Second lab-grown chicken product cleared for human consumption

[K0k0shka]

If the point is to make a dent into the horrible factory farmed chicken meat industry, I'm all for it. It's not going to replace all meat. But if it cuts back on the cruelty that happens in those factory farms, then good. Chickens crammed so tight they can't move, with bed sores, boiled alive because nobody cares enough to kill them first before scalding, it's just ridiculous what happens to them. Small-scale humane farms and backyard flocks can't replace all of that, there's just too much demand. Not everybody can afford the higher price of "real meat", and poor people gotta eat, too. If at least some of the mass produced meat can be produced this way and lead to fewer birds suffering the factory process, so that McDonald's can keep cheap chicken on their menu, then I don't care.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

If the point is to make a dent into the horrible factory farmed chicken meat industry, I'm all for it. It's not going to replace all meat. But if it cuts back on the cruelty that happens in those factory farms, then good. Chickens crammed so tight they can't move, with bed sores, boiled alive because nobody cares enough to kill them first before scalding, it's just ridiculous what happens to them. Small-scale humane farms and backyard flocks can't replace all of that, there's just too much demand. Not everybody can afford the higher price of "real meat", and poor people gotta eat, too. If at least some of the mass produced meat can be produced this way and lead to fewer birds suffering the factory process, so that McDonald's can keep cheap chicken on their menu, then I don't care.

Yeah I'm not saying don't fix the problem of cruelty, but I'm saying I'm not sure if this is the solution. You have to pry a living fetus from a cow to get the right cells to start the process (from what I've heard/read), and we don't have enough info that I can find about how they get the cells for chicken or pork. We don't know the long-term effects of consuming this type of food because there is absolutely no research. It seems like they are jumping into this quickly without knowing the repercussions. Yes, the FDA gave them a decent report, but the FDA also has approved a lot of things that over time became disastrous (think livestock antibiotics).

I think there are other ways of getting rid of animal cruelty that don't involve lab grown meat. Maybe different standards for meat producers. Maybe the cost would go up a bit, but I don't even think that much if they just required more space per bird. And tbh Americans have unhealthy portion sizes and waste a ton of food. Maybe we don't need to be producing as much as we think, but that's whole other can of worms argument to open lol. But basically I'm just saying that it might seem great, let's do anything to keep chicken both affordable and cruelty-minimal, but other factors need to be considered.

(And I would argue that McDonalds barely has anything cheap on their menu. The appeal of fast food used to be that it was fast, cheap, and tasted decent. Now you sit in line forever while 2 people run the whole restaurant, you pay just as much as you would to go somewhere with more wholesome food, and the quality and portion sizes have gone down.)

 

[K0k0shka]

You have to pry a living fetus from a cow to get the right cells to start the process

Meh... Right now, the dairy industry is prying living calves from their mothers and killing them, in order to take the mother's milk, and nobody bats an eye, so a fetus is not some major ethical hurdle.

The problem is too complex for one single magic solution, we have to try different things and scrap together a collection of smaller solutions. This could be one of them, one of many approaches. We'll need to get creative to solve the future's problems, because the standard solutions are either impractical (there isn't enough land to give every food animal "free range", or we'd need to sacrifice forests and wildlife), or there is too much pushback from corporations and consumers against regulation or the higher prices of good food and good practices. Food waste is a big problem, but nobody wants to solve it - restaurants don't want to pay for proper food disposal (donating to shelters, recycling, etc.), the consumer doesn't want to pay for it with higher prices either. Solutions need money, and the government can't pay either because too many people think taxes are evil and refuse to chip in... So who's gonna pay to solve our problems? We'll have to either accept creative solutions, or step up and pay for the more palatable, but costly solutions either directly via higher food prices, or indirectly via government support for programs and regulations.

 

[HenriettaPizzaNolan]

Meh... Right now, the dairy industry is prying living calves from their mothers and killing them, in order to take the mother's milk, and nobody bats an eye, so a fetus is not some major ethical hurdle.

Yeah, so that's why I'm saying there's not much difference, ethically, with the fake meat. But they're gonna market it like there is. My whole point is that it's a marketing ploy that's not much of an actual improvement.

The problem is too complex for one single magic solution, we have to try different things and scrap together a collection of smaller solutions. This could be one of them, one of many approaches. We'll need to get creative to solve the future's problems, because the standard solutions are either impractical (there isn't enough land to give every food animal "free range", or we'd need to sacrifice forests and wildlife), or there is too much pushback from corporations and consumers against regulation or the higher prices of good food and good practices. Food waste is a big problem, but nobody wants to solve it - restaurants don't want to pay for proper food disposal (donating to shelters, recycling, etc.), the consumer doesn't want to pay for it with higher prices either. Solutions need money, and the government can't pay either because too many people think taxes are evil and refuse to chip in... So who's gonna pay to solve our problems? We'll have to either accept creative solutions, or step up and pay for the more palatable, but costly solutions either directly via higher food prices, or indirectly via government support for programs and regulations.

I agree with what you're saying, but I personally feel this lab grow meat thing could be a can of worms we don't want to open if it ends up having negative health effects when consumed over time. Like I said, I'm all up for finding solutions, but I'm not going to blindly try things that I don't know any of the possible consequences of. This is a "creative solution" I will not be accepting with my money. I will take my money elsewhere. But I just fear this could take over the market and it becomes difficult to find real meat. Then if we figure out this stuff is bad for us, we're f'd.