Lab grown meat is a pipedream. Fundamental chemical engineering reality prevents it from scaling to extent needed for production of commodity protein. As this article says, best case it is orders of magnitude worse than beef, which is itself orders of magnitude worse than beans or other plant based proteins. Also, it fails as a way to avoid animal exploitation because fetal bovine serum vampired out of cow fetuses is still required to make the stuff.
The real product being sold by these lab protein companies and institutes is twofold: assuaging the guilt associated with carnism, and financial speculation per anything on the stock market.
I have actually discussed this paper at length before on this site, but I think I’ll go for the simple punch. Wood was the director for Pfizer in their Animal Health division, which supplies the American meat industry with antibiotics and is actively creating a major crisis for global health (antibiotic resistant bacteria) for the sake of profit. Perhaps that is why he likes writing negatively about something that could slash his bottom line
And being the director for a division this big and important in a pharma company means you are, very strictly, a shithead ghoul. If you look into him further, he has significant investments in anything beef-farming related.
This argument isn’t convincing. By that guy’s own bio, he supports the CSIRO protein mission in Australia. Read the bio you linked and follow up - there are a whole bunch of non beef, non conventional proteins listed in his resume.
Anyway, the whole problem with lab grown meat from a chemical engineering perspective is that it has to be grown under clean room conditions like a pharmaceutical. Companies and people with pharmaceutical experience, precursor products, bioreactors would all benefit from lab grown meat taking off.
Find a bean salesman that is worried about the advent of lab meat and I’ll buy this line of argument. If you’ve discussed the substance of that article elsewhere please link.
The team used the emerging ‘net protein contribution’ concept to measure the quality and quantity of protein created by cattle compared to the protein they eat, looking at both grain-fed cattle and grass-fed cattle that may eat small amounts of grain.
They found typical Australian grain-fed beef production systems contribute almost twice the human- edible protein they consume, while grass-fed systems produce almost 1600 times.
It means the beef sector now has benchmark figures for the protein it contributes to the food supply, which will help track improvements and compare efficiency to other protein production systems when they are assessed using the method.
Red meat is often criticised as having a very large footprint, taking up land that could be used to grow crops for human food, or eating grain that humans could be eating instead, otherwise known as the ‘feed versus food debate’.
However, CSIRO livestock systems scientist Dr Dean Thomas said Australian beef production is efficient at converting both low quality protein in grains that humans can eat, as well as protein in grass that humans can’t eat, into high quality protein for human nutrition.
“Cattle are efficient upcyclers of grass and other feedstuffs not just in terms of the quality of protein they create. They contribute a greater amount of protein to our food system than is used in their production as well,” Dr Thomas said.
their own roadmap even has a disproportionate increase in meat production, and much of their plant based funding is going straight into the mouths of that cattle
if you want to read my previous posts, you can search it, im not going to research everything for you.
Yes he is a shithead ghoul. But the people financing cultivated meat are also ghouls (effective altruists).
I would also agree with what he’s saying here, having worked in a cultivatedeat company. The problem is we’re trying to grow single cells that don’t want to grow by themselves. They have no immune system, and no hormone production. So you have to supply those things exogenously, and run it in a sterile process. The Humbird report mentioned in the article on The Counter linked above does a good job of explaining it, I also tried to explain it in my own article, which is a top level comment.
More than 90% of the funding for lab grown meat comes from China not effective altruists. Similar to green energy, the effective altruists are just following in the wake of China
Even when you have single cells that want to grow by themselves like yeast its very hard to mantain a sterile process. Thats why lager became the most common beer type. It alows you to run bio reactors at very cold temperatures to give the desired yeast time to outcompete the others. And thus you need to spend less efort mantaining a sterile situation.
I cant imagine how hard is to mantain a sterile enviorment with meat cells.
I do hope it is worth a good deal. I know that the field is too far away from my expertise for me to really get what is and isn’t possible so I have to heavily lean on people who do.
The cells still need to be supplied with growth factors, whether that comes from FBS or not. Producing growth factors in vitro also requires sterile, pharmaceutical grade production systems.
Chemical engineering or not, my belief is that fundamental biological reality will prevent it from being scalable, especially the problem of sterility.
That is a very good article, thanks for sharing. The humbird report was also what opened my eyes to the real situation, it’s a good read for anyone interested
Lab grown meat is a pipedream. Fundamental chemical engineering reality prevents it from scaling to extent needed for production of commodity protein. As this article says, best case it is orders of magnitude worse than beef, which is itself orders of magnitude worse than beans or other plant based proteins. Also, it fails as a way to avoid animal exploitation because fetal bovine serum vampired out of cow fetuses is still required to make the stuff.
The real product being sold by these lab protein companies and institutes is twofold: assuaging the guilt associated with carnism, and financial speculation per anything on the stock market.
This article discusses the immense practical challenges of scaling up lab meat production https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/
I have actually discussed this paper at length before on this site, but I think I’ll go for the simple punch. Wood was the director for Pfizer in their Animal Health division, which supplies the American meat industry with antibiotics and is actively creating a major crisis for global health (antibiotic resistant bacteria) for the sake of profit. Perhaps that is why he likes writing negatively about something that could slash his bottom line
And being the director for a division this big and important in a pharma company means you are, very strictly, a shithead ghoul. If you look into him further, he has significant investments in anything beef-farming related.
http://lifesciencessummit.co.nz/speaker/paul-wood-ao/ more info on this guy, who is a literal ghoul
This argument isn’t convincing. By that guy’s own bio, he supports the CSIRO protein mission in Australia. Read the bio you linked and follow up - there are a whole bunch of non beef, non conventional proteins listed in his resume.
Anyway, the whole problem with lab grown meat from a chemical engineering perspective is that it has to be grown under clean room conditions like a pharmaceutical. Companies and people with pharmaceutical experience, precursor products, bioreactors would all benefit from lab grown meat taking off.
Find a bean salesman that is worried about the advent of lab meat and I’ll buy this line of argument. If you’ve discussed the substance of that article elsewhere please link.
re: supporting beef farming
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/All/News/2021/December/CSIRO-sets-beef-benchmark-for-protein-production
https://www.csiro.au/en/work-with-us/services/consultancy-strategic-advice-services/CSIRO-futures/Agriculture-and-Food/Australias-Protein-Roadmap
their own roadmap even has a disproportionate increase in meat production, and much of their plant based funding is going straight into the mouths of that cattle
if you want to read my previous posts, you can search it, im not going to research everything for you.
Yes he is a shithead ghoul. But the people financing cultivated meat are also ghouls (effective altruists). I would also agree with what he’s saying here, having worked in a cultivatedeat company. The problem is we’re trying to grow single cells that don’t want to grow by themselves. They have no immune system, and no hormone production. So you have to supply those things exogenously, and run it in a sterile process. The Humbird report mentioned in the article on The Counter linked above does a good job of explaining it, I also tried to explain it in my own article, which is a top level comment.
More than 90% of the funding for lab grown meat comes from China not effective altruists. Similar to green energy, the effective altruists are just following in the wake of China
I apologize, I was not actually aware of China’s research into CM, my viewpoint thus far was mainly constrained to a western one.
And the Communist Party of China
I apologize, I was not actually aware of China’s research into CM, my viewpoint thus far was mainly constrained to a western one.
Yeah you can get a relatively small plate of cultivated chicken in hong kong/shenzhen area for 15-25 usd.
Even when you have single cells that want to grow by themselves like yeast its very hard to mantain a sterile process. Thats why lager became the most common beer type. It alows you to run bio reactors at very cold temperatures to give the desired yeast time to outcompete the others. And thus you need to spend less efort mantaining a sterile situation.
I cant imagine how hard is to mantain a sterile enviorment with meat cells.
Some people I know in the general field and a PhD chemist and a factory process engineer I talked with do disagree with that a bit.
Something I do see as chance are future generation bioreactors in any case.
That is true but can be substituted in the future.
The main points that help us now are changes in consumption, resilience and an end of capitalism.
For what it’s worth, I have a PhD in chemical engineering
I do hope it is worth a good deal. I know that the field is too far away from my expertise for me to really get what is and isn’t possible so I have to heavily lean on people who do.
The cells still need to be supplied with growth factors, whether that comes from FBS or not. Producing growth factors in vitro also requires sterile, pharmaceutical grade production systems.
Chemical engineering or not, my belief is that fundamental biological reality will prevent it from being scalable, especially the problem of sterility.
That is a very good article, thanks for sharing. The humbird report was also what opened my eyes to the real situation, it’s a good read for anyone interested
This one you mean? https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/bit.27848
Here is the full report: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348009195_Scale-Up_Economics_for_Cultured_Meat_Techno-Economic_Analysis_and_Due_Diligence/link/615c95df5a481543a887556f/download
Here is The GFIs response to humbird also, worth considering: https://gfi.org/cultivated/preliminary-review-of-humbird-report/
Thank you
Yes, I think that is the abridged version for publication, I’ll try and find the full version too