Vat meat - almost there!

Seeing the words "Santorum", "slippery", and "vatmeat" in close proximity conjures up all sorts of horrible mental images.

LobsterMobster wrote:

IMAGE(http://athletetattoodatabase.com/img/wiki_up/tyson1.jpg)

There is not enough naturally-occurring meat in the world to satisfy this man.

From what I've read and heard, Mike Tyson is actually vegan now:

http://www.details.com/culture-trends/news-and-politics/201008/interview-boxing-mike-tyson

Maybe he makes exceptions in the ring...

philucifer wrote:

Maybe he makes exceptions in the ring...

To paraphrase Clinton: I did not swallow.

I think it's more likely he thinks it means he's from Vega, a solar system where everyone eats a ton of meat.

Could it really be any worse than we get from Taco Bell?

Nevin73 wrote:

Could it really be any worse than we get from Taco Bell?

The controversy over their ground beef not containing enough beef didn't hurt sales in the long term. They could call it a Cyberrito and cross promote it with the next Metal Gear game. I should be in advertising

The bad thing about vat meat is that it's scientifically untested. It should be indistinguishable from normal meat, but until we can get a bunch of people eating it for a long time under observation, there'd be no way to make sure.

Fortunately, I'm confident that there will be no shortage of guinea pigs noble volunteers willing to eat the stuff fresh off the laboratory.

Coming along right on schedule.

There was a piece about this on euronews and they had reactions from a local hotdog seller in Vancouver. The basic reaction was "No way! It's not natural!" But other than that their objections could be boiled down to "ewww!". If vat meat is ever going to take off, it'll have to be something on the scale similar to what made canned corned beef popular after WWII to today for people to get over the stigma...

If it's commercially viable, price alone will be able sell it. Sure, most people might too grossed out to buy it at the grocery store, but fast food chains will be all over it. Then all they need to do is convince the government to classify it as "beef" and they won't need to tell anyone that they use anything but 100% real beef.

I dunno, the idea of cruelty-free meat would probably help it along.

I doubt that it'll ever properly replace a steak, but it might be fine for a hamburger.

Duoae wrote:

canned corned beef

Eww! I'll take the vat meat, TYVM.

People are grossed out by Spam and that stuff is delicious. I image that people with be hesitant to buy this even if it's better than real beef.

Malor wrote:

I dunno, the idea of cruelty-free meat would probably help it along.

I think there's a big overlap between people caring enough about animals to avoid eating them and people who believe natural is automatically better than sciency lab-grown stuff. The cognitive dissonance will be fun to behold!

Honestly, vat meat to me is a lot less disgusting than the process of making chicken nuggets.

Malor wrote:

I dunno, the idea of cruelty-free meat would probably help it along.

As a meat-lover, I can't speak for freegans, but I know that on balance I'd prefer cruelty-free meat.

iaintgotnopants wrote:

People are grossed out by Spam and that stuff is salt.

Fixed your spelling there.

Duoae wrote:

There was a piece about this on euronews and they had reactions from a local hotdog seller in Vancouver. The basic reaction was "No way! It's not natural!" But other than that their objections could be boiled down to "ewww!". If vat meat is ever going to take off, it'll have to be something on the scale similar to what made canned corned beef popular after WWII to today for people to get over the stigma...

Because hotdogs are soooo natural.

Paleocon wrote:

Honestly, vat meat to me is a lot less disgusting than the process of making chicken nuggets.

Dammit Paleo! Those dreams just stopped! (shiver)

Paleocon wrote:

Honestly, vat meat to me is a lot less disgusting than the process of making chicken nuggets.

Yup.

So much food that Americans eat is absolutely disgusting. I'm not sure vat meat is much worse.

At least vat meat is honest, in its own way.

clover wrote:

At least vat meat is honest, in its own way.

I think that's where I'm at with it as well. I don't think I would eat it but I think that's a purely irrational decision. I can't think of a sound reason to be against it that doesn't apply in someway to something I'm already eating.

gregrampage wrote:
clover wrote:

At least vat meat is honest, in its own way.

I think that's where I'm at with it as well. I don't think I would eat it but I think that's a purely irrational decision. I can't think of a sound reason to be against it that doesn't apply in someway to something I'm already eating.

If it becomes cost efficient enough that one of the major fast food chains starts using it, then that's game over for farmed meat, I think.

Hell, if it were cheap and tasty, I'd probably eat Soylent Green, so bring on the vat meat.

It could also be pretty incredibly lean, I bet.

If there is meat without the cow then some of the cows would have to be exterminated . You don't need that many cows to make dairy products . AFAIK my country is currently holding the record of milk yield per cow at 12000 litters(3170galon) per year . According to this site the consumption of milk per capita in the USA is about 254kg/capita/year . This means that if the milk yield of cows in the USA get to 10000kg/year (you are close to that) . Then the USA would need about 7.62~ (*lol* funny number) million cows. You would still have to keep those cows pregnant to keep producing milk (If I understand the mechanics correctly) ,so I'm not sure what they'll do with all the Calves .

When they develop lab created grown milk then we won't need cow at all and you will only see them in zoos.

My moto is a realistic one : only the tasty animals will survive ;). If we don't eat the animal we won't let them live . If we eat the animals we they'll won't go extinct but they won't die a natural death either. There are alternative to eating animal protein but they are more complicated than just eating meat to get some of the nutrients .

How many cows do we exterminate on a daily basis in order to eat them?

Somehow I do not foresee a mountain of cow corpses because lab meat becomes a thing.

And hey, maybe this would bring down the cost of healthier and tastier soy/almond milk.

Cows are a great way of distilling huge swaths of nutritionally weak food, like grass, into a more convenient package, like their tenderloin. They are not, however, a convenient way of feeding the emerging middle class.

Seth wrote:

How many cows do we exterminate on a daily basis in order to eat them?

Somehow I do not foresee a mountain of cow corpses because lab meat becomes a thing.

And hey, maybe this would bring down the cost of healthier and tastier soy/almond milk.

Cows are a great way of distilling huge swaths of nutritionally weak food, like grass corn, into a more convenient package, like their tenderloin. They are not, however, a convenient way of feeding the emerging middle class.

Updated for the modern industry.

Seth:

What Niseg is saying, I think, is that humans are a naturally destructive species, and we've exterminated a significant number of animal and plant species that do not tolerate our activities. Cows being our food is useful to them as a species because it behooves us to continue to allow them to propagate for our benefit. If they stopped being useful to us as a food source, we will reduce their population sizes considerably. If we lost all uses for cows, it's possible that they might go extinct, since there aren't that many cows who populate the dwindling wild places.

I'd prefer cows not exist over breeding cows just to lock them up and kill them.