The main reasons I’ve seen from vegans for not eating meat seem to be all about the morality of eating a sentient animal, the practices of the modern meat industry, and the environmental impact of it. And don’t have anything to do with the taste of meat.
Since lab-grown meat doesn’t cause animal suffering, and assuming mass production is environmentally friendly, would you consider going back to eating meat if it were the lab-grown kind?
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I would not trust anyone who tells me it’s lab grown. I’ve had so many restaurants and people lie to me that someone ws vegan, out of malice and out of incompetence, that I just would not believe that a burger was “lab grown” instead of made with cheap meat leftovers.
If somehow I I could assure that it was made without animals being hurt, maybe. Meat is unhealthy so I would still mostly avoid it.
How is free range grown-up meat bad for health?
Everything within limits and maybe not the cheapest drug filled meat?The human body is an amagin versatile machine. But the best diet for health seems to be plant based whole foods. Meat should be a very small part of your diet. It has been linked to all main causes of death like heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimers…
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I’m a lazy vegan. I intend to stop eating animal meat as soon as cultured meat is viable. Maybe opportunistic vegan is the term?
I’m pretty sure the term here is “not a vegan”.
Only for fish/eggs/dairy. I’ve never really liked pork or beef.
Chicken, turkey, rabbit?
I’d definitely eat it, especially over ecosystem-destroying meats and dirty meats. Especially if they can work on the price. I’d like to see more farmlands and public lands reforested and taken back to nature.
If it’s cheap, sure.
Not vegan but I’d wager most wouldn’t, not even because of the ethics stuff everyone memes about
Breaking down meats takes an energy investment that breaking plants down doesn’t. So people who are used to a low meat or meatless diet aren’t recommended to go full steam on some carnitas first time they feel like getting back on the red and pink stuff.
Literally it causes heavy fatigue and tiredness untill they re-adjust to the energy investment, and if you’re already feeling fine just not eating meat then what exactly would be the point of putting yourself through that?
And I’m saying this as a total beef and pork addict, my dad’s pescatarian so I got to learn about sudden diet shift health effects from his doctor when he first went for the fishes.
Yeeeah, it’s not going to be environmentally friendly, probably the opposite. In the lab grown meat discussions people seem to forget how incredibly efficient cows are at converting biomass to muscle.
For lab grown meat you’d need a circulation system that can reach all parts of the meat and provide it with enough nutrients, proteins, supplements and all that while also removing by-products such as ammonia that result from chemical processes in the cells.
So you’ll end up needing a circulation system, immune system, bones for the meat to not get crushed by it’s own weight ideally, recycling system like the liver and logistical system to back everything up, and that’s assuming the whole process will be energy efficient.
Adding a brain to it makes essentially gives you all parts of a cow except the cow can largely produce the meat without any oversight and will do all the nutrient differential equations automatically.
We’re still decades away from being able to scale this up while being within the same order of magnitude in cost. It’s far easier to do a decade of chemistry and biology on textured soy meat to perfectly replicate the flavor, texture and nutrient profile of cow meat. This shouldn’t come as a shock since plants are more efficient than animals in creating protein.
I’m personally hoping for genetically modified soy beans that have good amount of the amino acid leucine which is lacking in most plant protein.
Sidenote: We are close to fixing the methane emissions of cows by feeding them a supplement mixed with the feed.
You didn’t want answer the hypothetical though?
That’s true, I shouldn’t since I’m not vegan.
I’ve been vegan for four years, and I would personally not be interested in lab-grown meat because I have no desire to consume meat anymore, after a while it became quite gross to me to think about, just kinda icky.
I don’t know much about lab grown meat, but if there are no animals harmed in the manufacture and it’s at least somewhat more sustainable than animal products, then I wouldn’t have any ethical objections to it.
I’d be much more interested in ethically produced dairy than meat, personally.
I dated a vegetarian, and I love to cook. It was wild how little it took to break through the “meatless” thing. We didn’t last but I kept the skillset, and eat vegetarian at least a few nights of the week.
I love being able to taste things at every stage without worry about food safety. Like if I don’t think a sauce is quite right, I can always try a bit. Once you kind of break through, meat freaks you out a bit… and I still eat meat!
Edit: I’ll also add: giving up cheese and eggs would be hard as hell though… I get where that would be more exciting than meat.
I saw lab grown milk at the grocery store the other day! It’s still pretty pricey and there’s only whole milk but I’m excited that accessible lab grown milk is on the horizon
Did you try it? I’ve tried a number of milkless milk substitutes and none of them hit the spot for me.
I did actually! I wouldn’t call it a milk replacement. It’s definitely got a really peculiar taste that I can only describe as lactose free milk if it tasted like it had aspartame in it. I don’t really drink much milk to begin with, so the only thing I was doing with it was just sipping straight but I feel like it would taste nice in coffee or tea. Wouldn’t put it in cereal or cook with it tbh.
really peculiar taste that I can only describe as lactose free milk if it tasted like it had aspartame
Okay yeah, that sounds similar to some of the stuff I’ve tried. It’s a beverage, possibly even a good one, but it’s not milk. I’m still waiting for when we can accurately and cheaply reproduce the sugars, proteins, and fats in cow milk, but without growing the rest of the cow.
Nah, the stuff I am cooking without meat tastes better anyways.
Seems like a bold assertion, saying your food tastes better than something that doesn’t exist yet, and so cannot be compared.
I mean, you are probably right, but you can’t know how dinosaur meat or whatever genetically engineered nonexistent animal meat tastes like.
The point of lab meat is to taste like dead animals. I know what dead animals taste like, I ate them for 28 years.
I get that, what I mean is that current attempts fail to even taste like animal meat, so it’s hard to tell what that could actually taste like in the future. Now they pursue the taste of animal meat, but I imagine if they succeed they will go in other directions. Ultimately it’s a tech to grow arbitrary cell structures from arbitrary cells, so nobody says it has to replicate any animal tissue. That’s just unfortunately what people are familiar with.
No way, it’s made by animal testing and I don’t trust anyone to actually use that instead of cheaper, subsidized cruelty that is normally served.
Also meat is really unhealthy and unnecessary. I’ve been vegan almost 10 years now and all my coworkers are suffering diseases from eating a shitty diet but people regularly think I’m 10 years younger than I am. My manager who is younger than me at 43 just had to get stents and had a heart attack. Long story short, I’m not looking to eat like you people ever again.
but people regularly think I’m 10 years younger than I am.
This is the same kind of magical thinking that leads some vegans to believe that they don’t produce any body odor, or that they can cure cancer through diet. I eat meat, I’m nearing 50, I’m physically healthy, and regularly mistaken for being in my 30s. The idea that vegan = healthy diet is, well, pretty obviously nonsense, since Oreos are vegan and still terrible for you.
A lot of aging is just genetics.
Keep telling yourself that, recipes run in families too. There is mountains of evidence showing that plant based diets are the healthiest and that saturated fat, where most of the calories in meat come from, is bad for you. The non vegans in my family look like everyone else, I seem to be a genetic marvel along with my wife.
You seem a little defensive of your choices.
Vegetarian here. It’s not something I’d personally buy or use in meals, as I don’t really have the desire to eat meat. That said, if it happened to be in a dish I really want to try at a restaurant, sure I’d eat it.
For me the main benefit of it would be the ability to try local/cultural dishes while travelling, if lab grown meat was an option.
I don’t think so, it doesn’t sound very appealing. I’m very used to going without meat, and tofu satisfies me quite well, or seitan. Being vegan to me is getting away from the idea that you need a lump of something fleshy on your plate to be satisfied.
I would not mind eating lab grown and I think it is great if people would eat that instead but ive been vegan for so long that i have no interest in meat. I hardly eat mock meats, its only in social situations to not stand out to much.
Seconded. When I was vegan I’d already been vegetarian for years. Meat, including fake meat, held no appeal.
Fake meat has more of an appeal to me than lab grown meat, or it used to. It was kinda interesting when they were unique flavours marketed as alternatives rather than accurate immitations.
Honestly the food science is one of my favourite things about being vegan, I can cook way more interesting meals than I could as a carnist because I’d just use meat as the main flavour which works but it’s kinda lazy. Let me make something with a little miso and shitake broth and you’ll be in love
You got me drooling - any recipe suggestions? I’ve both ingredients in my fridge!
I don’t have any written recipes I’m afraid, I’ve been making them up as I go.
I usually use that combination for a ramen base. I used dried shitake and soak them in a ton of water overnight in the fridge. The dried shitake are honestly kinda inedible even after being rehydrated so I don’t always use them afterwards. I should also soak Kombu but I keep forgetting to buy it.
If you mix that broth with the right amount of miso paste then you’ll get the amazing combination of msg and nucleotides that gives you some amazing flavours. Soy sauce helps too, some garlic, ginger and sesame oil make it perfect.
Good luck working out ratios because I just guess everytime based on the size of my bowls 😅
Thanks so much for sharing! I’ll have to experiment for dinner tomorrow (I’m blessed to have a local eco store that sells everything you mentioned).
Hell yeah!
Good luck and have fun!
it’s* only in
Ill let it slide, because you seam to have made it youre hole identity, butt ill note its knot relevant to this discussion
Same. I stopped eating meat in the mid 90s, was pescatarian until 2019, and have been vegan since. I don’t miss meat at all. I’ll eat an impossible or a beyond burger occasionally because it’s sometimes my only option, but I could just as easily skip them.
I wouldn’t judge anyone else for eating lab meat, though. I don’t have any moral issue with it, it just isn’t something I’m personally interested in.
Meat is delicious, you should try it if theres no reason not to
Ah, so witty! Here is more.
Wasn’t trying to be witty.
I eat meat, but I’ve gone months at a time on a vegetarian diet, and the smell of cooking meat could be nauseating at times. I don’t think as many people would eat meat if it wasn’t so ingrained in our society
Meat traditionally was the only food option for most people. Meat, eggs and grain are staple foods across the world no matter where you look.
Fwiw my wife had a long period of being vegetarian primarily because she doesn’t like the taste of beef. So that reasoning does occur as well. She’s not vegetarian any more but mostly keeps to chicken due to the taste
Yeah, I was going to say, if taste is the only issue, has she tried NON-beef meats? Like pork, and turkey, and chicken, and fish.
Or hell…if you want a heart attack, go back to 2014 and get the meat mountain. It was like 37 different meats stacked on top of each other, and when I measured mine, it was 23 inches tall. My arbys sandwich was 23 inches tall. I only ever ordered one. It was meals for like 3 days. I made the joke that you don’t put a toothpick in the middle, you put a dagger.
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