• ffmike@beehaw.org
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    1 year ago

    Looks like only available in one restaurant for now, but it’s a start.

    “For one thing, cultivated meat is not vegan or vegetarian.” -> I know some vegans who would disagree with that, on the grounds that no animal cruelty or slaughter is involved. I suspect there will be a fair bit of debate on this as cultivated meat becomes more widespread. I would guess just like we’ve already got “I’m a vegetarian who eats fish” we’ll end up with “I’m a vegan who does/doesn’t eat cultivated meat.”

    You might want to cross-post this to https://beehaw.org/c/food too.

    • The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org
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      1 year ago

      I know some vegans who would disagree with that

      I definitely would!

      Usually, the reason people go vegan is to try to reduce (hopefully eliminate) animal suffering, and/or to reduce green house gas emissions from animal farming.

      Cultivated meat deals with the first, and, depending on how it’s produced, can probably entirely avoid the second as well.

      I don’t know the process in detail, but I would also imagine that cultivated meat is no more sourced from animals than a plant that was fertilized with animal dung, and that would still be considered vegan.

      • memfree@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        They biopsy live animals to get the cells to grow meat, so I am sure many vegans will object – but the labs theoretically never need to get more cells. The question becomes whether they do or not and how the source livestock is treated. Do they just sell the source animals to a slaughterhouse? Or do they donate them to a petting zoo? They are unlikely to tell the public.

        I noticed the post’s link is PR from the Upside company website. GOOD Meat is another provider. Here is an NPR link with a bit less sensationalism: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/06/21/1183484892/no-kill-meat-grown-from-animal-cells-is-now-approved-for-sale-in-the-u-s

        • The_Terrible_Humbaba@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          I know they biopsy animals to get the cells, but I just assume it’s a one and done thing since there’s no need to go back; or at least just once for each company working on it. If it’s more than that, it would completely defeat the purpose and probably not be worth it for them.

          Not perfect, but assuming they only do it the one time with an animal that was already likely to be slaughtered, I think I’d still consider it vegan.

          Either way, I’ll probably still stick more plant based. Even if lab meat is better for the environment than farm meat, it still needs to be “fed” and so will probably always take more resources than plant based to be produced.