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Food for Thought
Posted by Chris on 08/23/07 (Links)
Was reading something about this the other day. Interesting.
20 fragments of dialogue thus far ...
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Comment by 1life1gear on August 23rd, 2007 at 9:53 am:
As a vegan I’m interested to hear what people think about this. My first reaction was “What the fuck!?!!?, I’d never put that shit that was made in a lab in my mouth!” but then it got me to thinking that I’m not to familiar with the process of how Veggie “meat” that you buy in stores, such as Tofurkey” are created.
THoughts? And does anyone know of where I can find information as to how “veggie meat” is made? It doesn’t seem like it would be all to different, although they do mention that it starts with a single animal cell, so it technically would not be vegan…
Comment by unboundedexistence.com on August 23rd, 2007 at 10:43 am:
Interesting, indeed. Veggie meat is vegetables, no? I don’t see the the lab link, sorry. Processed, sure, but not different? Omega 6 not being a healthy fat? News to me. I thought if you didn’t cook it (past 300 degress fahrenheit) it was OK. Not heating it won’t allow it to be converted into trans fat, and as such contributing as ldl cholesterol. Irresponsible.
It ain’t natural so you won’t catch me eating it…
Comment by Yaniv on August 23rd, 2007 at 10:49 am:
1life1gear: Not sure where to find info on the veggie “meat” making-process, and I’m interested in learning more about it as well. But I do know from reading people like Gary Francione that “organic” eggs and “humane” meat - what some refer as “happy meat” - are obtained from almost-equally deplorable, cruel conditions.For one thing, I find it interesting that those who profit from “organic” meat are firmly reluctant to allow anyone to inspect their operations. And - as also a vegan - I find the I’ll-stop-eating-meat-in-exchange-for-humane-animal products argument to be logically weak and unacceptable - at least for those who live in rich, industrialized societies.
As for the article, I guess one can say having artificially-made meat readily-available for consumption is good to the extent that it prevents further animal exploitation and oppression. Insofar as humans stop perceiving animals as property but rather as living creatures with interests, and seek the abolition - not the amelioration - of animal consumption and use, I think this can be a step forward.
Comment by saoirse on August 23rd, 2007 at 12:54 pm:
That link isnt working for me but I am familiar with the concept. For a brief section on the possibilities of lab-meat and for further info on “happy meat” - a truly mind boggling concept to this lil brain - check out “Eating: What we eat and why it matters” by Peter Singer and Jim Masson.
Personally I wouldn’t eat this stuff; I don’t need to. As someone who stopped eating meat at a fairly young age, who was raised poor, by a vegetarian, and so never over-reliant on it, I’ve never really seen the point in things like this or mock meat.I don’t have an ethical problem with people who crave meat eating it, although I can’t personally understand why some fetishise meat - I just don’t think its necessary.
A varied vegan diet gives me all the texture and flavour I need without eating tofurkey and all that stuff, and in terms of ethics, the simpler the food you buy, the more accountable it is and the less room there is for uber-unethical practises. Like, does anyone know where the soya in tofurkey comes from?
Incidentally, I was always under the impression that mock meat was just reconstituted proteins doused in artificial flavourings, although I don’t have much to base that on. Don’t come lookin’ sources when I can hardly string a sentence together!
If there was a section on the joys of boozihol, this song would pretty well describe my food values: http://www.lyricsdow...-healthy-lyrics.html
FYI: If you leave chick peas in a jar with salted water for a week, they begin to smell like a curious, nauseating mix of cheese and death. No lie.
Comment by falcore on August 23rd, 2007 at 8:54 pm:
I think no matter what this “discovery” has potential to help improve life for humans or non humans under the current system its gonna be used to reach the full potential of profits not human necessity. They won’t be handing it out to the poor. Just like poor people don’t have access to free cheese even though BHT caused milk production to go through the roof it was just used to under cut and monopolize foreign markets and put small dairies out of business. When scientist created synthetics out of oil it created an alternative to natural products and they said now every things gonna be alright cuz we can make everything out of it. As it turns out petroleum products are a major factor in causing cancer YESSSSSS! Not to mention putting more controll in the hands of petro-industrialist and away from agriculture.
I also wonder who will own the IP rights to this. Mabey Monsanto?
Comment by citizen stefish on August 24th, 2007 at 2:26 am:
i couldn’t eat this stuff. and i am not someone who demands organic products. i just can’t afford most of it.
regarding the faux meat, i have no idea how they make it, although the company quorn uses eggs and milk in theirs. and their’s are the only ones i can eat regularly. it probably comes from my being an ex-carnivore (about 90%+ meat diet). it may have to do with the fact that when i first started this in 2005, i tried to switch over to the faux meat, and i hadn’t “adjusted” yet. so i rejected it. i highly suspect that it is made just like any other mass-produced food product: we probably don’t want to know.
Comment by Marius on August 24th, 2007 at 3:53 am:
In and of itself, I’d be fine with eating lab-produced meat. I don’t really see any ethical issues with it.
That said, I doubt it’ll be very environmentally friendly. It might be more environmentally friendly than meat due to less land use, but I’d be really surprised if it was better than any vegetables/crops. Nature tends to be pretty efficient with energy, and I suspect that growing this stuff is going to be very energy intensive. Also, it’s probably going to be very expensive, and more importantly, I doubt it will taste any good.
Comment by maxpaps on August 24th, 2007 at 5:15 am:
“single muscle cell from a cow or chicken can be isolated and divided into thousands of new muscle cells”
Isn’t that called cloning when you extract one cell in order to multiply it. Dont you then have to alter the DNA of the organism to achieve preferred results. so its basically a GMO project.
It might have benefits, but its still alienating people from nature( A good movie that shows that is “Our Daily Bread”.), and even though animals will theoretically not be exploited, they probably will be! The economic benefits with China and India might be the main focus.
Just eat vegetables for fuck sakes!
Comment by Sebast on August 24th, 2007 at 11:31 am:
The issue is not wether vegans and vegetarians should start eating meat cuz it’s not morally questionable anymore, but rather that the rest of the 97′9% of the consumers should re-instate their eating habits without destroying or artificially managing natural eco-systems and, well, living beings.
The thing that troubles me is this eternal paradox between utopia and status-quo.
If in order to be able to consume satisfactory nutrients and at the same time erradicate world hunger (ha!) we have to keep investing in science & technology, in effect, we have to invest in capitalistic progress, which is evidently the most ferocious and speeding beast around. ¿A race to it’s defeat? That’s what the illuminati say anyway: the end justifies the means.
It’s a complicated subject alas, especially after seeing that doc “The Corporation” where they explain that profit through deception beats profit through real progress anyday which leads to injecting livestock with overgrowth hormons to produce more for less even though that means putting human lives at serious cancer risk (which is not such a bad thing afterall). But i don’t see participatory economies taking over the industrialized market anyday soon. But where there’s a Will, there’s Grace (somebody shoot me, this is where i live).
But the most compelling argument, no doubt, is that our metabolism is just not adapted to meat consumption.
Try eating raw meat for a week if you don’t believe me.
Eat the Rich, Fuck the Bitch
Comment by Sebast on August 24th, 2007 at 11:33 am:
My rear end is justified by the beans.
Comment by tom on August 25th, 2007 at 9:03 am:
i’m not so sure that eating “fake meat” does alienate us from nature. i mean, we drive fucking cars and we take shits in fucking toilets, so, human beings have always used technology to make life easier for us. and don’t think there’s anything necesarily wrong with that, but you have to obviously examine where the stuff comes from etc….
as the incredibly handsome and virile derek hogue once said “we live in concrete jungles.”
i dont really like fake meat except for make tofu dogs or veggie dogs, maybe that fake ground beef stuff with lots of taco mix. mmmmm juicy tacos.
but i think that most humans still dont realize how much total garbage and waste is caused by the meat industry, the selfishness and apathy it encourages, and the death and destruction and cruelty it brings. here in quebec, many of our lakes and rivers cant be swam in or touched or nudie dived in because of green algae, which dumbfounded scientists for about 2 days. then they realized that quebec has the laxest and lamest laws regarding the ways we farm our pigs here, and all the piggy turds and piss get washed out into the rivers, lakes, and now we cant enjoy them, the fish die, and the world sucks even more. quebec is the largest porc producer in canada and that makes me sad, i wish i could stop all the boxcars i see, and i see alot of them. quebec is also notorious for puppy mills, a place where unwanted, lost or disregarded puppies can turn their already horrible lives into absolute nightmares and that makes me fucking sad too, especially when i picture my dogs in there. one of my dogs is actually from a rescue shelter and i’d probably be dead if I didnt have my bud greet me when i get home everyday.
most humans just dont value life at all. all thats cared about is instant gratification (mind out of gutter), profits etc…
i dont really know what im getting at here, but the past few weeks have been really depressing, reading about these pig farms and puppy mills. so depressing in fact that i may get off my lazy sexy vegan garting ass and join spca, or lucky rescue, the local animal rescue shelter, also where i got my dog, apptly named lucky. aw durgh!
im sorry i needed to rant like that, a life without animals aint no life worth living, and to any fucknosed animal abusing sport hunting fuckfaces out there, just a personal “please go kill yourself” from me to you.
Comment by tom on August 25th, 2007 at 9:10 am:
http://west.petfinde...m/shelters/QC12.html
meow!
Comment by falcore on August 25th, 2007 at 11:58 am:
It seems to me that as far as world hunger the issue is more about access to food rather than having enough like tom was saying about factory farms they are quite wasteful. Only because it is to serve profits not people and if the major share holders and boards of directors don’t care about the human race it is not too much of a shock that they don’t regard non human animals as real life forms either.
I truly believe that most humans are not greedy I just think that at least in the west most people are not socially conscience so they don’t always think about the effects of their actions on others. Many people are not raised to think about it , I wasn’t and it has taken me many years to wake up to it, nor is it in pop culture everything is competition based and not cooperation. At most jobs I have had I always here the slogan ” we need to be a team” but it that always seems to translate into ” I’m the boss now do what I say, as a team” and then one of two are singled out on the “team” and are given more than the others through autocratic decisions of merit.
Back to the lab meat I just seems like somebody is trying to build a “better” car instead of creating to efficient reliable transportation that everybody can have access to.
Comment by jammer on August 25th, 2007 at 5:46 pm:
hey,
Yeah not 100% sure how I feel about this. It is like when “people” said that GMO could feed the third world and thats why we need it. Thing is it didnt really happen. Sure if people would actually eat lab meat and that lab meat was actually a viable product I suppose I would prefer that to the current state of affairs. This reminds me of stories of how bacteria might evolve or be instilled with a taste for plastic in order to clean up our environment. “seems like something out of science fiction.” Dont get me wrong I’m no ludite it just seems like we’re fighting fire with gasoline sometimes. Anyway hope for the best I guess.
http://ec.europa.eu/...stic_degradation.pdf
Comment by asshole on August 26th, 2007 at 12:11 am:
I still wouldn’t eat this, by the looks of it, you still need the original cells. Even if you can create thousands from one, an animal still has to die (unless, they do something wacky, like take a sample of muscle via injection?) to get it. Even if you only need to kill a few cows or whatever to feed the world. Efficient meat is still murder!
Comment by saoirse on August 26th, 2007 at 7:39 am:
Speaking of murder (seamless, no?) tomorrow is your last chance to intervene in Beatrice’s proposed removal to Cameroon. I don’t wanna preach but it seems kinda lame that a mere one blog-reader-dude has added their name thus far to speak up for someone at serious risk. There may come a day when we compromise our own safety for our political principles and if that happens, I’d like to think our fundamental right to asylum would be respected and more fortunate activists would stand in solidarity. This particular removal has got to be illegal, political activism and mental health considered, and the Home Office should not get away with it.
details: http://www.ncadc.org...ug%2007/beatrice.htm
Add your name by emailing: saoirse_ionannas_aonad [at] yahoo [dot] co.uk
Comment by soyuz on August 27th, 2007 at 12:42 pm:
well….i don’t care much for meat substitutes. i eat tofu for tofu, not because it “tastes like chicken.” so yeah, i wouldn’t be eating meat grown from a tissue. though if it happened to be safe to eat, it would cause less abuse of animals. so stick with veggies, real veggies.
Comment by kkev on August 29th, 2007 at 5:31 am:
talking of meats and meat substitues, i thought y’all might be interested in reading about this
havingapoo.blogspot.com/2007/07/pla…
i’ve been vegan for ’bout 8 years for the usual reasons…some friends of ours recently had a kid and arranged a party to eat the placenta. they went to such an effort to make sure the placenta dish was vegan friendly that i felt i should really give it a go..
seems to me that its the perfect vegan meat..no cruelty or death involved, willingly donated and would otherwise be chucked away…
also i’m pleased to say i didn’t think it tasted that good..kinda like liver…so i feel reassured that i’m not missing out on anything by not eating meat.
be warned you may find some of the pics in the link a little gruesome
Comment by ben on August 30th, 2007 at 1:55 am:
well, my 3 cents is that i can’t see how you could make the process more efficcient than nature herself. Sure, it may be popular with people that want to eat meat without a guilty concience, (and consitering how meat is currently made, i totally see this as an improvement, evern though i couldn’t consume it myself) but how much energy would it take to produce the meat itself?
From a strictly economic/resource conservation POV, i don’t see how it can compete with growing veggies and grain directly. but i don’t know the science involved, so maybe i am way off.
But there seems to be a reoccuring theme that the farther away from direct natural cycles we get (which has been constantly evolving to be as efficient as possible) the more energy is wasted.
Comment by punchpidge on August 31st, 2007 at 5:07 am:
I doubt I’d eat that shit, mostly because it sounds ‘orrible and partly because I wouldn’t need to. But if it’s lab grown-meat consumed by meat eaters, and that means animals aren’t slaughtered for their consumption, then surely that’s not a bad thing, non?
That bit in article about ‘exercising the meat’ made me laugh. I had images of some insane laboratory with thousands of headless cow parts strapped into rowing machines before they hit the packaging and assembly line. Would it not just be easier to eat all the rich people instead?