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| Growing Muscle Tissue |
We learned in biology that all organisms are classified as either an heterotroph, autotroph, or. saprophytes. If they happen to be heterotrophs- like us humans- then they are classified as an omnivore, carnivore, or herbivore. But humans are different. Some of us are vegetarians. Others are omnivores. And some are even vegans. We seem the be an exception in the world of biology.
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| Cattle could soon be gone |
I know it could help our world critically but there are some obvious problems. The first is that I do not know who would buy this. I think the idea it was made in a lab deters some people. Someone making something seems unnatural and it is Genetically Modified. I am not willing to eat tomatoes that have been modified too early so that they turn red by chemical reactions, rather than natural processes.
Also it is not helpful for the growing poverty situations. If today it costs over $250,000 to produce, then multiply that by three for overhead and research, that amounts to over a quarter of a million dollar for a single hamburger. The prices are currently unrealistic and unhelpful. And I realize they are due to change, but not enough. So again and again families will be going back McDonalds and Burger King, so they can be fed and keep the lights on. Even if prices do change, I am not sure if people will buy it. But progress is progress and progress is what we need.
Bibliography; Article: Ghosh, Pallab. "BBC News - Lab-grown meat is first step to artificial hamburger." BBC - Homepage. BBC, 19 Feb. 2012. Web. 7 Oct. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16972761>.
Image1: Ghosh, Pallab. "BBC News - Lab-grown meat is first step to artificial hamburger." BBC - Homepage. BBC, 19 Feb. 2012. Web. 7 Oct. 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16972761>.
Image 2: Goli, Roberta . "Australia Bans Live Export to Indonesia Due to Animal Cruelty | Suite101." Welcome to Suite101 | Suite101. N.p., 27 June 2011. Web. 7 Oct. 2012. <http://suite101.com/article/australia-bans-live-export-to-indonesia-due-to-animal-cruelty-a377271>.
I think that producing meat from skin cells, without ever creating a fully grown organism, is a really efficient and humane alternative to commercial slaughter. It's a bit ironic that there is controversy over a method that is in itself an effort to solve the controversy over the cruelty of usual meat production methods. But the thing is, if we no longer breed whole animals for meat, what'll happen to the domesticated species? The last wild species of cow, the aurochs, died out in the 1600s. What will we do with all the remaining animals that we can no longer slaughter? We can't let them into the wild. Their place in the ecosystem is maintained by human production, and nowhere else. You can't just get rid of a domesticated species, we've been breeding them for years so that they work for our purposes, not their own. In nature, they might die out, or be an environmental threat. So it's a dilemma. There are cows everywhere, it's not like they would always have the space to adapt and evolve in without making a huge mess out of the biological communities what with suddenly being a new and very abundant food source.
ReplyDeleteThis idea seems too perfect to be true. While it's certainly possible, the main question that I'm sure many people are asking is: "Is it safe?" I mean, it seems great in theory, but in reality there could be serious risks involved. Also, like you said, many people won't like the idea of eating something that's been grown in a lab (although many fruits and vegetables have already been genetically modified so that they grow faster or produce more). Recently, scientists have engineered an Atlantic salmon so that it grows faster and has more meat. It is still waiting approval from the FDA, but there are serious concerns about what could happen if it went into the wild, and if it is safe to eat. Therefore, I think that the idea could prove to be useful, but the potential health risks should be carefully studied.
ReplyDeleteYou mentioned that the idea of your meat coming from a test tube might weird people out. Therefore there's no guarantee anyone will buy it even if a cow is not killed in the process and it is somehow better for the environment. I know that if I walked into a store to buy a hamburger and the package said that the non-natural meat was better on the environment than the one that actually came from a cow I would have trouble believing it. I know that I have just read an article on how exactly the test tube meat is better on the environment that other meat. But realistically how many people are going to spend the time reading up on the new more expensive meat versus just buying the good old fashion meat from a cow.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a big discovery, and while I agree with you that at 250,000 dollars a burger it may be a tiny bit expensive, I think this number could go down dramatically. I think that in 20 years they could be making burgers in labs for much cheaper than they are now. It may not be as cheap as it is to slaughter a cow, but it may be more environmentally friendly and can be done anywhere, not just where there are cows. I understand that some people would be skeptically of this "meat" or refuse to buy it due to it's lab growth, but I personally have no problem with it. As long as it tastes like a cheeseburger and is just as unhealthy, I'll eat anything. I think that you brought up many valid points and it was a very interesting article.
ReplyDeleteI think that this is a good idea on paper, the idea of growing a hamburger in a lab is no different from trying to grow new limbs for humans. I think this idea along with the example of growing limbs is to out of reach, while it can be done there is a lot of negative effects from the public such as stores not selling it and customers boycotting this product. I feel this is a better alternative to killing animals and wasting the parts of the animals that they don’t want. While it is expensive to make is time it could be cheaper to make these burgers than to kill the cows, because you would not have to pay for the food for the cows and the equipment for the actual slaughtering of the cows. This is an interesting article and if this became a product in a grocery store I would buy this to save the animals, and that they could in the future do this with other kinds of animals.
ReplyDeleteI think this idea of growing hamburger is a good idea that could help the amount of cattle in our world increase significantly. The idea of growing hamburger out of stem cells which are then converted to muscle tissue could give cattle more time to reproduce and let the population of cattle on earth increase. Although this method of producing hamburger out of stem cells might let the population of cattle increase, it does not help our economy. In the article it says that 250,000 USA dollars are being spent per hamburger! This is very expensive and our country has many more problems that need to be addressed before growing hamburger meat. In the article it states that, “synthetic meat could reduce the environmental footprint of meat by up to 60%.” This quote shows us that producing synthetic meat could reduce our environmental footprint by up to 60%; this would leave less damage on our planet and help other species of animals thrive. Producing a synthetic hamburger would be helpful to our earth but I think that the money should be put towards other major problems first. I know that meat is important in many people’s lives including mine but we should start helping other countries prosper before we determine what type of meat we will be eating because some people are starving to death. Do you think people would actually purchase synthetic meat? In my opinion, I do not think that a lot of people would be open to purchasing fake meat because of how it is made and because of its price and taste. In the article it tells us that the meat would be bland and they would need to figure out how to flavor it. This idea could be very useful to our planet if the price was lowered because it would help our planet recover from the severe damage we have done to it.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post! ~ Carolyn Lovvoll
It sounds like an okay idea but, many people would refuse to eat it because no matter how it tastes the majority of people wouldn't eat it because it is not completly meat, or that it is different from what they eat everyday. If someone was eating a hamburger and you told them it was plastic, they would spit it out no matter how it tasted. Also, there are many meat alternatives like veggie burgers that are less expensive. But still the majority of people just want to stick with plain meat, wich in my opinion isn't the right idea, but it is to many people.
ReplyDelete~ Josh Giaquinto
I think that the idea of growing meat in this way would help the environment by removing slaughter houses. I do, however, agree with what many other people have commented, that many people will find some reason not to eat it, because it's "not natural" or something like that. This would still help though because the people who don't care will still eat the "fake" meat. I think that more people would be willing to eat it though if they knew it had much more energy in it than normal burgers. This would also probably reduce the number of trees being cut down because there wouldn't need to be as much room for farms.
ReplyDeleteProducing meat from skin cells without the actual naturally growing organism might be a way to get people that don’t support with killing tortured meat animals, but is it safe to eat this? Another problem is if they took contaminated skin cells from an animal that had disease, by doing this they would proliferate the amount to hundreds or even thousands infected cells. I think that people are not going to worry about the extra price for a natural piece of meat then one produced in a Petri dish. Overall I think your article brought up some good ideas and was very exciting to read.
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ReplyDeleteI believe that making meat in labs is a very good idea, and it will be very beneficial in the next 50 years. Within the next 50 year, food production may double to the growing population. Also, climate change, water shortages and greater urbanization will make it more difficult to produce food. We need a more efficient way to produce food for the future, so growing meat in labs will contribute as a way to produce food more efficiently. Although it costs $250,000 to make a synthetic hamburger today, the price will be much lower by the time that scientists have perfected the art of making synthetic meat. Synthetic meat requires unhealthily high levels of antibiotics and anti-fungal chemicals to stop the meat from rotting, so I think it may be a long time before we discover a way to make healthy and inexpensive synthetic meat. I found this article to be very interesting to me, and I can't wait to try an inexpensive synthetic hamburger.
ReplyDeleteI think that this idea is fantastic. However, if this were to happen, instead of vegitarians, there may be a new group protesting how natural the synthetic hamburger is. People could view this way of getting their meat as unnatural and refuce to buy it. Although this could be a great way of getting meat without slaughtering animals, people could still find something wrong with it. Also, there could be an explosion in the cow population. The mathane they produce is one of the contributors to global warming. Another way the sythetic hamburger could impact the environment is that cows need a lot of grass to eat. If there was a sudden rise in the numbers of cows, then other organisms that depend of grass could be affected. The entire ecosystem would be affected.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do think this is a step in the right direction for feeding the world population, this is unrealistic for the common human to be thinking about at this point in time. The current sticker price of a synthetically-grown hamburger is $250,000, and even though the price will go down, it will take many generations for a normal market to present this burger at a normal price. Plus, people always find something argue about, and I think this will cause an uproar in the same conservative group that opposes advances in genetics such as stem cell research. So, for those two reasons, I think we should stick to the traditional way of producing beef, and maybe even reform the current process so that the cattle population could be sustained until such a time that a synthetically-grown burger costs about the same as Big Mac.
ReplyDeleteI think lab grown meat is definetly a thought for the future, but the idea just isn't practical right now. It's too expensive to make, and many people are appalled by the thought of eating it. For now we should just stick with normal beef, If there is an issue in ten years, then we'll eat lab grown beef. I honestly don't see what everyone is so disgusted about. Lab grown beef is probably much better than the place your Big Mac came from.
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