A $384,000 Burger. Delicious!

[RCA]

http://www.vice.com/read/i-watched-thre ... e=vicefbus


What makes this so expensive? Well the beef was grown, in a lab, over 5 years of R&D.

As for the taste, apparently no one had any real food critic experience and the best answer they had was, "I feel like the fat is missing" and "There's a leanness to it, but the bite is like a conventional burger". When asked about it's safety the scientist in charge stated, "that it’s genetically identical to beef found in a cow and that, yes, he would let his children eat it".

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqnJZi5ioS8[/youtube]

Well in 20 years we will most likely be making a decision at the supermarket, do you pick up the "cultured meat" or are you all fancy and pick up regular beef?

TL;DR article
People gathered in London to watch people eat a science burger. None of them really gave any real answers to how it tasted.

[Dattebayo]

Now all they need is a fancy pseudonym for "beef-culture" and a technical selling point.

I imagine from what they said of it's taste that this is what the crew was eating in TNG from the replicators.

[WDRacing]

If you're gonna grow some sort of meat in a lab, why wouldn't you grow bacon?

[IBCoupe]

All said, there'll come a point where they can make enough of the stuff that it's more economical than maintaining a field with cows in it. Or a factory with cows in it.

[CrackedDSM]

Stuff better make Kobe Beef taste like a $1 McDonalds burger. Plus, I don't care what anyone says, stuff grown in a lab usually has some nasty side-effects that takes awhile to manifest. Man is flawed, therefore so are his creations.



I'll stick to my good old fashioned farm raised, grass-fed beef. Not filled with growth hormones, and isn't Genetically Modified which passes its traits onto the people that ingest it. Good thing about being raised in the south is I know people that raise cattle and always will, so even if there's nothing but lab-grown beef in the future, I'll still be enjoying a true burger.

[alms24sebring]

Bacon > Beef

$384k for a dam burger can suck my balls, suck'em dry.

[Dattebayo]

Man is flawed, therefore so are his creations.

We didn't create this though, we just copied it and let it grow on it's own.

I don't really know if I should point his out, but you don't get bacon from an animal, lol. They could do pork with no problem...

[WDRacing]

Bacon is pork belly...from a pig.

[CrackedDSM]

Bacon is indeed pork belly. Specifically salt cured pork belly.

[Dattebayo]

Salt cured, sometimes aged and usually wood-smoked as well. Animals don't come either salted, aged or smoked. Thus why I would even bring this up.

"Growing bacon" is sort of like asking to grow peanut butter. There's a process you're forgetting here.

[CrackedDSM]

You can do all things to bacon, but in order to make it, it must be cured first. The others are attributes to it, not necessarily essential to bacon in its pure form. I could have listed every single option to bacon to ever exist, but I felt just the necessities would be faster.



Did they mate a sperm to an egg and grow a cow in a lab...or did they just grow a slab of beef in a lab with some cells? One is somewhat natural..the other is definitely what I'd call creating and very genetically modified.

[Dattebayo]

All they did was put some muscle cells from a cow in a dish and grow them, it's not really genetic engineering because they didn't mess with the cell's internals.
They made a "cell culture", which is something scientists have been doing every since biology has been a science. I'm kind of surprised that it hasn't been attempted before.

[themadscientist]

The cloned meat is about as unique as most Americans are so seems appropriate. Bon Apetite!

[IBCoupe]

One is somewhat natural..the other is definitely what I'd call creating and very genetically modified.

It's no less natural than muscle a cow grows itself. I think we need to draw a distinction between "natural" and "naturally-occurring." Petri dishes are not found in nature. Doesn't mean the things that are in them aren't. When we take a quadriplegic's own adult stem cells, grab the cells that are aiming for nerve creation, inject them into a person's neck and make a him walk again, it's not that we've genetically modified him. We've simply told his body to rebuild his very own spine.

[RCA]

$384k for a dam burger can suck my balls, suck'em dry.

Yeah but this burger tastes like science!

I don't care what anyone says, stuff grown in a lab usually has some nasty side-effects that takes awhile to manifest.

Not filled with growth hormones, and isn't Genetically Modified which passes its traits onto the people that ingest it.

It was biologically grown in a process that is similar to how meet grows in a cow. It's genetically identical.

Genetics doesn't work like that. If you have a high genetic likelihood of having diabetes and I eat you 2 a week, your genetic traits won't pass on. When I eat chicken, I don't become more genetically similar to chickens. That being said, you're lucky to be so close to the production of your food, having those options is awesome.

[Dattebayo]

Genetic engineering requires the injection of a piece of DNA into the cell nucleus and use of RNA, special chemicals and enzymes to split the DNA and add the little bit in you want to the existing DNA.

It's really complicated and doesn't always work. Meanwhile, these guys are just growing cells outside of a body. I don't see how it costs $384K to just grow one patty of cow muscle, but maybe they calculated the scientist's salary from the project's grant or something?

[RCA]

Yeah, the cost of the burger is from start to finish of the entire 5 year project. Keeping a lab open and doing awesome science for 5 years for only $385k is actually pretty cheap. That's an annual budget of $77k.

[WDRacing]

Especially when you consider the Gov gave a $325,000 grant for a robot squirrel so they could study the affects of it on snakes. One involves real science, the other involves a few guys like us in my garage with a case of beer and a few runs to radio shack.

[Looneybomber]

...involves a few guys like us in my garage with a case of beer and a few runs to radio shack.

Who do I give my application to?

[Dattebayo]

Give it to the squirrel. I'm sure he run it by them.

[nissangirl74]

No thanks on the lab meat. I don't eat a lot of red meat but when I do, I want it as natural as possible. Organic, grass-fed. It's cool that they have discovered that this can be done. However, just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean you should. Just my .02

[WDRacing]

...involves a few guys like us in my garage with a case of beer and a few runs to radio shack.

Who do I give my application to?

The application needs to be in the form of a quality home brewed beverage. I'll be receiving all applications personally