Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

SoylentNews is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop. Only 18 submissions in the queue.
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)


Original Submission

Related Stories

Lab-Grown Chicken (and Duck) Could be on the Menu in 4 Years 16 comments

A company called Memphis Meats has announced that it has developed artificial/synthetic/lab-grown/cultured chicken and duck meat. The company's press release says it plans to sell cultured meat products to consumers as soon as 2021. Duck is identified as key to the mainland China market, which consumes more of it (over 6 billion pounds annually) than the rest of the world combined:

The quest for artificial meat inches forward—the company Memphis Meats announced today it has developed chicken and duck meat from cultured cells of each bird, producing "clean poultry." The firm provided few details, although participants at a tasting reportedly said the chicken tasted like, well, chicken. Below is a repost of a story originally published 23 August 2016 on some of the regulatory challenges and questions facing Memphis Meats and other companies pursuing artificial meats.

[...] So far, none of these synthetic foods has reached the marketplace. But a handful of startup companies in the United States and elsewhere are trying to scale up production. In the San Francisco Bay area in California, entrepreneurs at Memphis Meats hope to have their cell-cultured meatballs, hot dogs, and sausages on store shelves in about 5 years, and those at Perfect Day are targeting the end of 2017 to distribute cow-free dairy products. It's not clear, however, which government agencies would oversee this potential new food supply.

Historically, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regulates meat, poultry, and eggs, whereas the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees safety and security for food additives. FDA also approves so-called biologics, which include products made from human tissues, blood, and cells, and gene therapy techniques. But emerging biotechnologies may blur those lines of oversight, because some of the new foods don't fit neatly into existing regulatory definitions. "Cellular culture raises a lot of questions," says Isha Datar, CEO of New Harvest, a New York City–based nonprofit founded to support this nascent industry.

To help provide answers, the White House last year launched an initiative to review and overhaul how U.S. agencies regulate agricultural biotechnology [DOI: 10.1126/science.349.6244.131] [DX]. And the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine in Washington, D.C., is working on a broader study of future biotechnology developments and regulation, with a report slated for release at the end of this year. In the meantime, industry leaders are thinking about how their potential lab-based foods might be handled by regulators. One approach, they tell ScienceInsider, is to show that their product is similar to an existing product that testing has already shown to pose no hazards. "Most food regulation is about aligning new products with something that's already recognized as safe," Datar notes.

Related: Producing Beef has the Greatest Impact on the Environment Compared to Other Animal Based Foods
Real Vegan Cheese: Coming From a Yeast to You
Would You Try Silicon Valley's Bloody Plant Burger(s)?
Lab-Grown Pork Closer to Reality

Right now, manufactured meat is as real as a flying car.
- Anonymous Coward, 2014


Original Submission

Cargill, Bill Gates, Richard Branson Backed Memphis Meats Expects Meat From Cells in Stores by 2021 39 comments

Submitted via IRC for takyon

Cargill Inc., one of the largest global agricultural companies, has joined Bill Gates and other business giants to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells amid rising consumer demand for protein that's less reliant on feed, land and water.

Memphis Meats, which produces beef, chicken and duck directly from animal cells without raising and slaughtering livestock or poultry, raised $17 million from investors including Cargill, Gates and billionaire Richard Branson, according to a statement Tuesday on the San Francisco-based startup's website. The fundraising round was led by venture-capital firm DFJ, which has previously backed several social-minded retail startups.

They made the first ever chicken and duck meat that were produced without the animals.

The company expects to have a product in stores by 2021.

"They're the leader in clean meat. There's no one else that far along," says venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson, whose firm led Memphis Meats' recent $17 million Series A. Before he met Valeti in 2016, Jurvetson spent almost five years researching lab-grown meat and meat alternatives, believing the market was set to explode. "They're the only one that convinced me they can get to a price point and a scale that would make a difference in the industry," he says.

Cargill is the largest privately held corporation in the United States in terms of revenue ($109.7 billion in 2017).

Source: https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2017/10/cargill-bill-gates-richard-branson-backed-memphis-meats-expects-meat-from-cells-in-stores-by-2021.html

Previously: Lab-Grown Chicken (and Duck) Could be on the Menu in 4 Years

Related: Lab-grown meat would 'cut emissions and save energy'
Producing Beef has the Greatest Impact on the Environment Compared to Other Animal Based Foods
Real Vegan Cheese: Coming From a Yeast to You
Would You Try Silicon Valley's Bloody Plant Burger(s)?
Lab-Grown Pork Closer to Reality


Original Submission

U.S. Cattlemen's Association Wants an Official Definition of "Meat" 80 comments

The U.S. Cattlemen's Association has asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to develop an official definition for terms like "meat" and "beef", as plant-based alternatives to meats continue to grow in popularity and lab-grown/cultured meat may be coming soon:

Companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are combining plant-based ingredients and science, rather than animals, to create fake-meat burgers and other products that taste like the real thing.

Now U.S. Cattlemen's Association is looking to draw a line in the sand. The association launched what could be the first salvo in a long battle against plant-based foods. Earlier this month, the association filed a 15-page petition with the U.S. Department of Agriculture calling for an official definition for the term "beef," and more broadly, "meat."

"While at this time alternative protein sources are not a direct threat to the beef industry, we do see improper labeling of these products as misleading," said Lia Biondo, the association's policy and outreach director. "Our goal is to head off the problem before it becomes a larger issue."

[...] While these foods are commonly dubbed "fake meat," there's a little more to the meat-substitute market than that. The Good Food Institute, which advocates a sustainable food supply, breaks it down into two categories: clean meat and plant-based meat. Clean meat refers to "meat" grown in a lab from a small amount of animal stem cells. This kind of meat isn't on the market yet, but it's in development. Plant-based meat is anything that mimics traditional meat but is made mainly using plant ingredients.

Here's an idea: define "meat" for the Cattlemen's Association, then tax it with an exemption for "lab-grown meat".

Related: Lab-Grown Pork Closer to Reality
Lab-Grown Chicken (and Duck) Could be on the Menu in 4 Years
Inside the Strange Science of the Fake Meat that 'Bleeds'
Impossible Foods Just Raised $75 Million for Its Plant-based Burgers
Cargill, Bill Gates, Richard Branson Backed Memphis Meats Expects Meat From Cells in Stores by 2021
Meat Tax Proposed for Sake of Human and Environmental Health.


Original Submission

Lab-Grown Meat: Never Cost-Competitive? 42 comments

Lab-grown meat is supposed to be inevitable. The science tells a different story.

Splashy headlines have long overshadowed inconvenient truths about biology and economics. Now, extensive new research suggests the industry may be on a billion-dollar crash course with reality.

[...] [In March], the Good Food Institute (GFI), a nonprofit that represents the alternative protein industry, published a techno-economic analysis (TEA) that projected the future costs of producing a kilogram of cell-cultured meat. Prepared independently for GFI by the research consulting firm CE Delft, and using proprietary data provided under NDA by 15 private companies, the document showed how addressing a series of technical and economic barriers could lower the production price from over $10,000 per pound today to about $2.50 per pound over the next nine years—an astonishing 4,000-fold reduction.

In the press push that followed, GFI claimed victory. "New studies show cultivated meat can have massive environmental benefits and be cost-competitive by 2030," it trumpeted, suggesting that a new era of cheap, accessible cultured protein is rapidly approaching. The finding is critical for GFI and its allies. If private, philanthropic, and public sector investors are going to put money into cell-cultured meat, costs need to come down quickly. Most of us have a limited appetite for 50-dollar lab-grown chicken nuggets.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by mendax on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:02AM

    by mendax (2840) on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:02AM (#468501)

    Hmmm... bacon... Yum!

    --
    It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
  • (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.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (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.

        --
        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?

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (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.

          --
          --- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
    • (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?

  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by c0lo on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:27AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 18 2017, @07:27AM (#468515) Journal

    Better idea: just use HeLa [wikipedia.org] - lower growing cost, already proven resilience.

    (grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 4, Funny) by Username on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:16AM

      by Username (4557) on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:16AM (#468522)

      Sure sounds like a Soylent idea.

    • (Score: 1) by justinb_76 on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:23PM

      by justinb_76 (4362) on Saturday February 18 2017, @06:23PM (#468669)

      Mmmm, long pork!

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:39AM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 19 2017, @05:39AM (#468866) Journal

        Seasoned with Human papillomavirus [wikipedia.org].

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:22AM (#468523)

    So much of lab-grown and chemical food is said to solve world hunger or something. Then later it is found to be dangerous and gives you cancer. Research does not look at anything except the financial return.

    To solve the "meat crisis", eat less meat. Eat less in general. Do not eat cardboard. Eat rich food.

  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:55AM

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday February 18 2017, @08:55AM (#468531) Journal

    Once we develop the capacity to make muscle meat for food, this is going to branch off into how to make replacement tissues for replacing or augmenting our own failing tissues.

    I wonder how many people right now with muscular dystrophy would love to get ahold of some of this custom muscle meat?

    Quickly followed by thousands of people with failing kidneys, pancreas, livers, lungs, what-have-you.

    We sure live in interesting times.

    Here's hoping our determination, curiosity, intelligence, and ethics can overcome our greed.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @09:27AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 18 2017, @09:27AM (#468541)

      That is not the case. Do you notice that those in power rarely fall ill. They never have kidney failure, heart disease, lung-disese...

      These little problems were solved a long time ago, and there are medical treatments to permanently "fix" almost all medical issues. The ruling class do not die. They are taken out and sent to live on islands peacefully in order to propagate the myth that everyone has to die. They even got someone to popularize "Nothing is certain in life except death and taxes." Both of those are totally unnecessary.