Lab Meat. The $1 Trillion Ugly Truth

NAVIGATION
00:00 - Fake cows are expensive
1:54 - Is lab meat really better for the environment?
4:38 - Will it ever be cheap enough to actually buy?
7:20 - Could lab meat be WORSE for the environment?
8:27 - Why lab meat is a fight against biology
10:16 - Is lab meat even meat?
12:18 - The industry’s delusional optimism
18:26 - Wait, has this company proved me totally wrong?
20:27 - Are companies forced to be overly optimistic for funding?
23:15 - Why Moore’s Law doesn’t apply
24:42 - ELECTROLYTES

CORRECTION: Dr. Paul Wood was a Member of the Board of Advisors of Cellular Agriculture Australia, NOT a Member of the Board.

[sounghungi]

I think I just gained more appreciation for how complex but smoothly we are able to move 10 billion pounds of meat in America.

[beanmeupscotty]

As a microbiologist, I cannot begin to express how much I appreciate the extent of how you stressed what an obstacle it would be to keep such a large environment sterile 24/7. Cell-based meat will never, ever be the same kind of thing as some guy taking up a side-hobby of brewing up Schrader Brau in his garage. Brewing not only allows for the growth of microbial life, but its success is based upon creating an evironment for their specific strains of fermentative yeast to thrive. Meanwhile the environment for cell-based meat is just a million-dollar bacterial culture waiting to happen.

Mass media only seems to remember the existence of microbial life when the 1%ers decide it's time to crush what remains of that pesky middle class, I guess.

[watsonwrote]

This makes me appreciate how much animal bodies work to keep bacteria from interrupting cell grow and function. It's easy to take for granted but as soon as those cells are separated from the many, many layers of immune system, it's very clear how much we rely on it

[WL]

I work in pharma and I specialize in microbiological control. They neglect to mention that these bioreactors aren’t the real cost here. Cells need to be grown in highly controlled environments. These facilities will need expensive hvac and air filtration setups, disposable protective gowning for each employee, and rigorous quality control testing. These are all recurring costs that would balloon the final product cost. Of course the standard for food aren’t as high as for drugs, but when working with unproctected cells, it only takes one microbe to spoil tens of thousands of dollars of product

[EnKayAre]

Salmon roe in orange juice is probably the grossest illustration for cells sitting in urine. Nice work

[bASICMiner]

...lets just call it what it is... a scam.

[SunShine-xcdh]

It's almost like life has spent billions of years optimizing the most efficient method to continue itself.

[BarryDylan]

It's so crazy how much money is put into "solutions" to problems which are created by big corporations and monopolies. And then the same corporations and monopolies put the blame on the consumer and not on their own business practices...

[xdreamerx]

When I was growing stuff in a lab way back when, we grew it in Bovine growth serum (BGS) which is basically cow juice. This still requires cows to be "juiced".

[amanawolf]

I've worked with cells, and it is no joke that those things are monstrous PITA's, despite their small size. The broth itself is 1 issue. In the lab, you have to monitor growth conditions, extract spent growth media, rinse cells with STERILE fluid, apply new growth media, do cellular checkups for abnormalities, and then -- praying to the lab gods -- hope your cells turn out. That stuff counted for a large portion of my grade in the final exam of the class. Still remember one of my dishes of cells being little SoBs. They gave me a not so subtle..., ahem, "go eff yourself" when they turned cancerous and said cancer cells looked like a phallic symbol.

Right now, as it stands, lab grown meat is not viable. It's just a proof of concept. We need massive discoveries in cellular growth technology to expedite the process, enhance it's potency, etc.... It will require years of research + massive funding to develop the tech proper. Again, what we have is just an expensive proof of concept.

My hope is that on our way towards lab-grown meat, we can use our advancements to create newer methods for people that need special treatments. Cancers, birth deformities, burn patients, and more could benefit from the tech. It would be wonderful if we could take a(n) technique/idea in that division, applying it towards burn ward patients. Imagine the potential at a well-stocked, well funded hospital. We could have a broth/stock mixture in a vial, use a patients undamaged tissue cells, combine the two, and use 3D printing technology on organic polymer sheets aid in recovery, said layer impregnated with a diverse cocktail of necessary nutrients to speed up recovery.

Anyways, I do agree we're too optimistic, but we shouldn't stop trying.

[blackturbine]

I would like to point out that rest of the cow is not just thrown away after getting the meat from it.
Almost entirety of the cow is used including bones and even manure.
Artificial meat would force lot of other industries to adapt meaning cost of the steak would be just small part of big issue

[RVBMichaelJCaboose]

Listening to all the sanitation regulations regarding lab meat, it’s also the same fallacy regarding bug meat: you can’t just throw a bunch of random roaches in a blender, the meat being cultivated needs to be properly regulated and sanitized so that come to production, you’re not at risk of getting any food poisoning or worse.

[flbartlett]

Beans, bugs, and lab sludge. Two all bug patties, special sludge, lettuce, synthetic cheese, pickles, onions, on a gluten free bun.

[badddkattt]

I was fantasizing about making lab meat as a teenager in the 1960s. I was a big fan of science fiction and space exploration and I was planning to become a biologist. I was also interested in economics. Lab grown meat seemed like a normal extrapolation of technology; it did occur to me that steaks are more than a collection of cells but I didn’t think too hard about that.

[PhilTruthborne]

Honestly the whole lab meat question is quite simple. It's a science that needs more development. It's not ready to be applied. It doesn't matter how badly some greedy people want to make money of it, it needs more time and work before it can actually function at all.

[CGR]

Never trust anyone who tells you that you’re in extreme danger unless you give them your money.

[kronosbot]

Considering that people can tell the differences in taste between two similar animals that were fed on completely different diets during their lifetimes, I don't think anybody will be fooled by anyone trying to sneak 'cell-slurry' into their gourmet experience.

[TheTSense]

As someone who brews his own mead, I can confirm. There are all these tiny lifeforms in there, fighting each other. You want yeast to win.

[prawjeke]

It is ironic that people are so suspicious about people tinkering with their fruits and vegetables (this they choose organic), but when it comes to meat, it can be grown in a lab and that is fine.

[positivelysimful]

Considering they still haven't been able to replicate formula with the same health benefits as breast milk, I can't imagine that lab-grown meat would be as healthy as natural meat.