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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.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:46AM (34 children)
Just label the labgrown as "cultivated meat" - like they did with pearls.
For the plantbased stuff, I dunno "margimeat"? (think margarine) (would allow for margibeef, maristeak, margiham...)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:48AM (9 children)
"Plantae flesh"
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(Score: 3, Touché) by bob_super on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:17AM (7 children)
It's not unded, since it was never alive so: "Construct meat"
(Score: 4, Funny) by requerdanos on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:26AM (5 children)
I know that defining "life" is not something that science has definitively settled... But plants were never alive?
I am no scientific expert here. But my Grandmother was a professional florist, and my Dad was a horticulturist.
In working with and for them during my formative years, I got the strong impressions that plants are alive during the time that they live and grow.
(Score: 4, Funny) by PartTimeZombie on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:37AM
There's no scientific consensus that life is important.
(Score: 3, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:37AM (3 children)
I was referring to lab-grown stuff, soon to become industrial-vat-grown stuff.
Fake meat made out of plants is already called vegetarian patties, soy burger... and I'm sure they will keep inventing fuzzy-sounding names to differentiate from the upcoming frankenmeats.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by requerdanos on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:01AM (2 children)
oooohhhh! I apologize for my confusion.
So if the lab-grown stuff was grown, was it not alive while it was growing? Definition of life thing again.
If it were a bunch of bacteria growing, of course we'd say it it was alive.
But it's a bunch of cow(/goat/chicken/whatever) cells, definitely not located within a cow(/goat/etc.)... Being cultured, that means growing, must be alive in some since, but definitely not a "live animal?" Just the fact that we use the word "grown" implies life to some degree. I don't have the answer(s).
I was surprised when the soy people got away with establishing the term "Soy Milk". I guess the meat people don't want a similar thing to happen with "Soy Meat" or "Soymeat."
Speaking of which, there are some "meat patties [flandersburgers.com]" available that contain fillers like soy [shoprite.com], that are called "beef" on the label. I wonder if those would survive a legal defining of the term "beef".
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @10:50AM (1 child)
Grown implies increase in size, not life. You can grow crystals, planetoids grow by accretion, you can even grow an image size by adjusting lenses.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Immerman on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:47PM
Yes, but cells don't grow that way - they only grow substantially when alive, through self-replication
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:46AM
I tried to figure out what you think 'alive' means but my processors shut down in protest after only milliseconds.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:45PM
I think leafy meat is better:
http://dontstarve.wikia.com/wiki/Leafy_Meat [wikia.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by KiloByte on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:05AM (17 children)
Cultured pearls or "artificial" diamonds are 100% real, and usually better than "natural" ones — same as fridge-made ice is cleaner than one carried from the mountains (ice delivery people bitched about it a century ago...).
Imitation meat, both plant and current lab-grown, doesn't even resemble actual meat. That's why it's important to ban fraudulent advertising terms, which can be as weaselly as "clean" meat. And even with some significant breakthroughs in cultured "meat", it'd presumably contain so much drugs that I wouldn't want to be as much as in the same room as such a product.
Antibiotic-laden meat is bad enough.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:40AM (16 children)
You have no evidence for this assertion.
I would assert the opposite: substitute live animals eating and pooping in close quarters for relatively sterile laboratory-like conditions, and you have less need for antibiotics. Whatever chemicals you do use in the cultured meat environment could be very carefully tuned. You could also zap the meat with UV or gamma rays at multiple points throughout the process, something you can't really do with a cow. Finally, the amount of time to create a particular unit of meat could be a lot shorter than the life cycle of a cow, meaning less exposure to this and that.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:31AM (10 children)
Addendum necessary "... as long as you spend all the rest of your life in equally sterile laboratory-like conditions yourself".
Under such conditions, your immune system will be totally out of whack with the "real-world", so either:
- any microbe will kill you by the means of an immune system not prepare to answer quick enough, so you'll rot alive or bleed through your orifices to your death (or any biodoom horror you want to imagine).
- you die by overreaction to an otherwise benign protein that you ingested (think anaphylactic shock to cow milk protein)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:37AM (9 children)
What? Are we arguing that the "cultured meat" is not prepared for the real world?
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:58AM (8 children)
I'm arguing that eating mainly (in extreme, exclusively) from "sterile laboratory-like conditions" has the potential to make one unable to eat from natural sources (or even survive in natural environ).
Context is:
Case at point: "needing less antibiotics" doesn't automatically equate with "better fit to the real world env" - you may finish with the need to always carry with you (at least) antihistamine medication in spite of "needing less antibiotics".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:57AM (5 children)
Meat that people pick up from the grocery store (cue Phoenix666 rage) has already been treated and packaged in a way that reduces the amount of bacteria on it:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1995-04-19/entertainment/9505090003_1_american-meat-institute-foundation-coli-0157-h7 [chicagotribune.com]
https://www.fda.gov/food/resourcesforyou/consumers/ucm261680.htm [fda.gov]
https://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/portal/fsis/topics/food-safety-education/get-answers/food-safety-fact-sheets/safe-food-handling/packaging-materials/meat-poultry-packaging-materials [usda.gov]
https://uspackagingandwrapping.com/blog/A-Beginner-s-Guide-to-Meat-Packaging.html [uspackagingandwrapping.com]
People buy billions of pounds of the stuff. And you know what they do after they buy it? They cook it, further killing bacteria. They do this before they eat it.
So people are eating cooked meat with very few bacteria on it (unless it has been sitting around at room temperature after being cooked). What should they do next? Eat some dirt to make sure they are training their immune systems?
Maybe there is an argument to be made that the current way people consume meat has health issues associated with it. But I don't see cultured meat making it any worse.
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(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:37AM (4 children)
"Cultured meat" by itself, no.
A non-trivial proportion of "cultured meat" in the daily diet may make the things worse.
Look what happened with highly refined foods to date (prevalent obesity [wikipedia.org] and high incidence diabetes) - any reasons to believe adding some other type of "industrialized food" will make the matter better?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:31PM (3 children)
Cultured yogurt is recommended for better digestion. There's no reason 'cultured' should mean sterile; it could contain whatever is needed for proper nutrition.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:45PM (2 children)
Playing semantics, are you?
Wanna bet that "cultured meat" will be sterile?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Wednesday February 28 2018, @12:17AM (1 child)
If it's grown with animal cells, then maybe so. But without a circulatory system and all the other baggage that comes with an animal, the construction methods of those cells is open for re-engineering. Maybe the question is settled, but I could imagine a number of processes that rely on bacteria.
But more to the point, I will concede that there won't be any known pathogens in the mix.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday February 28 2018, @02:06AM
High growth rate (to be economically efficient and drive the price down) means pretty aggressive biological activity.
High biological activity is correlated with a high spoilage rate.
To stop spoilage:
1. grow the product to the point of highest appropriateness for human consumption - where the energy/nutritional value is maximum - then...
2. sterilize it - if it's fit for human consumption, the microbes (whatever they are: bacteria, molds, fungi, yeasts, etc) will love it too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:30AM (1 child)
As long as you actually live in the real world you're going to be exposed to viruses, bacteria and fungi anyway.
Humans have been sterilizing and processing their food via cooking for thousands of years if not longer. It's more of which germs your body gets used to. As long as people don't suddenly change their diets and habits there doesn't seem to be a huge difference in surviving in the "real world" between those who eat their steaks and eggs overcooked and those who don't. Just if you go to some new place like Bombay you might need to be careful till your immune system figures stuff out.
And even if it is an actual issue the sterile meat suppliers can supply the beneficial bacteria too. They could have better control of what bacteria you get in your meat and thus give you a better chance of getting the good bugs while a lower chance of Escherichia coli O157:H7. That way you can enjoy your medium rare steak and burgers with fewer concerns.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:02AM
That's a strong presumption you put in there.
If you agree with a definition of "sudden" as "across 15-30 years" - look what happened [tripfitness.com] with the availability/affordability of highly refined food (and the increased price for the fresh products and decreased time available for family/personal life).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 4, Informative) by qzm on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:33AM (2 children)
You have not thought that through.
As these vats will have no natural immune system, however they need to keep their developing cells alive, I and it is impossible to make a perfectly sterile system, then it is almost a given that things such as antibiotics will be required.
If you are hoping for some kind of artisan organic vat meat then you are not thinking this through.
This will be an industrial chemical and biological process.. With all the associated nasties and risks.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Tuesday February 27 2018, @12:58PM (1 child)
It is possible to make a perfectly sterile system. Not that it would be required. Look at the pharmaceutical industry for starters.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Reziac on Wednesday February 28 2018, @04:19AM
Yes, but pharmaceuticals are manufactured in lots of at most a few tons, using a lot of relatively-inert components (cellulose fillers, ring carbon compounds, etc) that aren't really food for anything likely to get into the process, while foodstuffs would need to be manufactured in lots of tens of thousands of tons, and the whole bloody thing is biologically attractive to microbes. Sterile workspace is reasonably easy to achieve in small units. It's a whole lot more difficult in large units. In the U.S. alone we eat somewhere around 20 BILLION pounds of meat per annum, and total around a ton of food apiece. That's one hell of a lot of vat space to try to keep sterile.
Also, pharmaceutical manufacturing has a lot of fails and recalls before it hits retail; some that I'm aware of hit 50%.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:43AM (1 child)
Sure, give it a few decades and maybe they'll get to that point, but it's not where things are at now.
And there's no drawback to accurate labeling. When artificial meat gets to the point that people like it on its merits we'll buy it on its merits.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by KiloByte on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:24PM
You're forgetting about rabid leftist governments. Once artificial meat gets available, no matter how bad it is, you can count on laws banning actual meat (because "cruelty") popping up in all countries where the political pendulum is currently to the left. Meat farmers are no oil, coal or "defense" — so the pendulum swinging to the right won't undo the damage.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:48AM (3 children)
Scientifically Produced Alternative Meat.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:49AM (2 children)
Slightly Pink Almost Meal
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday February 27 2018, @12:07PM (1 child)
Squirrels Possums And Misc
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:33PM
Soylent Pink and Mauve
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:13AM (1 child)
How about Soylent Brown. Or, if that is too unappetizing, Soylent Pink that turns brownish when cooked.
When life isn't going right, go left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:42PM
Ah yes, good ol' SPTTBWC.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:49AM (4 children)
I kind of expected that the beef industry already pushed a definition of beef, its not unprescidented. Burbon is defined as well as other foods, why not beef?
As mentioned in a previous post, I would not be bothered at all eating arti-meat.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @01:54AM (1 child)
You set a presidential precedent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:19AM
More half-n-half, a kind of a Beef Bourguignon. For all intensive purposes. http://eggcorns.lascribe.net/ [lascribe.net]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:39PM (1 child)
unprecedented
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:36PM
Anonymous Coward can spell 'unprecedented', but can't spell 'bourbon'? Probably grown in a vat...
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by stretch611 on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:18AM (12 children)
Sure, as long as any animals treated with antibiotics for weight gain do not qualify.
As well as any animal fed with GMO food.
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Touché) by requerdanos on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:30AM
So... GMO animals that stay off the antibiotics are fine, then, as long as they don't eat Monsanto corn?
(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:43AM (9 children)
And why would you think this matters?
GMOs are just organisms. What's safer, GMO corn, or GMO-free, "organic", free-trade poison hemlock?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:54AM (5 children)
back to comparing apples to daggers are we?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:40AM (4 children)
That's the point. We can't really say what the apples and the daggers are just by saying "GMOs are bad, mmkay". Except pretty small and well-understood edits are being made with GMOs.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:52AM (3 children)
> ,...well-understood edits ...
Give me a break, we are so far from really understanding all the functionality built into a genome that it's not even funny. Edits done by shooting genes into cells are being done to give specific mutations, like immunity to Roundup, and very little testing is being done on any long term consequences.
The business seems to be getting a bit more precise with CRISPR but it's still based on making money, not on making things really better overall. And business it is, given the legal department of Monsanto (et al) who have been reported to sue farmers next to test fields when the neighbor accidentally "stole" the new product after it blew over the property line.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:30AM (2 children)
Where's your evidence that GMOs are harmful?
(Score: 2, Touché) by redneckmother on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:20PM
Monsanto and Bayer stock prices?
Mas cerveza por favor.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:41PM
> Where's your evidence that GMOs are harmful?
No evidence needed at this early stage of GMO development. I claim that the proponents have to prove to me (the customer) that they have tested enough to prove that it's safe for *me*. This has to include very broad testing, people with different allergies, all the corner cases that differentiate one person from another. Historically, introducing new things into the food chain has been a very slow process and the "testing" was done in a fairly uncontrolled manner by countless of our ancestors (to the detriment of some of them!)
I suggest that this is on the same order of the testing required to show that self-driving cars will approach the "competence" of an un-impaired, mature driver -- billions or trillions of miles.
(Score: 2) by legont on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:24AM
Most GMO plans are designed to survive higher concentrations of poisons used to kill bugs or fertilize the soil; the poisons end up inside the eater. So yes, any close non GMO relative is most likely much safer to eat simply because it survived the treatment.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:39PM (1 child)
What do you call a food that is modified (not genetically) by passing it through the digestive system of an animal, then incorporated into that animal's biomass?
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(Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Wednesday February 28 2018, @12:34AM
Food
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:54PM
this is what i came to post. now these whores care about the labeling? when they found out what caused mad cow, did they stop feeding cow to cow? no. the whores at the usda said "don't worry we have better separating machines to get that pesky brain, spinal and nerve tissue out of there". where do you think that position originated. these scum who want to "protect us" now, that's where.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by requerdanos on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:20AM (6 children)
Okay, the reader is supposed to say. Those wicked cowboys are up to no good! What evil is afoot at their hands?
Um. That does not look like any sort of battle metaphor nor hostile act. They want "beef" and "meat" to be legally defined so that when I buy something called "beef" I know that it is as a minimum whatever that definition is. I kind of want that too. That way I know what I am buying and if I want a dead cow product, I can look for the word "beef" and if I want something else, I can look for "soylent green" or whatever.
This seems like 100% of benefit to consumers, of 100% benefit to honest meat producers, of 100% benefit to honest lab-or-plant meatlike food producers.
The only people who stand to lose out by something like that are the dishonest meat producers (can't call that byproduct patty "meat" anymore) and the dishonest fakemeat makers (can't call fake meat just "meat"), with consumers winning in either case.
I see improper labeling as misleading, too, and I do not produce meat for a living (but I purchase it and cook it and eat it).
Well, you probably also have goals like "spread FUD about fakemeat" and "make people distrust fakemeat" and "hmm I wonder if this flu epidemic is related to fakemeat" and things like that.
But the labeling thing is a laudable goal, and I appreciate your making that effort.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:01AM (3 children)
Let's have a definition of meat.
Does "pink slime" aka "mechanically recovered meat" count?
What about meat byproducts? What about animal products that contain very little muscle tissue: is that meat?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by requerdanos on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:25PM (2 children)
I would start with a working definition along the lines of "harvested edible flesh of a living animal" with edible referring to texture (no hoof/hair for example), not preference.
Absolutely yes. They may or may not be appetizing, desirable meat to everyone, but they are (at least under my definition here) meat. As an aside, I eat and enjoy both of these, the first in pre-formed hamburger patties [fatsecret.com] and the second in things like Vienna sausages [amazon.com].
If by meat byproducts you mean organs (gizzards, lungs, spleen, kidneys, brain, livers, stomach, intestinal walls) and random parts (connective tissue, blood, bones, excess fat), then yes, these plus choicer meats form a meat we call "sausage."
What about animal products that contain very little muscle tissue: is that meat?
Now we come down to a real challenge to my definition above... The blood, bones, brains, and intestinal walls, for example, are technically edible, but are they meat? I would say, sticking with the definition above, that yes, they are meat, again that you might put into sausage, but not generally regarded as yummy meats.
According to this definition, yucky genuine animal parts are "meat" and choice lab-grown steaks are "not meat."
Your probing questions suggest that perhaps there should be more than one class of "meat" in the definition. Maybe something along the lines of, for a suggestion, class 3, "harvested edible flesh of a living animal"==meat that may include any part of the animal; class 2 meat that can't contain any of a particularly yucky class of non-yummy things, and class 1 meat that has to be muscle-tissue derived?
That way brains-and-bones soup would contain class 3 meat, sausages class 2, and burgers or prime rib class 1.
And any class of meat != any class of lab-grown tasty zombie flesh. "Try TZF! You'll love it."
A looming problem: Are, or are not, those stem cells and the lab-grown resultant steak, harvested animal products?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:45PM (1 child)
Traditionally, there are meats, organ meats and animal products. The differences are relatively straightforward.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:45PM
Traditionally (in some traditions), fish isn't meat. Each tradition is straightforward, but there are multiple standards. Which one will the USDA use? Probably a new one.
Obligatory xkcd [xkcd.com]
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Whoever on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:04AM
Before lab-grown meat becomes mainstream, they are using the distinction between meat from animals and plant-based products that simulate meat to create a definition of meat that won't include the real and long-term threat: lab grown meat.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by deimtee on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:18AM
It's a bit like the arguments for and against labelling GMO foods.
Those in favor were arguing that giving customers more information was a good thing. The choice was theirs to make, regardless of how rational you thought they weren't.
Those against argued that consumers would make poor choices and that the labels would confuse the poor plebs.
You can probably tell my opinion on GMO labelling. If I want to make a choice on how to spend my money based on something you consider irrational I don't give a flying fuck what you think. I, and everyone else, make less than perfectly rational choices all the time. It's no-one else's business if I choose to pay extra for non-GMO foods, and you paternalistic fucks who think it is can fuck off.
(Actually, in most cases I don't give a shit about GMO's, it's the 'I know what's good for you better than you do' attitude that pisses me off. Label the fuckers and let the free market sort shit out. (To be clearer I think things like golden rice are brilliant. Things were they add a gene so that the plant can withstand higher doses of poison, and they then use that extra poison, not so much. After all, I don't have the extra genes to withstand that poison.))
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by Revek on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:52AM (2 children)
And the new vat grown meat can be awesome meat.
Careful what you wish for.
This page was generated by a Swarm of Roaming Elephants
(Score: 4, Insightful) by qzm on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:21AM (1 child)
I wonder how the vegans would feel if manufacturers of vegan burger patties started putting in meat products because it was cheaper..
That is what they are trying to stop here after all...
I bet people would be a little less smart arse about redefining words then... Hmmmm?
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by requerdanos on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:27PM
Despite our subscriber ID differential, I see from this statement that you must be new here. Welcome to Soylentnews.org!
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:03AM
When Claire finally got the hot beef injection will she now have to remember it as a non-beef experience?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:56AM
Hard to believe that I got here late, and no one has asked, "Where's the beef?"
(Score: 2, Touché) by Arik on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:35AM (2 children)
Wow, a snarky vegan jackass posted this? How interesting.
The Cattleman's Association is just doing what they're supposed to do.
More broadly, I don't have any problem with using 'meat' pretty broadly as long as it's clearly qualified. There are plenty of plants that produce meat naturally - all nuts contain meat for instance.
But be specific. If anything just says it contains 'meat' without further qualification I am not going to touch it.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:01AM (1 child)
I think most people agree on the need to clearly define meat. There is both snarky comments as well as discussions straying away from this central fact.
First: Both vegans and Cattlemen's (as well as related associations for other farm/factory raised livestock) need 'meat' clearly defined. The former so it can be clear what is acceptable consumables for vegans (hint: While it's primarily advertised as 'meat haters' the real definition is people who do not eat animal products/byproducts. This means animal cell derived proteins would still not be kosher if the meat was synthetically produced. Furthermore depending on the plant derived synthmeat products, some of them might not qualify due to having products or byproducts incorporated in them which are not naturally found in plants, but only in animals. Vegetarians have more leeway on this since most can eat animal byproducts and the restrictions are only on certain animals flesh (IE fish is acceptable to some sects of vegetarians, while poultry, pork, and beef are not.)
I agree with others that there will at minimum be three classifications needed: Farm grown animal meat. Laboratory grown animal meat. And plant derived meat substitutes containing no animal derived products. There are very likely other permutations which also need to be documented, long the long running real or imagined use of soybeans in McDonald's burgers, making a hybrid meat patty that would qualify as neither 'pure' meat, nor synthetic vegan/vegetarian meat product.
Clear and difficult to game descriptions of food products are important to educated consumer selection of acceptable products. Whether pro-meat, or pro-vegetable, clearly defining where these boundaries lies is important for both sides to choose products that meat their required qualifications and pedigree.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:50AM
Off to a good start.
"First: Both vegans and Cattlemen's (as well as related associations for other farm/factory raised livestock) need 'meat' clearly defined."
^^
"The former so it can be clear what is acceptable consumables for vegans (hint: While it's primarily advertised as 'meat haters' the real definition is people who do not eat animal products/byproducts. This means animal cell derived proteins would still not be kosher"
Oh, wait, did you just try to say כשר?
Yeah that brings up another group of people who need for food products to be clearly labeled.
And there are more than one more.
Let's just generalize it, ok? People who care what they put in their body.
We may not all have the same values but we ALL want accurate information before deciding if we will eat.
The problem with too many of these proposals that I am hearing is they boil down to "Mandate the information I consider important is printed on the label BUT DO NOT print the information the uncultured poop-heads I don't like care to know."
I understand there is only so much room on the label and I try to look for voluntary labels instead of relying on the required anyway, what bothers me most is the perception that we no longer even try to appear to be fair to each other.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Tuesday February 27 2018, @04:56AM
some countries have legislation for this kind of thing.. https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/F2012C00286 [legislation.gov.au]
(or is that too much "big government"?)
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:39AM
This is nothing new, in the world of food.
We have label standards for all sorts of stuff. Check your box of cereal, check your jar of pickles, check the pack of hotdogs - it's all described on the label.
Now what a lot of you might not be clear on is that the definitions that you can use on that label are already pretty darned pinned down.
The same thing goes for wine, incidentally. The label standard is different, but they have to be pretty clear on things like how much ethanol is in there, and whether or not they used sulphites in the making, and so on.
Thirty years ago, "beef" on a label was not a deeply ambiguous term. The ranchers can now see a future where it could be ambiguous. They're asking for an official, regulatory, recognised definition.
Nothing wrong with that.
Unless you prefer unverified labels on food.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Ayn Anonymous on Tuesday February 27 2018, @07:48AM (5 children)
People never see the bigger picture.
Stupidity ?
A board nailed on there forehead ?
What is *real* meat ?
*real* meat comes from an animal that eat exactly what evolution has it driven to eat.
And it lives in an environment and lifestyle that is typical for its species.
That means for example for cows:
- Eating mostly perennial prairie grasses with many, many herbs some flower and some tree and bush leaves.
- Walking a lot in a migratory lifestyle.
We the hairless white apes HAD eaten this real meat since 1+ million years. It has greatly supported our evolutionary development.
So, a bunch of Idiots who are not even able to COUNT the compounds in the food of a cow, let alone understand all the compounds.
These Idiots not even understand the exact mechanisms of photosynthesis.
Now these ignorant Idiots want grow something in a growing media consisting 3-5 compounds and think that would be enough to feed the hairless white apes that are used to real meat without negative long term consequences ?
Keep believing that and eat that shit they call food.
I renounce.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @08:16AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnivore [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Aiwendil on Tuesday February 27 2018, @11:09AM (1 child)
So, you mean if we would round up at least half of all cattle on this planet and put them to pasture in marshlands then all cattle living on plains wouldn't be real meat, sweet :)
The phrase "what evolution has it driven to eat" is kinda weird, either it means "whatever doesn't kill the animal prior to reproduction" or it means "if we feed it stuff that evolved after the animal did or at another place it isn't meat" (maize is a cultivar (about 10k yrs old) from americas, soy is native of east asia, potatoes is from americas, rye and oats are examples of vavilovian mimicry and are pretty recent as well).
Which sense did you mean it in?
Oh, also, we havn't been eating cows for that long either, cows (cattle) is the name of the domesticated subspecies, and that domestication happened about 10k years ago (in turkey it seems). (Oh, and domestication is pretty much the definition of violating the typical lifestyle and enviornment)
Go ahead.. Post me the exact mechanism of photosynthesis, I'm looking forward to brushing up on the CAM and C4 variants, also remember to not limit yourself to phototrophy since you since you specified the exact mechanism of photosynthesis.
(Actually hope my snarkiness will backfire here, I really look forward to reading up on this subject)
(Score: 2) by Ayn Anonymous on Tuesday February 27 2018, @06:41PM
You still not see my point.
You probably can but won't because it would disturb your view of the world.
> So, you mean if we would round up at least half of all cattle on this planet and put them to pasture in marshlands then all cattle living on plains wouldn't be real meat, sweet :)
0.5 to 1 billion hairless white apes would be the appropriate number of us for this planet. It would be so easy to get to this number if people would not jut fuck without a brain.
No problem to give the animals the space there used to.
We are not even close to understand exactly how our biosphere works.
We need to reduce the complexity to a super small isolated tiny little bit to be able to fuck with it.
But hey there is no reason not to fuck with tiny little bits we think to understand of the whole thing.
We once know DDT is harmless. And once know Asbestos is harmless.
And cross kingdom gene splicing is harmless.....
(Score: 2) by requerdanos on Tuesday February 27 2018, @03:31PM
Your post has a pretty high drivel content, but I modded it "interesting" because I am thinking about subscribing to your newsletter.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @05:11PM
Sorry I stopped at your user name, randians are known to have defective brains.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @09:36AM (1 child)
-- Yours truly, small government lovin gun toting bible bashing meathead industy
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @02:51PM
I see you are against trademark law.
That's fine, just take some of this advil* and rest.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 27 2018, @09:42AM
It is a jewish khazar deception. They mix everything together and fake everything. They are deceivers and this fake meat is a deception.
Good on the meat producers, we need to properly define the deception and the real thing. We can call the fake meat "deception meat" so more people will see it is a jewish propaganda thing.
(Score: 2) by darnkitten on Tuesday February 27 2018, @09:13PM
We already have "process cheese," "cheese food," "cheese spread," "cheese product" and Velveeta (a pasteurized process vaguely-cheese-like substance), which seem to sell along-side of "real" cheese.
From what I understand, the opponents of processed cheese pushed for the label, "embalmed cheese," but the above more-market-friendly terms won out. I expect something similar will happen with meat--and good on it! I'd prefer to know how much soy filler (or water) is in my burger, or how much hot dog or roof rabbit is in my frankfurter...