Bill Gates can eat whatever he wants but I object to him telling me I need to eat synthetic food. Too much of our food today is already heavily processed. Can't have your cake and eat it too. Bill should have gone into politics if he wanted to make decisions for the masses.
Anything we can do to eliminate some contributors to climate change is worthwhile. I know that not all farms are complicit in the poor treatment of farm animals, but there are many where conditions are not ideal or downright terrible. I always feel a bit poorly thinking about this, it has never really sat well with me.
If the lab grown meat is close to the same quality or better, I'll be switching over 100% as long as it isn't prohibitively expensive. I think that as they get better at it, there will be interesting opportunities for certain cuts of meat that are tougher to get your hands on or even improved upon.
Honestly I can't wait for this revolution.
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There's another big aspect to this and it's animal welfare. Once there's a viable option that still allows you to have a real hamburger for more or less the same cost, that will make a difference to a lot of people. Cow-beef (and raised chickens and etc etc) will still be a thing, it'll just be more of a luxury product.
We're talking probably 10-15 years here if it can be done.
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yes, it'll probably be better for your health, the environment and your wallet
i try and eat as many vegetarian meals as possible already, but you cant beat a steak or burger every once in a while. id love to never have to buy real meat again
It's actually better for grasslands to have cows grazing in a sustainable manner(not overloading the land and stripping it bare.) The cows replace the rolls of bison on the plains, and their grazing is beneficial for a lot of reasons.
As this article notes, the big ecological problem is land-use changes. The connection it fails to mention is that much of this land change is also the result of the meat industry. The increasing demand for feed crops means that we increasingly destroy grasslands to plant feed crops to fuel feedlot operations, which are more efficient. It would be great if we simply raised beef almost strictly on sustainable grazing practices (although it would massively increase the cost and decrease availability), but this isn't the way that the industry actually works. Unfortunately, while it's mostly grassland and parkland habitats being destroyed here in Canada, internationally there are much more ecologically carbon-intensive habitats being destroyed for beef production.
There's another big aspect to this and it's animal welfare. Once there's a viable option that still allows you to have a real hamburger for more or less the same cost, that will make a difference to a lot of people. Cow-beef (and raised chickens and etc etc) will still be a thing, it'll just be more of a luxury product.
We're talking probably 10-15 years here if it can be done.
What do you mean by animal welfare? The animals just won't exist if not for food.
Probably not 100%, but feeding kiddos seems to lead to a lot of ground beef consumption to make things they like. I could see synthetic ground beef being an easy substitute. We are trying to work in more beans/pulses too. Figure it can't hurt.
What do you mean by animal welfare? The animals just won't exist if not for food.
And? Do you think existing just to live in captivity is better than not existing at all?
If there's zero difference in taste, texture, cost, nutrition, I can't understand why people would be against it. I'm a pretty big meat-eater and hardly a card-carrying PETA member, but it's pretty cruel to keep murdering animals when other options are available.
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What do you mean by animal welfare? The animals just won't exist if not for food.
Oh is it some sort of favour of humanity to breed a living being and stuff it in a feed lot for its life? This isn’t a reason for continuing to eat animals as we currently do.
They will certainly live on in smaller, ethically raised farms, and the price will increase. It’ll be balanced out by alternatives for the masses as we can’t feed everyone on this planet without stuffing animals into cages and pumping them full of calories.
Maybe not as bad but nearing the exact same. Cow farts are the biggest problem when it comes to their environmental impact and that has nothing to do with where they are eating (although what they are eating is important).
Just strap a tiny little torch to their butts so we can convert the methane to C02.
What do you mean by animal welfare? The animals just won't exist if not for food.
To put it into human terms, would you rather be born a slave and live in captivity your entire life until someone kills you and processes your body for food products, or would you just rather not know existence in the first place?
Now apply that to an animal that isn't even aware of the benefits of existence in the first place.
What do you mean "what do you mean by animal welfare?"? Are you suggesting we're doing the animals enough of a favour by just bringing them into the world that it doesn't matter how we treat them?
The all or nothing thing is kinda getting tired. Honestly speaking, I wouldn't be surprised if they've already secretly started putting powdered meal worms in our processed food.
Synthetic meat sounds weird to me, but I'm sure I'd get used to it if it were common enough.
100% synthetic meat is stupid though. There's a reason why Wagyu is a delicacy. Do things like 50:50 synthetic/regular ground meats and start there.
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Yeah, I'm not referring to every cow or pig or chicken etc that's slaughtered, but a lot of meat consumed in this country and in the USA is from animals whose lives are... well, poor would be an understatement. I think it makes intuitive sense that if the demand for raised livestock for slaughter was decreased because there was another source for the meat that they produce - i.e., grown from cells - the animals that are still raised for that purpose will probably see better conditions because there won't be as much of a mass-production aspect to the whole enterprise.
Of course that means that over time a "real" steak carved off of a "real" dead cow will cost far, far more than it currently does, but I think I'm okay with that.
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