Will you eat a test tube hamburger once it's available?

No, never. I haven’t eaten meat in five years and feel better for it.

Well, I might try one just for the novelty. However, I am darned skeptical of the cocktail of hormones and growth agents that are going to have to be used in order to grow commercial quantities in a factory.

Give me good wholesome free range wild harvested venison any day!

If it’s healthy and it tastes good, hell yeah.

I’d much rather eat something that doesn’t come from a suffering living thing.

First I’ll wait for all the panics and heath scares pass by. Then, if it’s still on the market, I’ll ask people who are rational and objective and not given in to conspiracy theories what the pros and cons are health-wise. Then I’ll try one and see if it really does taste like hamburger.

Hell no. If I want a hamburger, I want the greasy one smothered in condiments, nestled between a terribly carby bun. If I’m gonna go for it, I don’t want some icky imitation!

Wouldn’t miss it. Can I get one with real cheese to start?

Yeah sure, as long as it tasted the same, and it was safe.

Considering that I’ve eaten sea bugs (lobsters, shrimp and crabs) and things that grow in holes in the ocean floor (clams, mussels and oysters) as well as raw fish and all kinds of land animals (including more or less “acceptable amounts” of insect parts, rodent excrement, bone and stone fragments and just plain dirt that get included in “real” food), I don’t see why not.

@CWOTUS: I’m probably not going to let you share my toothbrush anytime soon.

Only if it is free range.

Maybe. I may wait a while, but the basic idea seems pretty safe.

But I do have some questions-

Will the meat be relatively fat-free since they are producing muscle cells directly and no fat cells?

Will it be healthier in any way, or will standard hamburger cooking procedures eliminate any benefits?

Will it be easier to prevent food-borne illness such as parasites and other diseases, or will the lack of a cow immune system make any contamination harder to control (even though diseases will hopefully be easier to detect through direct testing)?

How do they separate the meat from whatever chemicals and fluids they are growing it in?

How will the meat be processed and what additives will be added?

How much pollution is created by the factories that will be producing this meat compared to normal farming? (I’m sure the meat will eventually go from test tubes in laboratories to giant vats in factories)

Yes

NO! I want a real one from a real cow that has been enslaved, abused and murdered in the most cruel way possible. It is that suffering that makes it taste so good.~

@PhiNotPi As of now, they have to add fat from another source. It should be healthier in that it wasn’t walking around knee deep in poop, nor standing next to an animal with disease.

Additives? I suppose you get to name your own… chocolate chips, sprinkles, peanuts…

Sign me up! Honestly, this seems pretty cool, at least in theory. And if this is the future of meats, I want to be able to say that I’m one of the first to eat it!

I second @Fly. Unless early user reports indicate caution, sign me up for meat without killing cows.

Well, it’s better than Soylent Green but I am still not so sure….not a big fan of Frankenfood myself.

No Frankenfood for me either @Earthgirl.

@PhiNotPi I had several of the same questions regarding this that you did. Particularly enviromental impact and what those chemicals and fluids are.

@SpatzieLover Even free range cattle production is not environmentally friendly. And factory farms are terrible environmental actors. An educated guess is this would be far greener than any natural method f producing beef.

@SpatzieLover I don’t know if you’d heard about this… but those cows… full of chemicals.

Not the ones I eat @6rant6.

@SpatzieLover , uh YEah, your cows are full of chemicals. What else do you think they are made of, flux and ether?

Ever heard of rennet?

How about nitrogen, sulfur, phosphate, sodium, manganese, carbolic acid, iron, silicon, chlorine, magnesium, malic, citric, tartaric, succinic acids, calcium salts, Vitamin A, B, C, D, E, minerals, lactose, enzymes, creatinine, hormones and gold acids? Apparently they have so much of these that they excrete it.

Then there are these: ACTH, – Cholesterol, Estrogen, Epinephrine, Heparin, Insulin, Thrombin, TSH and thyroid extracts.

it may be important to note @6rant6 I am from a dairy farming family. Yes, I know what cows are made of. It’s WHY I eat ONLY grass-fed animals that are killed either in the Kosher or Temple Grandin methods

@SpatzieLover Grandin? So you think the cow’s mental health is reflected in the quality of your food?

@SpatzieLover Not pretending to be an expert in Kosher meat. But doesn’t kosher meat processing involve putting meat into brine to draw out the blood? Isn’t that “processing?”

I’ve already explained my thoughts on salt @6rant6. This is not the thread for that. Salt is necessary. Vats of whatever fluid this FrankenBeef is grown in is quite another thing.

Second, Temple Grandin Livestock Handling Methods are the most humane. That is why I prefer it.

So you think the cow’s mental health is reflected in the quality of your food? What?!

@SpatzieLover Grandin’s methods are “the most humane” because they respect the cow’s state of mind leading up to its execution. Hence, “mental health.”

No.