Welcome, everybody, to our meat farm!

Post Reply New Topic

I just had this vision of a new kind of farm. It's function is to simply grow meat for humans and other omnivores/carnivores to consume. Open the door and see several huge pools in the ground containing small tube like chambers full of ooze and in the midst of that ooze...muscle tissue is growing yet there was never any brain or cns. It's just muscle tissue with a bit of fat and nothing else. There are different flavors and this is how the meat is sorted, not by species, by flavor, rather and there are all kinds of varieties, even some no one has heard of today. Such a farm can generate enough meat to feed millions of people a day.

You're not the first to think of that.

Back in the Seventies I remember reading an op-ed in the Washington Post about the future of genetics, and it mentioned the possibility of "growing steaks in factories" sans whole animals- in the future. Havent heard about it much since though.

Do you think it's a good idea or terrible?

Both.

It's a good idea; but the meat tastes terrible.

It is here. It is now.


http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-16972761

Hard to say. Humane, and probably better ecologically, but a little too freaky to really wrap my head around.

I think they should work on raising "micro livestock" (ie insects) first. Fatten up grass hoppers, and then grind them up into fish sticks, or fake steaks, for human consumption.

At least we'd have fewer cow farts contributing to GW.

it is a bit freaky, i admit. when i first read the OP, i was imagining massive tubes of raw pink flesh in a dank room with an impossibly high ceiling. this is likely very different from the reality.

i also cannot shake the image of 'pulsating' from my mind, even though there is no major cardiovascular system or heart attached. vey.

grasshopper steak, anyone? insects are already a common source of nutrition in the developing world, with lots of benefits, now we just have to make us westerners overcome our own squeamishness.

i would not mind a nice grasshopper granola bar. or chapulines.



it may taste that way right now at least, but i'm sure in the future we will find ways to replicate the taste of 'natural' meats. in the meantime, some creative experimentation with fillers or seasonings might need to suffice.

all in all, i agree it's a good idea, more humane and easier to moderate, better than making everyone go vegan if livestock is ever removed as an option or abolished. (i know it's unlikely, but i am just saying)


this entire thread is reminding me of a certain animaiton called 'Quality Meats'. viewer discretion is advised.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNOPphIviXc

It's possible but you have to admit that's a far cry from an entire farm that specializes and commercially grows such food.

Hehe, the only way I could eat bugs is if they disguised them as something else and didn't tell me first.

We can make us westerners overcome our own squeamishness by throwing the insects into the ocean, hauling them back out again, and then calling them seafood.

We apparently have no problem eating creatures with a carapace, wiggling feelers and many legs just so long as it comes from the ocean. If lobsters, shrimp or crabs crawled out from under rocks in the desert we would run away screaming in horror. Pull them out of the ocean and suddenly the giant bug is yummy.

Lobster and Crab are my two least favorite seafood examples. They have a lingering spoiled taste so I can't stand eating them. If insects taste anything like them, forget about it!

Insects do seem like they could be seed-like, get caught in the throat and become a potentially deadly choking hazard.

Indeed, tiny insects are virtually indigestible as I have swallowed them from time to time during running with my mouth slightly open.

I've often wondered how they got the Soylent Green in the movie: when I watched that I thought it would more likely have been Soylent Red. They disguised the human element quite well!

How about trying to genetically engineer meatshrooms, mushrooms which taste like chicken? Same texture, same taste. Use them just as you'd use diced chicken. Make a beef varient to get mince.

Couple that with yeast producing milk, and a lot of farmers are going to be in trouble.

My sister introduced me to Quorn products, which are in fact made from mycoproteins found in mushrooms, and taste almost indistinguishable from meat. Brilliant stuff.

From a certain standpoint, in principle, I like the idea. More food, less suffering, less trouble all around.

I am confident that we'll figure out how to overcome it having an unappealing taste and texture. Somewhere in a lab right now, some autistic with a special interest that used to bother the s**t out of his/her mother is gleefully hard at work on it, and has absolutely no desire to stop until success is achieved.

My only sticking point, off the top of my head, is that right now this is high-tech stuff. Entirely too expensive for a household to replicate. Call me a paranoid granola type, but the idea of food production being controlled by a central authority to the point that the common person cannot, even by extensive study and hard work (I've invested extensive study and hard work in developing our garden already, and I grew up in a food-raising family and have in no way achieved my goals for it yet) replicate the process is unnerving to me.

When I hear that someone's working hard on democratizing the process of producing lab-grown meat such that I could set up a "meat-tank" in a room of my house or outbuilding on my property, it will have my full support.