on Margaret Atwood -- sometimes I adore her and sometimes I'm annoyed by her. This is one of the very good ones, though.

I can't decide if that's cool or creepy.

=) yeah, I think I can see that now...I probably was a bit too used to the idea that they were engineering tissues 'cause I know people were researching the production of it at various labs around here, but I didn't know that it was at a stage to be able to be mass produced.

And PETA will still say it's evil.

Still, dude, that is so cool! (Can we engineer meat to provide nutrients not readily available in impoverished areas? Huh? Huh? *bounces*)

And PETA will still say it's evil.

::grins:: they'll find a way?

I really don't agree. PETA works to prevent cruelty to animals, and this is not animals we're talking about, but single-cells.

It's unreasonable to assume that PETA will take the same kind of "domino" stand as the right-wing anti-choice folks, who *need* to argue that stem cell research is wrong in order to argue against abortions in general.

In this case, the single-cell tissue growth would prevent the slaughter of animals, and I just can't imagine an ethical argument against it, except perhaps that meat isn't necessary at *all*, so perhaps spending time and energy on this technology is time and energy that could be spent in other ways, toward, for instance, promoting a healthier, meatless diet worldwide.

oh ::ponders:: yeah, I don't know much about PETA except what I know from hearsay about them.

I could see, though, arguments that the lab-grown meat is 'unnatural' and therefore wrong...some of the comments below seem to have sorta that reaction, even if it's of the 'eww!' variety. And possibly some arguments about the contamination of food by genetic tweaking, which is apparently what alot of European countries are/were concerned about. (had a science teacher who's research in plant genetics got halted because of protests, he came back and mentioned the stories which I think our class found surprising just because so much manipulation has gone into American plants that we don't think/notice it much anymore...or was never too concerned about it in the first place ::shrugs::)

I'm torn between "neat!" and "ewww!"

=) why the "ew"? Is it sorta like engineered veggies "ew"? or is it because...?

Because, because ... sheets of meat! Meat makers! Not meat from an animal, just ... meat. Meat that is not parts of animals is a scary thing.

Of course, I'm sure many people feel "eww" about meat being parts of animals, so I don't think my visceral feeling that this is Just Not Right will be universal.

No, I'm right with you on the "meat is from animals" page. I want to know where on the cow my burger came from, you know?

I can't remember exactly what it was, but wasn't there at least one SF movie with this premise? Only it made it all evil and stuff? I think exposure to Cold War era SF tends to give you residual suspicion of any kind of food engineering, but it's been a while since I went digging...

hmmm, I don't think it was Soylent Green? (which was people)

The general idea gets referenced a lot in nearly all SF--humanity's exhausted its resources/can't grow food fast enough, so they turn to artificial cultivation. There, the disgust factor is usually Matrix-esque: it tastes right, but who the fuck really knows what's in it (and have most people missed the fact that the Matrix set-up was cannibalistic? Liquefied humans got fed to growing humans?).

Huh. That's really interesting.

Sheets of meat! Nifty! And slightly gross. But nifty!

(Of course, I'm kinda fond of the idea of my meat coming from discernable parts of animals.)

heee! I just kinda imagine these tuning-fork-type things stretching the sheets sorta like those taffy machines you see.

Oh, now I'm imagining beef-flavored taffy.

Ew.

aheh, oops. XD

And to clarify:
my concerns about lab-grown meat would be along the lines of "Engineered meat? What went into it? What's been tweaked?" Even buying meat now, I tend to go for butchers who carve up their own meat, who know where their slabs of meat are coming from, more or less. Best lamb I've ever had was in Australia: ranch-grown and not fed anything but whatever it foraged.

I do try to avoid engineered produce, when possible (which, here in the USA, is rarely, but I try) because there just hasn't been enough research into some of it to ease my mind: I'm all for feeding people, but I (being rich on the global scale and therefore having the luxury to say this and still eat) would like more trials and checking-out done first. Putting potato genes into apples is great in theory: if one is safe and the other is safe, the two together are safe, right? My grandma tried that with bleach and ammonia: didn't work so well.

And I suppose there's part of me that's more suspicious and paranoid than skeptical. Though even that part of me admits that the possibilities here are amazing. And the idea of giant sheets of meat is kinda cool, in its own creepy way.

ahhh, yeah, me and the roommates had roughly the same discussion...in the end I think I bear down way more on the "I don't care if it's food, unless I keel over upon eating it". I think this is probably due alot to my upbringing, and I'm kinda known for having a strong stomach anyways...

Thanks for the link! That's...yeah, I'm torn between being creeped out and amazed. If you're ever feeling adventurous, try 'Quorn'--it's a line of frozen dinners that're 'meat' but made entirely of fungus (I've had some. It's convincing!)

ohh! I've never seen that Quorn thing before! I'll keep an eye out for it. My roommate who's Indian has these balls of squishy soybean that we also use as a meat substitute but I forget it's name. (if nothing else, tofu's *cheaper* and I=student)

This is amazing. And also totally grossing me out. I don't really know why, my automatic reation just seems to be "Meat grown in labs? Eeeeww!" *whimpers*

XD hee! is it the slaughterhouse image that's icky or the whole cloning aspect?

I don't know! Just the whole growing-flesh thing. It sounds like something out of a bad sci-fi movie. *quivers*

ahhh, yeah, that's understandable.

That is too cool! I love that!

=D icon is so appropriate!

heh, that was me, forgot to sign in ::wry grin::

Comment on your thought in response to comments. ::grin::

I think what I'm finding creepy isn't so much the idea of the finished product, it's the idea of rooms. Full of. Sheets. Of. Meat.

o.o oh..

yeah, that *is* creepy. like the way a slaughterhouse is creepy, ne?

Yes. ::nods::

Hmmm, my first thought was "yay! no more guilt about loving kielbasa!" I really ought to be a vegetarian on animal rights principles...

but hey, I'm all for bioengineered plants, too. put me firm on the 'feeding people is a good thing' side.

Honestly, and I really don't know why, but it disgusts me. But, to give it a true thought, it would comfort my mind about eating living creatures (I'm trying to be a vegetarian, but it's alot difficult than it should be). It's a good thing, in the end, is what I'd say. If they can engineer this, there should be much hope for the med field.

As a vegetarian for moral reasons, I think this technology is brilliant! The ewww factor is the way I feel about eating animals. I don't understand why non-vegetarians would be grossed out by this and not by eating something that breathed and felt pain and pleasure.

Huh, fascinating... thanks for the link!

I'm "mostly pesco-vegetarian" -- I eat fish, eggs, and occasionally game meats, and I find this much *less* disturbing than what's been reported about the factory farming practices that have been going on for years.

However, I do find it a bit disturbing that there's no mention of what would be used to "feed" the meat... it's still living animal tissue which has still got to get its energy and nutrition from somewhere...

I think for me the squick factor would be the "Do I really trust labs more than hundreds of years of evolution." Only I don't know if that counts for me because I'm not actually squicked, really. I would totally eat it.

But then --> college student. I'll eat anything, really. Especially if it's supposedly healthier, because then it's guilt free on multiple levels. I love those green odwalla shakes, and they're chock full o' ~~algae~~ spirulina.

oh yeah, the spirulina! XD I remember you mentioning that...

And with the labs, dude, with what I know of how they mass-produce meat in the farms, lab-grown meat is less squick inducing.

whoa, NEAT.

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