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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday February 18 2017, @05:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-other-white-meat dept.

Scientists from the University of Missouri, the University of Maryland and the Animal Bioscience and Biotechnology Laboratory, US Department of Agriculture Agricultural Research Service have published an article in Nature outlining a method for "generating skeletal muscle efficiently from porcine induced pluripotent stem cells (piPSC) in vitro thereby providing a versatile platform for applications ranging from regenerative biology to the ex vivo cultivation of meat". The research used a porcine stem cell line to generate muscular tissue instead of cells taken directly from a pig:

"What the paper describes is research designed to generate muscle from a newly established pig stem-cell line, rather that from primary cells taken directly from a pig," co-author Dr. Nicholas Genovese, a stem-cell biologist (and vegetarian), told Digital Trends. "This entailed understanding the biology of relatively uncharacterized and recently-derived porcine induced pluripotent stem cell lines. What conditions support cell growth, survival and differentiation? These are all questions I had to figure out in the lab before the cells could be turned into muscle."

Also at GlobalMeatNews.

Enhanced Development of Skeletal Myotubes from Porcine Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells (open, DOI: 10.1038/srep41833) (DX)


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:55AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:55AM (#468511)

    I already notice that farm-raised salmon tastes a bit like corn, while wild salmon tastes a bit like shrimp. You are what you eat.

    The salmon at least still has gills, kidneys, a liver, and an intestinal tract. This "pork" will have none of that, not that I expect gills. I already avoid pork that has been "injected with 5% to 7% of a broth solution" or whatever the latest icky fakeness is. What will this stuff taste like? Maybe soy and plastic?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:39AM

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:39AM (#468527) Journal

    Less complicated forms of meat like ground beef/pork will be the first to be commercialized. Actual differentiated cuts of meat and those with bone in them will come later. If the technique takes off and starts replacing the livestock industry, we'll see research into creating premium cuts that include marbling or mimic the grass/shrimp/whatever-fed taste.

    The quality of lab-grown ground meat products can't be determined yet, but there's reasons to hope. Rather than throwing mystery components in, with the lab-grown meat you can be confident that only muscle, fat, and blood cells are used. No bits of bone, beak, eyeballs, or whatever. The world's first lab-grown burger didn't even contain the desired fat cells or blood (beetroot juice was used to color it). Lean ground meat like 93% meat/7% fat are sold at a premium in supermarkets, and will be the easiest to replicate.

    The saline solution acts partially as a preservative. Lab-grown meat has the potential to be grown much closer to consumers because you could stick a factory much closer to or within cities than where you could put a slaughterhouse. Less distance and less travel time could mean less need for a saline solution.

    Lab-grown meat is going to face a lot of scientific, regulatory, and marketing hurdles, and I wouldn't expect the average consumer to eat anything like this regularly within the next 20 years. However, there will be additional pressure to make it happen given the suspected environmental and cost benefits.

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    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:35PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:35PM (#468560)

      On the other hand, vegetarian meat-substitutes with heme are already on the market and taste pretty damn good.

      https://www.cnet.com/news/the-veggie-burger-that-bleeds-like-real-meat/ [cnet.com]

      http://beyondmeat.com/ [beyondmeat.com]
      https://www.impossiblefoods.com/ [impossiblefoods.com]

      • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:08PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:08PM (#468594)

        Which is fine as long as you don't want to suffer from nutrient deficiency. Humans evolved to eat meat as a part of our diets and removing the meat from our diets results in health problems. There's a reason why vegetarians and vegans don't live as long as people who eat a sensible meat based diet.

        There's also a reason why vegetarians and vegans have to use a strawman diet in order to claim that the diets are healthier. There are no health problems associated with getting 10 or 20% of your calories from quality cuts of meat. The health problems from meat are mostly when that number gets to be 70 or 80% of junk meat.

        • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:58PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:58PM (#468706)

          There's a reason why vegetarians and vegans don't live as long as people who eat a sensible meat based diet.

          And what reason would that be?

          Or is it no reason at all, since vegetarians live 6-9 years longer than everybody else. [nydailynews.com]

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @10:46PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @10:46PM (#468752)

            Maybe those who know, consciously or unconsciously, that they are about to die choose to eat meat.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:56PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 18 2017, @12:56PM (#468568) Journal

      However, there will be additional pressure to make it happen given the suspected environmental and cost benefits.

      Like shit!

      Growing mushrooms is so much less environ damaging (and cheaper, at least today) - feed cellulose (grasses - hay, straw, bran), get natural proteins, minerals, vitamins
      And I bet taste much better than the artificial pork, certainly they look much better [mushacademy.com].
      This letting aside the magic in some mushrooms.

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      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 18 2017, @04:19PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday February 18 2017, @04:19PM (#468613) Journal

        There is an increasing demand for chicken, beef, pork, etc. as hundreds of millions more people enter the middle class around the world. They are demanding it and getting it. Now you have a technology that could deliver better tasting quality meat (or worse, but I already explained how it can be better) while using 1-2 orders of magnitude less water, energy, and land.

        There is a place for mushrooms, insects, Heme/impossible meat, etc. That place is probably space. Here on Earth, we still have enough resources for the moment to satisfy the growing demand for meat. But if we could do it with just a fraction of the environmental impact and at a lower cost palatable to industry, that would be preferred.

        And I bet taste much better than the artificial pork

        And I bet that scientists will put out a lab-grown pork that tastes better than some pork products out on the market today which are eaten by millions. You say people should switch to mushrooms. Others are even trying to grow their own mealworms. But people are still eating millions of pounds of questionable Taco Bell meat, pink slime burgers, bodily horror chicken nuggets, mystery sausage, and fish sticks in their mouth. Every day. Replacing those items with lab grown alternatives could have significant benefits.

        If you are going to be eating mushrooms and a vegan diet, there is no downside in others replacing livestock with lab grown meat, because you won't be eating it anyway. Right?

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        • (Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:49AM

          by butthurt (6141) on Sunday February 19 2017, @04:49AM (#468858) Journal

          > [...] using 1-2 orders of magnitude less water, energy, and land [...]

          According to one estimate, a pig can gain 1 kg of weight by eating 4 kg of grain:

          The efficiency with which various animals convert grain into protein varies widely. With cattle in feedlots, it takes roughly 7 kilograms of grain to produce a 1-kilogram gain in live weight. For pork, the figure is close to 4 kilograms of grain per kilogram of weight gain, for poultry it is just over 2, and for herbivorous species of farmed fish (such as carp, tilapia, and catfish), it is less than 2. As the market shifts production to the more grain-efficient products, it raises the productivity of both land and water.

          -- https://web.archive.org/web/20120920003538/http://www.earth-policy.org/books/pb2/pb2ch9_ss4 [archive.org]

          I apprehend that with a tissue culture there will be no unused organs--all the flesh grown will be consumable. However I doubt there is a possibility for tenfold greater efficiency, let alone 100-fold.

          A Forbes columnist had a response to the estimates I quoted above. Instead of harvesting crops to feed to animals, he advocates having livestock graze:

          Around where I live in Portugal pigs forage for acorns (yes, from the same oak trees that give us cork) or are fed on swill, goats and sheep graze on fields that would support no form of arable farming at all (they can just about, sometimes, support low levels of almond, olive or carob growing). Much beef cattle in the UK is grass fed with perhaps hay or silage in the winters.

          -- https://web.archive.org/web/20120915063548/http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/09/03/it-does-not-take-7-kg-of-grain-to-make-1-kg-of-beef-be-very-careful-with-your-statistics/ [archive.org]

          These tissue cultures will need a culture medium; without the benefit of a digestive system, they will not be able to consume cellulosic material. Whatever is fed to them could instead nourish people directly (although, like an elemental diet in a hospital it may not be palatable). My default assumption is that the medium would be prepared from soybeans or maize, which can be made into eaten directly by people.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elemental_diet [wikipedia.org]

          Mushrooms, in contrast, can be grown in sawdust or manure.

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:47AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:47AM (#468869) Journal

          If you are going to be eating mushrooms and a vegan diet, there is no downside in others replacing livestock with lab grown meat, because you won't be eating it anyway. Right?

          Almost. Everything is right except a vegan diet.
          (well, you see, I could get nobody to agree with me that pork is a damn tasty vegetable)

          Yes, I won't touch chicken nuggets and the like.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Saturday February 18 2017, @04:19PM

        by Gaaark (41) on Saturday February 18 2017, @04:19PM (#468615) Journal

        As well, I'm starting to think my mealworm farm is a good, homegrown alternative to fake pork.

        --
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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:55PM

    by RamiK (1813) on Saturday February 18 2017, @01:55PM (#468578)

    avoid pork that has been "injected with 5% to 7% of a broth solution" or whatever the latest icky fakeness is

    Injecting broths, brines and wines to meat goes back centuries (for curing and smoking at the very least).

    farm-raised salmon tastes a bit like corn, while wild salmon tastes a bit like shrimp

    Play around with seafood stock and glutamate. Personally I use Ajinomoto's hondashi (powdered bonito fish) and MSG (monosodium glutamate from sugar canes).
    Since you'd likely consider this "fakeness", you can make your own fish stocks \ dashi and source the MSG from mushrooms, cheeses or tomatoes as glutamate.

    --
    compiling...
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:07PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @03:07PM (#468593)

    Tastes like chicken?