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  1. - Top - End - #1
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    Default Human: The other meat

    Seen in Dezeen

    A group of American scientists and designers have developed a concept for a grow-your-own steak kit using human cells and blood to question the ethics of the cultured meat industry.

    Ouroboros Steak could be grown by the diner at home using their own cells, which are harvested from the inside of their cheek and fed serum derived from expired, donated blood.

    The resulting bite-sized pieces of meat, currently on display as prototypes at the Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition, are created entirely without causing harm to animals. The creators argued this cannot be said about the growing selection of cultured meat made from animal cells.
    And it is indeed on display at the museum in question .

    So ... you can essentially make steaks from yourself? Or a loved one?

    ...

    I think I'd prefer something a bit less , shall we say, close to home. Even if it does probably taste like chicken.

    Oh, yes, "Ouroboros" is a reference to the mythical serpent that devoured itself. A fitting name, I think.

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    Brian P.
    Last edited by pendell; 2020-11-16 at 05:49 PM.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    I'd be curious how safe this is from a dietary perspective. They're doing it for a message more than viability it seems, but the tech is cool. I'd gladly go to lab grown meat if it became sustainable. Anything to shut down the mass farming of animals. Ethical meat is A+ in my mind.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Razade View Post
    I'd be curious how safe this is from a dietary perspective. They're doing it for a message more than viability it seems, but the tech is cool. I'd gladly go to lab grown meat if it became sustainable. Anything to shut down the mass farming of animals. Ethical meat is A+ in my mind.
    I'll agree with ethical meat, but I'd still want it made from animals. If you can culture it from a human without injuring the human host you should be able to culture it from an animal as well.

    Who knows? Maybe at some point we can get advanced enough in genetics so that we can culture up a t-rex steak or a wooly mammoth. If you've got enough DNA to generate a few cells, perhaps that's enough for a culture.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Or just eat famous people like in the 2012 movie antiviral. (not the focus but it is in there)

    honestly I very much doubt any lab grown meat would have the terrior of real meat but with the modern feedlot practices that has been mostly knocked off anyway.

    would probably taste more like pork and is not really viable as the amount of blood needed far surpasses supply on a economic basis...so just silly at this point. But the technology has a lot of interesting possibilities.

    and to say sampling an animal to grow lab meat is more than a bit of an ethical reach in my mind. I mean we are animals we consume and destroy life to survive. You can mess about with the how but that is what the animal kingdom does.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Seen in Dezeen



    And it is indeed on display at the museum in question .

    So ... you can essentially make steaks from yourself? Or a loved one?

    ...

    I think I'd prefer something a bit less , shall we say, close to home. Even if it does probably taste like chicken.

    Oh, yes, "Ouroboros" is a reference to the mythical serpent that devoured itself. A fitting name, I think.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    Apparently we actually taste like pork

    Oh and Arthur C Clarke kinda predicted this in his 1964 short story 'Food of the Gods'
    Last edited by comicshorse; 2020-11-16 at 06:27 PM.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I'll agree with ethical meat, but I'd still want it made from animals. If you can culture it from a human without injuring the human host you should be able to culture it from an animal as well.

    Who knows? Maybe at some point we can get advanced enough in genetics so that we can culture up a t-rex steak or a wooly mammoth. If you've got enough DNA to generate a few cells, perhaps that's enough for a culture.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
    If we can do that with any animal, why not do it with humans? Lab-grown human meat would not carry Kuru and wouldn't be made by killing people so there's no real argument against.

    This reminds me of people who are fine eating pigs, rabbits and cows but find the idea of eating horses, dogs and cats appalling somehow.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    If we can do that with any animal, why not do it with humans? Lab-grown human meat would not carry Kuru and wouldn't be made by killing people so there's no real argument against.

    This reminds me of people who are fine eating pigs, rabbits and cows but find the idea of eating horses, dogs and cats appalling somehow.
    I think that's a cultural hang-up. Horses, dogs and cats are regarded as 'allies' and so more worthy than ordinary farm animals. Or at least they once where and the attitude still lingers
    Last edited by comicshorse; 2020-11-16 at 07:00 PM.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    I think that's a cultural hang-up. Horses, dogs and cats are regarded as 'allies' and so more worthy than ordinary farm animals. Or at least they once where and the attitude still lingers
    I can't speak to horses but I remember learning a bit about veterinary medicine. One of the diseases of the cat is a tapeworm. They get it by eating mice which have tapeworms, and when it enters the digestive system the tapeworm passes easily to its new host. You are what you eat.

    This is why, in many cultures which have dietary prohibitions, they are pretty strict on the kind of meat they will allow. The restrictions boil down to herbivores, especially those which graze, and thus are full of nice nutritious veggies. Whereas if you eat something like a dog or a vulture or a pig, you're also picking up everything in that creature's stomach. Which is why pigs are unclean in some cultures. Pigs will eat anything. And a dog will eat its own ... well, byproduct.

    Not to mention, I'm told that carnivores who have been living on meat taste absolutely horrible.

    This is also, why, incidentally, there are very rarely anything like the same rules applied to vegetables or fruits or cereal grains. Meat requires very careful handling and preparation. Even in the modern world, crab or lobster or shrimp have the potential to kill you if they are prepared clumsily.

    None of these objections would apply to cultured meat grown in a lab. But there is a good reason for those rules back in the day when meat had to come from living animals. Obeying them kept you alive and healthy.

    Respectfully,

    Brian P.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Dogs and cats are also higher on the food chain with all the attendant risks and concentrations of toxins, heavy metals, minerals etc. There's a reason we don't eat predators beyond the physical danger of hunting them.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    If we can do that with any animal, why not do it with humans? Lab-grown human meat would not carry Kuru and wouldn't be made by killing people so there's no real argument against.
    After genetic screening. Kuru is a prion disease, after all.

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Not to mention, I'm told that carnivores who have been living on meat taste absolutely horrible...
    Quote Originally Posted by Thomas Cardew View Post
    There's a reason we don't eat predators beyond the physical danger of hunting them.
    Tuna? Mahi-Mahi? Salmon?
    Last edited by sihnfahl; 2020-11-16 at 07:54 PM.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by sihnfahl View Post
    After genetic screening. Kuru is a prion disease, after all.



    Tuna? Mahi-Mahi? Salmon?
    I'm talking about land-based carnivores such as dogs and cats. I'm not enough of a biologist to say why the rules are different for fish -- only that most kinds of fish are supposed to be edible (with exceptions such as the pufferfish) while most shellfish require special handling. I might learn more from google later.

    Respectfully,

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by sihnfahl View Post
    After genetic screening. Kuru is a prion disease, after all.



    Tuna? Mahi-Mahi? Salmon?
    Interesting you mention those, since it's a perfect case. It's also exactly correct, fish higher in the food chain have higher concentrations of mercury (heavy metal). Hence why you are recommened not to eat Tuna more than once a weak. Here's the FDA data for mean mercury concentrations by species if you want to verify.

    Edit: Stolen from wikipedia


    Last edited by Thomas Cardew; 2020-11-16 at 08:23 PM.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    As for horses. A: they taste great B: they were very commonly eaten until very recently and in some areas still eaten regularly. Still on the menu in some places in France and Texas at least until recently and possibly even today. Though I'd say when they ceased to be a farm animal and were treated as pets is when people stopped thinking of them as food.
    Cats were also quite commonly eaten in some places if not considered high cuisine, in Italian books there were called "roof rabbit". Dogs have mostly been driven from the diets of east asia and mexico by external cultural pressure. And it is really the thinking of them as " pets" that changes things. Especial now that few people actually have met their food, fed it, and then killed and butchered it. We mostly live at such a deep psychological distance from the act of turning a living being into food that it is reserved for animal images we don't generally deal with or choose to associate with.

    As for unclean animals....it has less to do with where they are in the food chain and more do they live in human trash piles. Look at the difference between how "wild boar" and "pig" is treated or "hound" (of the kennel and selected breeding) and the "cur" who scavenged in the streets for waste and human remains....

    As for carnivores not tasting as good. Errr.....not at all IME.
    Chickens and ducks raised on a large proportion of invertebrates taste far better in my opinion. Basically all fish are carnivores except for a few phytoplankton feeders. I would say prosciutto (which is fed whey from parmesan cheese production instead of water) tastes even better than normal ham. And linked to that lots of people like the tender fatty beef we have today which is fed chicken and fish meal in many places and "waste" cow meal
    Now my bear was probably mostly vegetarian but I've known people who have eaten bears from fish runs and also lion both of which were reported as scrumptious.

    So there is little "ethical" about any such criteria.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I'm talking about land-based carnivores such as dogs and cats.
    Gator and snake, then? Both are good eating.

    I'm not enough of a biologist to say why the rules are different for fish -- only that most kinds of fish are supposed to be edible (with exceptions such as the pufferfish) while most shellfish require special handling. I might learn more from google later.
    Bottom feeding vs float feeders. It's why catfish in places is not a good idea.

    Quote Originally Posted by Thomas Cardew View Post
    Interesting you mention those, since it's a perfect case.
    Yes, as an example, but there are still no bans / societal discouragement on it, and it's not considered unacceptable (save for watching on heavy metal accumulation and overfishing concerns).
    May you get EXACTLY what you wish for.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by comicshorse View Post
    Apparently we actually taste like pork
    There is a reason "long pork" is a euphemism for human meat.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Isn't this kind of thing how people get kuru?
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Bohandas View Post
    Isn't this kind of thing how people get kuru?
    One would hope that lab meat would be subject to health and safety regulations. No prion, no kuru.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    As far as sustainability is concerned, this is useless. The blood for the serum comes from people who ate something else.

    Also, this is just a concept. In other words, nothing has been done yet. The flesh is exposed, but not yet eaten, or commercially offered for eating. "No lab-grown meat has so far approved for sale in any part of the world". Laws probably would have a lot to say about adding discarded human fluids from an hospital to food meant for human consumption. And this is the point of the exposition, promoting the use of human fluids to grow e.g. bovine meat instead of bovine fluids. Which I don't think makes sense, because human fluids come from people eating. This cannot be a closed cycle.

    To be frank, I find the exposition disgusting. Someone else's thick mucosa, grown on someone else's blood, suspended in a transparent fluid emulating saliva, ready for my consumption?
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Fyraltari View Post
    One would hope that lab meat would be subject to health and safety regulations. No prion, no kuru.
    Or genetic modification to remove the PrP gene on Chromosome 20.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Vinyadan View Post

    To be frank, I find the exposition disgusting. Someone else's thick mucosa, grown on someone else's blood, suspended in a transparent fluid emulating saliva, ready for my consumption?
    Anything is edible if you put enough mustard on.

    Tongue-in-cheek,

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Anything is edible if you put enough mustard on.
    Or ketchup.

    But at all times, it's a grave sin to put it on a steak. Especially after you insult the beef by cooking the steak well-done.
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Anything is edible if you put enough mustard on.

    Tongue-in-cheek,

    Brian P.
    Tongue-in-cheek with mustard is actually quite tasty!
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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    I generally prefer HP to mustard for cheek.
    Tongue with mustard can be pretty good...though i might have gone for salad cream...but I also may be a horrible person.

    For human....i think a bechemel would be my starting point for experimentation.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    I seem to recall a New York Times food critic who obtained a portion of an executed criminal's flesh describing the experience of eating human as not entirely like slightly tough veal, but more like slightly tough veal than it was like anything else. One presumes that the exact details will vary based on the cut of meat, muscle vs organ, the health and diet of the decedent, and the manner of preparation.

    I see no ethical objection, in the broad sense, to the consumption of cultured human meat. There are plenty of good reasons why a culture might have a taboo against cannibalism, but I'm not sure that any of them apply here. In the narrow sense, I can see issues arising with consent and compensation- but we're already using lines of cultured cells originating from humans extensively in medicine, so those aren't really new issues.

    As far as I'm aware, you get Kuru by eating someone (and especially the brain of someone) with Kuru- it isn't spontaneously generated by the act of breaking the cannibalism taboo. So especially as involves autocannibalism, it shouldn't be a concern.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Ajustusdaniel View Post
    I seem to recall a New York Times food critic who obtained a portion of an executed criminal's flesh describing the experience of eating human as not entirely like slightly tough veal, but more like slightly tough veal than it was like anything else. One presumes that the exact details will vary based on the cut of meat, muscle vs organ, the health and diet of the decedent, and the manner of preparation.

    I see no ethical objection, in the broad sense, to the consumption of cultured human meat. There are plenty of good reasons why a culture might have a taboo against cannibalism, but I'm not sure that any of them apply here. In the narrow sense, I can see issues arising with consent and compensation- but we're already using lines of cultured cells originating from humans extensively in medicine, so those aren't really new issues.

    As far as I'm aware, you get Kuru by eating someone (and especially the brain of someone) with Kuru- it isn't spontaneously generated by the act of breaking the cannibalism taboo. So especially as involves autocannibalism, it shouldn't be a concern.
    I don't have any, I guess you could call it a theoretical ethical objection to cannibalism in general, or cannibalism of a convicted capital felon. A practical moral concern I would have is the conflict of interest that may occur where some institution gets some benefit (especially, in the case of something like donor organs, or sweet delicious long pig, where it's one of few sources of a scarce commodity) from convicting that they don't when acquitting.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Xyril View Post
    I don't have any, I guess you could call it a theoretical ethical objection to cannibalism in general, or cannibalism of a convicted capital felon. A practical moral concern I would have is the conflict of interest that may occur where some institution gets some benefit (especially, in the case of something like donor organs, or sweet delicious long pig, where it's one of few sources of a scarce commodity) from convicting that they don't when acquitting.
    I should clarify that what I don't find any objection to is the artificially grown meat described in the OP. My problem with human meat sourced from capital punishment has more to do with capital punishment than the disposal of the remains afterwards.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by Ajustusdaniel View Post
    I should clarify that what I don't find any objection to is the artificially grown meat described in the OP. My problem with human meat sourced from capital punishment has more to do with capital punishment than the disposal of the remains afterwards.
    I think it is an extremely bad idea to give an economic incentive to eating human beings, which would happen if we sold off the bodies of executed prisoners for use at the dining table. I think culturing meat is much less problematic, because we're only talking about getting some cells and doing no other harm to the hosts.

    There's a lot we can't go into on this forum, but there is a problem of prison labor being sold to private industry. Google the phrase "prison industrial complex". Selling the bodies of prisoners as well as their labor takes another step down that road which I'd rather we didn't take. Go down that world far enough , we see a dystopian world where anyone who goes into the prison system is ruthlessly used for the benefit of others, and there is a strong economic incentive to put people in prison to feed the appetites of the parent society, literally.

    Respectfully,

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    I think it is an extremely bad idea to give an economic incentive to eating human beings, which would happen if we sold off the bodies of executed prisoners for use at the dining table. I think culturing meat is much less problematic, because we're only talking about getting some cells and doing no other harm to the hosts.
    Yes, I think we're essentially in agreement there.

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    Default Re: Human: The other meat

    Quote Originally Posted by pendell View Post
    Google the phrase "prison industrial complex".
    Also "prison medical experimentation"
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