this post was submitted on 18 Jan 2024
108 points (94.3% liked)

News

23258 readers
2911 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil


Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.


2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.


Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.


3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.


Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.


4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.


Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.


5. Only recent news is allowed.


Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.


6. All posts must be news articles.


No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.


7. No duplicate posts.


If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.


8. Misinformation is prohibited.


Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.


9. No link shorteners.


The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.


10. Don't copy entire article in your post body


For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 29 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Not at all. The goal is getting the price comparable. They’re pretty close. It’s SO much cheaper to grow it than to raise actual animals. And you don’t have to worry about your animals getting sick, infecting the others, and killing off an entire group.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (2 children)

You do have to worry about infections. Not in the same way, but yeah. Those cells are alive and they can be infected.

I suspect an infection would actually be far more costly, and far more difficult to control. Keep in mind it’s grown vats with a shitload of plumbing attached. Animals have an immune system… these vats don’t. They rely on remaining completely sterile, except for the meat-cells.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The risk of infection during the growth process of cultured meat is lower than in traditional livestock farming. This is because the controlled environment of a bioreactor can be maintained under strict sterile conditions, minimizing the chances of contamination.

Bioreactors (vats) used for growing cultured meat are designed to be aseptic environments where the risk of exposure to pathogens is greatly reduced compared to open farming. The growth medium and other inputs are sterilized and carefully monitored, reducing the likelihood of introducing pathogens, unlike conventional animal farming where antibiotics are often used to prevent infections in crowded conditions, cultured meat production doesn't require antibiotics, reducing the risk of developing antibiotic-resistant bacteria. And since cultured meat production is a closed system, there is less chance for external contamination from sources like other animals, human handlers, space aliens because I know you’re reading this right, or the environment. Also, cultured meat production is subject to regulatory oversight to ensure safety and quality standards are met, similar to other food production methods.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

So, just to clarify…. They take all those precautions to prevent an infection, because…. There is a risk of infection… right?

While certainly far from perfectly analogous, my experience with sourdough starter (which is a yeast culture,) says that when it goes off (specifically serratia marcescens) the entire starter needs to be scrapped; and the “bioreactor” (that would be a mason jar, heh.) needs to be sterilized in the dish washer.

As one scales the reactors to comercially-viable size, the risks and costs increase- simply by the mere increase of inputs increasing the risk that something is missed.

As for antiboitic use in cattle, this is certainly common, but it’s also far from universal. My big-box grocery store sells antibiotic-free meat and antibiotic free dairy; and the chain butcher sells it exclusively.

I’m not trying to defend natural meat, but dealing with and preventing infection is a necessity; the largest drawback is scaling. Incidentally, a solution nobody seems to consider here is scaling the other direction- towards smaller, in-home bioreactors.

If they became small enough, maintenance free enough and inexpensive-to-operate enough; people would start adopting them. Like how people frequently grow their own veggies.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Cattle animals are routinely fed a ton of antibiotics in their regular feed. It’s not their “immune systems” keeping them free from infection.