I am not sure if this is a benefit per se, but you could get very high quality cuts of meat for essentially cheap, because it's artifically human constructed. It is the same argument for lab grown diamonds over mined ones, the former can be more perfect gems than ones from the earth ever could simply because humans engineer them to be so, something a non-sentient Earth cannot do.
Well, how would you define "high quality"? High quality meant comes from well cared grass-fed livestock. It is delicious and have long proven health benefits. It's effects on human body have been known pretty much as we gain ability to learn.
If the cellular structure is the same, the benefits would be identical. Just because something is traditionally made a certain way doesn't mean it couldn't be made better, as we understand the scientific processes that made them. Flight, for example, comes to mind, where birds traditionally fly but we, having understood aerodynamics at a deeper level, can make planes that fly faster, farther, and longer than birds ever could.
I see your point, but all those comparisons are quite a stretch. One can care less about naturals diamonds vs lab ones, but for something you consume and something that eventually gonna become building blocks for your body one may exercise different approach.
Well, protein powder exists. We already know the building blocks of muscles (and therefore meat), all the various protein compounds. They can come from non animal and non meat sources too such as peas and whey, so I don't see how one can eat vegetables with protein and drink protein shakes yet still be hesitant about lab grown meat. Perhaps you are simply hesitant because it is a new technology?
You could grow solely A6 wagyu ribeyes. We’re not there yet. But the combination of precise control for quality and zero additional waste is there.
> It is delicious and have long proven health benefits
It’s better than corn-fed beef. But it’s no panacea. We could engineer beef that contains, for example, less saturated fat, or a higher fraction of healthy fatty acids.
Indeed, I'd love to see the day where we could natively grow interposing constructs of beef muscle and fat to produce a wagyu the likes of which is hitherto unknown on the planet, simply because, just as no natural diamond can produce just the right compounds in just the right order, just the right cows cannot produce just the right order of fats to meat ratio.
How can stuff made in a factory be healthier than its equivalent made biologically for which we have millions if not billions of years of genetic adaptation to?
The best case is that is it as healthy as the real stuff, but that is an asymptotic goal.
You seem to massively underestimate the chemical composition of biological matter. Meat is not three chemicals mixed together. It's billions. That nutty taste in serrano ham? It's a set of molecules creating that taste, that are not present in lab grown meat. So even just any sort of taste will be created by adding artificial spices and taste enhancers to the finished product, which are much less healthy than the real stuff.
And what about the myriad of micronutrients? A grass eating cow has in its meat a different set of nutrients than those eating grain or grown in a vat. So again, add in artificial enhancers to the product.
Lastly, the unknown unknowns: all the good stuff in biological food we still have not even learned about, so cannot supplement when it's grown in a vat.
I would rather eat bug flour than lab-grown meat products. At least the bugs have a nutritionally-complete chemical profile, and cannot be trademarked and sold as a "product."
I don't underestimate the complexity of biological matter. I'm not stating anything. I question the statement that factory food will most certainly be less healthy. I'm also not assuming anything about lab meat processes. I don't know how it's done, how the taste and the nutrients will be kept.
Now, your last comment is certainly convincing and I understand your perspective better. Thanks for taking the time!
I'm not labeling "from lab" as "healthier". I'm arguing that "from nature without human intervention = healthier" is not automatic, but also not saying "in factory = better".
Also, I don't see the link with autoimmune diseases.
This not counting that limiting carbon emissions would likely have huge health benefits worldwide.
Now, of course, short term health benefits might be limited. I guess there's less risk of bacteria contamination for lab raised meat, which is always good to take (edit: maybe not, see children comments about this). I would guess that like meat, not eating too much of it would be advisable.
But why limit benefits to such a narrow thing? This feels like a way to say "ok, but apart all the nice and obvious benefits this has, what are the benefits?"
Just recognize the benefits, it doesn't mean there are no drawbacks :-)
Various contaminations is one of the big problems with lab meat. Immune system in any animal is extremely effective. And outside some parasites normally grown meat is very safe from viewpoint of bacteria.
In this whole thread, it feels like you are trying hard looking for the drawbacks while actively rejecting the benefits.
What you are doing is called confirmation bias.
I would suggest you to open yourself to perspectives foreign to you. That's the whole point of HN for me, aside from learning new things.
And no, it's not yet a reason to avoid lab meat. Let's actually find out if lab meat is actually less safe in practice? Because contamination of meat as we are producing it today is a thing and still relatively common and this we know it for a fact.
Well, I am happy HN works the way it is for you, but I hope we have your kind permission like everyone else to seek truth the way we do it, don't we? I beg your pardon if this comes across as rude, it has no intentions to be so
Whether to avoid or not and under which arguments it's individual decision. Some people believe in reducing pollution with lab meat or climate change. Let the have it, it's ultimately whatever individual thinks is good.
> Let's actually find out if lab meat is actually less safe in practice?
I am all in, but how this can be practically assessed?
Indeed. It is rough when those we thought were arguing in good faith were actually not doing so, ie their antivaxxer or generally anti-science comments. In this case, there is nothing we can really do to stem such advances towards us. And yes, I do not agree that "both sides" are equal in merit.
Their comment is dead now [0] (which you can see if you enable showdead in your HN settings), but they are an antivaxxer, in my experience with these kinds of people, it's not really worth discussing anything of scientific importance with them.
I mean, no more animals slaughtered is the obvious one… also you can have any meat you want ‘on tap’ without any consideration for local demand or environment or local anything really.
If I want a corn dog made with dog meat, or even a human steak, boom, no fuss no muss no ethical issues. That’s a marked improvement on our current farm/slaughterhouse/butcher situation.
Plus there’s consistency to consider - every steak you order at your favorite steakhouse could be absolutely identical, those ribs you love so much could be perfectly proportioned every single time, because they’re all essentially perfect copies / clones.
Some people still missing the phrase about health benefits. Would be good to avoid ethical discussions since it's beyond the topic.
I don't need consistency or ribs being perfect - I just want them to be ribs, not some unknown substance. Humans were eating ribs over thousands of years without any ethical issues so I struggle to understand why it is suddenly a problem
I consider the ethical considerations to be significant. Many people have had them for a long time; vegetarianism is centuries old in the West and even longer among some cultures. Plenty of other practices that were one time considered ethical by most have come under scrutiny: slavery, racism, etc. I believe that animal suffering may one day be in the same category.
But if you're OK with that, and your primary concern is health, then you can be reasonably sure that there are no advantages on that score.
Ethical discussion is beyond the topic because you framed it like this, but ethics and environment is what is actually motivating lab meat production, you can't really discard this.
We have a sub thread answering your health-related question.
