Lab grown food - is it Green? and is it Ethical?

Cardew

Rather than muscle in on the ‘Green and Ethical Food’ thread, this subject deserves a separate thread as it is bound to become a hot topic in the years to come.

There have been many articles about ‘Man made Food’ and the highly respected environmentalist George Monboit – much loved(by some) in this forum! - wrote an article in the Guardian entitled ‘Lab-grown food will soon destroy farming – and save the planet’

That article was written 12 months ago and I recently watched a programme on American TV where reporter couldn’t distinguish between lab produced ‘chicken meat’ and real chicken meat.

So is it Green? and is it Ethical?

michaels

I guess we can add 'Is it safe?' to the list of questions - are there potentially long term health or food security risks?

In terms of ethical the only issue I can see is with regard to the impact on farmers livelihoods, not just the industrial mega-farms but also the small holders and indigenous third world farmers.  Further down the line if we decide it is unethical to eat meat products I guess we would have to decide whether it was ethical to eat manufactured products designed to resemble meat (an analogy might be if !!!!!! were made illegal would computer generated !!!!!! also be illegal?)

In terms of green, it would appear to be less energy and resource intensive than the 'natural' product but possibly still more resource intensive than the vegetable based alternatives?

shinytop

michaels said:

I guess we can add 'Is it safe?' to the list of questions - are there potentially long term health or food security risks?

In terms of ethical the only issue I can see is with regard to the impact on farmers livelihoods, not just the industrial mega-farms but also the small holders and indigenous third world farmers.  Further down the line if we decide it is unethical to eat meat products I guess we would have to decide whether it was ethical to eat manufactured products designed to resemble meat (an analogy might be if !!!!!! were made illegal would computer generated !!!!!! also be illegal?)

In terms of green, it would appear to be less energy and resource intensive than the 'natural' product but possibly still more resource intensive than the vegetable based alternatives?

A lot of people (aka veggies) already think eating meat is unethical and there are loads of manufactured meat subtitutes out there presumably being eaten by said veggies.  IMO it would be hard to distinguish between these and the lab grown ones on ethical grounds alone.  BTW I think some types of CG !!!!!! might be illegal already (although idk for sure and am not going to research it!).

I think people will need to be convinced of the safety (a bit like GM) and of course the price will have to be right but it looks like something that will have legs. (well actually it won't )

Pile_o_stone

I always see these meat substitutes as a stop-gap measure for those people who are trying to move to a more plant-based diet and either don't have the knowledge to prepare a nutritious balanced meal, or are used to a convenience-based diet  I suspect they are probably healthier than eating their meat-based fast-food equivalent (rendered down ears and snouts anyone?) but not as healthy as prime cuts of meat or a meal cooked from scratch using fresh vegetables. 

I think it's more ethical than butchering animals (which is terrifying for the animal and causes PTSD in abattoir workers) and I guess it will be much greener because of the lack of methane (a potent greenhouse gas created by livestock).

Baxter100

It's processed sludge really. If you are worried about the environment you are best off eating local, seasonal food.

Cardew

Baxter100 said:

It's processed sludge really. If you are worried about the environment you are best off eating local, seasonal food.

Why use a 'derogatory' term like sludge? Are not Ice cream and soups sludge? - even the vegan variety.

Apparenty the texture and taste of 'lab meat' is  indistinguishable from the real thing.

Baxter100

Because it is poor quality 'food'! Very heavily processed with all kinds of who knows what added in order to make it look and taste like the real thing.

Yes the vast majority of ice cream I would put in the same category. Homemade fresh soup, of course not. But a lot of the shop bought soups include all manner of things as well.

Baxter100

Sadly though I do think this is the way it will all be going as there is a huge political drive behind this kind of stuff.

In fact I would go as far to say that within 20-30 years the consumption of meat may well be either illegal or at the very least prohibitively expensive enough to make it all but so.

Cardew

Baxter100 said:

Because it is poor quality 'food'! Very heavily processed with all kinds of who knows what added in order to make it look and taste like the real thing.

Yes the vast majority of ice cream I would put in the same category. Homemade fresh soup, of course not. But a lot of the shop bought soups include all manner of things as well.

With respect I think you are confusing 'Lab Produced food'  with methods used to produce 'artificial' food.

No 'lab produced food' is licenced for sale anywhere in the world(except some experimental chicken nuggets in Malaya?) and it would cost a fortune at the moment. However it will get cheaper than the 'real thing'.

May I suggest you Google 'lab grown food and meat' and look at recent articles.

Baxter100

By lab grown meat you mean this stuff yes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29GFYxI4tek

I don't quite follow your post - are you arguing that this isn't heavily processed?

Mickey666

I can't really see any ethical problems with lab-grown meat.

As for its quality, what are the measurement criteria?  Plenty of 'natural' meat grown in factory farms (just anther sort of 'lab?) is already full of artificial chemicals such as antibiotics and growth hormones.  Plus selective breeding has grossly distorted the 'natural' animal's physique in pursuit of maximum production, hence dairy cow's massive increase in milk yields, turkey's so large that they can no longer breed naturally, etc.  And that's before all the ethical considerations around animal welfare.

Many people are already happy to eat highly processed foods, some of which are expressly formulated to mimic meat already, eg vegan sausages, Quorn, etc, so why would they have a problem with 'lab-grown' meat?

Just watch out for the Soylent Green though . . . you might want to give that a miss