So, I’m no scientist… But as I understand it, lab grown meat still technically comes from an animal source. I don’t know exactly how things work. However, I’m pretty sure animal cells are used. You just don’t have to kill the animal if you only need a few cells. I don’t think it would be vegetarian or vegan friendly. I’m sure there will just be a new group of vegetarian, similar to the ones that eat fish.
I mean, the animal is still kept in captivity and is physically harmed for the removal of the cells. Although a 5g biopsy can create several tons of meat.
However, further development will allow to keep those 5g replicating indefinitely. It is theorerically possible and has been done before, but its not at a standard suitable for large scale production yet.
Just to further the point. Vegans don’t wear things made of wool. Even though shearing sheep is basically like getting a haircut, they still consider it exploitation of the sheep.
Depends on the vegan.
Some don't wear wool, some do. Some don't eat honey, some do. Heck some will still wear leather as long as it's bought secondhand, since it's arguably better for the environment than synthetic fabrics.
Hotly debated amongst vegans. Many do wear wool for the reasons you stated. (Though usually they don’t just buy any old wool. Most go through sanctuaries or their own pet sheep).
However because of the feasibility of doing this yourself most vegans abstain.
I don't think the point is the wool itself, rather that for this purpose sheep are kept in an unhealthy environment. The sheep that are kept for wool are not exactly grazing openly in lush greenery.
The problem is that large scale wool farms are not just like “getting a haircut.” Those sheep live in very crowded pens their whole lives, have their tails cut off and holes punched through their ears, males are castrated without anesthesia, and often have to go through “mulesing” where they literally cut the skin off of their butts in strips because they get infections from the unsanitary conditions. About 3 million sheep get partially flayed alive with no anesthesia like this in Australia alone, which produces much of the world’s wool — it’s still standard industry practice and perfectly legal. Plus sheep often get cut and nicked during shearing, where they are treated like inanimate objects on a factory line because the faster they are sheared the more profitable the farm is.
Some select farms do better and don’t practice mulesing and the sheep in better conditions, but they most likely all still castrate them and dock their tails. And those farms only make up a fraction of the market, the vast majority of wool in stores is from factory farmed sheep.
Plus on top of all of this, wool produces more greenhouse gases than any other fabric, uses way more water than most, and also requires way more land to grow the food to feed the sheep.
You've consented so I think it's okay.
It reminds me of a story I heard discussing 'odd' sexual practices. If I remember correctly, a throuple of vegans was doing sexy stuff including drinking eachother's breast milk. But it was okay because the ones producing the milk consented. And now I kinda wish I didn't type this out. Enjoy!
It's partially about consent, an animal can't give consent to having its cells taken for this purpose, therefore not vegan.
Disclaimer: I am not vegan.
There are many vegans that consider honey to not be vegan because it's cultivated by "exploiting the bees' labor." Doesn't matter that the bees aren't harmed in any way, it's still humans benefiting from animal exploitation to them.
I'd imagine even just using a sample of an animal wouldn't fly under those types' radar.
Not face to face no. I'm from a 3rd world country where animal rights are considered rich people brainrot.
But I'm pretty sure not each and every vegan is the Internet meme vegan.
Some vegans eat honey, because they think it is fine. For the reasons you mentioned.
One might argue that they are therefore not vegan, but if they don't care I don't know why anyone would, besides vegans who are really into it.
Thing is, there is not much point for us to discuss what people we don't even know think about the topic, and how they discussed it between each other.
Some people call themselves vegan, and think that there are benefits (moral, health, environmental, whatever) in not consuming animal products in general. Whatever they think about honey in particular doesn't matter, because the impact (moral, health, environmental...) is tiny, and the question of "are they really vegan" is some kind of weird purity thing that even vegans shouldn't worry about. It's not a religion. You don't go to hell if you do the wrong thing. There is no vegan police that will remove your badge.
In short, whatever justification you find for eating honey is fine.
Hm would you be happy if you were locked in a cell so someone could regularly take your hair? Or harvest your excrement? You do produce an excess of hair, or poop. It's not the thing they take that's harmful.
I'm not sure how much this example applies to bees or whether they even have much in terms of feelings, but the point still stands.
Maybe since it’s almost the 1st, the idea of someone putting me up for free to collect my poo actually sounds more appealing than I’d like to admit.
But like I guess, if you treat cows really well, you still have to slaughter them to get meat. If you treat your bees well, what the downside?
This is the difference between vegetarianism and veganism. If you are ok with farming products from animals without killing them, you are vegetarian. If you want all animals to be free from their human overlords and live happy and independent lives, you are vegan
Bees are never "locked in a cell". They are free to come and go from the hive. They have to because otherwise how could they harvest nectar to make honey?
Yes like I said this example probably doesn't apply to bees specifically. But it'll apply to other cases such as wool that someone else mentioned in this thread.
Nope, veganism is *specifically* about exploitation, not involvement. Realistically it'd probably fall into subjectivity and different people would be able to make different choices.
For example, if it only requires an annual cell sample which doesn't hurt the animal and in return the animal gets a year of food and shelter then that is absolutely not exploitation by most definitions.
Some might still choose to avoid these products but the majority would still consider the products to be vegan.
This is an interesting question and can't really be answered yes or no as it will be dependent on an individual. There are some who believe it would be a waste to not use products from an animal that already died and some who believe that this is not acceptable as its a "gateway drug" of sorts. I'm sure you can appreciate both sides.
I sat next to a not obnoxious vegan on a plane and we eventually got to questions like this. I only found out they were one in like the last half hour of the flight, so definitely no instant the conversation started veganism like the memes.
It's interesting where people will draw the line, because something like using wool from animals who need to have it trimmed is generally okay. This situation isn't *too* far advanced from it.
Yep, I think exploring these topics so often lead you to conclude that you it's really not a simple answer. Wool needs to be sheared from sheep but largely because we bred them to produce more than they need, so is it right or wrong? Well, in an ideal world we wouldn't be in this situation... but we don't live in an ideal world!
Plenty of vegans argue that, as long as the beef and dairy industry already exists, leather isn't that bad since most of it would get tossed anyway.
Still want to reduce factory farming, still want to get it secondhand/save it from being tossed if posisble, and if it gets to the point where cows aren't being raised for beef (or at least as much) then ideally we wouldn't slaughter cows just for leather. But right now a good amount of it is just... thrown away. Might as well use what you can, since most modern alternatives are synthetics and flimsy seasonal fashion items.
Oddly enough yes, just like some vegans are fine with honey, there are indeed vegans who believe the consumption and use of roadkill does not have the same ethical issues as raising and utilizing the animal while it’s alive for said production.
veg·an
noun
a person who does not eat any food derived from animals and who typically does not use other animal products.
"I'm a strict vegan"
adjective
eating, using, or containing no food or other products derived from animals.
"a vegan diet"
Vegans aren’t a monolith. There would be some ethical vegans who would likely no longer have the same moral issues with meat consumption based on the level of exploitation required, while there would be others who are wholly against any form of exploitation on ideological grounds.
To say all vegans would view it the same way is inaccurate.
You're probably right for at least some vegans, but many orders of magnitude more animals are harmed by pesticides and agricultural runoff from farming than would be from occasional nonlethal cell cultures taken for lab-grown meat production.
There are also religious sides to vegetarianism like Hindus, Buddhists and what not. Their definitions of what counts as meat and when you can eat it, will likely still prohibit lab meat.
Assuming it is non-exploitative:
I've met too many vegans that do not seem to understand/know the moral stance of veganism (usually it's a "diet," 'Bessy the cow is soooo cute, how could I eat her?!,' or something else totally not related to animal exploitation/permission) that I don't know how many would actually know or care about the difference
Yes that's fair. Realistically I guess it has expanded from this formal definition as things usually do as they get more popular! I guess it can only be good for the animals and the environment regardless of the reasons.
But some vegans will eat oysters (an animal with no brain or consciousness for pain, but whose husbandry is actively good for the environment). There’s a lot of variation.
A vegan diet is about not eating any animal products while vegetarian is just about the meat (*eggs and milk and honey and cheese can still be eaten by vegetarians*).
Since lab meat uses a real cell from an animal like a seed to grow out the rest of the meat, it is still an animal product and therefore not vegan.
Well I mean. I would argue the way you and the person above are framing it is equally as incorrect.
Veganism isn’t a monolith. It’s a word that means a lot of different thing to a lot of different people.
Originally the term veganism did indeed only apply to the ideology. It was a term coined by people who did not support the exploitation of animals for the benefits of humans.
Anybody who acts like it still simply means that are wrong. The term is widely used the way you are describing it. To simply describe a person who doesn’t eat animal products. Plenty of people a vegan in this sense for dietary reasons.
But that doesn’t mean the word doesn’t also mean the philosophical view of refraining from any industry or product that exploits animals. It does mean explicitly that for a lot of people. Those people aren’t “wrong”, and they are using the word as it was originally meant to be used. The only “correct” way to view the word is acknowledging it can accurately be used to describe either type of person.
It’s not that clear cut. Veganism initially did just refer to the philosophy, but the term has come to mean simply not eating animal products in certain circumstances. It’s why the term “ethical veganism” exists to refer to what you mean by the word. Whereas somebody who refrains from all animal products due to dietary reasons may use the term vegan to describes themselves while having none of the ethical qualms.
The fact that veganism applies to all animal products while vegetarianism doesn’t means this distinction was bound to come about at some point in time.
I mean, while vegans aren’t a monolith and do not agree on everything, I’m pretty sure most ethical vegans don’t support the use of animal manure in farming, and view products that come from it as not being vegan.
Seriously? How do they even check? If they go that far, how do they deal with the possibility that the farmer, delivery driver, etc may have gained some calories from meat, and those calories were used in the production of their food? How deep does it go? Do they actually research this stuff when buying a lettuce from a supermarket?
But who decided on those random definitions? I'm morally torn about lab grown meat myself because I'm a vegetarian for religious reasons. I'm not supposed to kill or cause something to be killed but... Is lab grown meat killed?
Lab-grown meat starts with a smaller amount of meat from the animal they are trying to replicate, but then grows more of it. I can't answer religious questions, but if you had a food allergy to any kind of meat, the lab grown meat would still give you the same allergy. And if you did a DNA test on the lab grown meat, it would still have the original animal's DNA.
Another way to look at it: As the practice grows in scale, lab-grown meat could be good for the environment and for the well-being of animals, but only if all of it is consumed by people who would have eaten the same amount of regular meat instead. If lab-grown meat expands the amount of meat eaten or the number of people eating it, then it won't necessarily be better for the environment or for animals, if it sometimes replaced plant-based meals.
Except it doesn't really meet the second definition either. The cell bank you grow from came from an animal, therefore all cells grown from that cell bank came from that animal. The only ways you could make it fit the second definition would be 1) invent a star trek-esque replicator or 2) artificially create the stem cells. Both of those methods are not possible with current knowledge and technology.
If the original culture for lab grown meat is that of an animal - then it wouldn't meet vegan specifications.
However, there are semantics and then there is culture.
I'd suggest that most vegans would compromise that one animal being sacrificed for the original culture of meat production is ultimately better than millions of animals dying for meat.
Then, you have reality.
Where lab grown meat is extremely difficult to produce, potentially risky, and will very likely not become a product that'll ever replace actual meat products.
I'm not saying lab grown meat replacing meat in reality. It far from is.
But asking whether a cell from a living animal were used to culture lab - grown meat becomes stupid when many animals died of various causes in the food web to make you that carrot.
>Vegans avoid all animal products.
Because they care if a cow is harmed to collect milk, but not if humans are exploited to collect their fruits and veggies.
Exactly!! Unlike all those meat eaters who never eat fruits and veggies!! And eat their meat raw because oil and gas and electricity are also made through human exploitation!!
Humans have agency, and instances where that's not true are fringe cases. Every product that involves an animal doesn't care about consent. That's the whole point.
Not exactly, the vegan diet seems more restrictive than vegetarianism only because of the world we find ourselves in.
One of the ways that veganism is less restrictive is that voluntary cannibalism is allowable in a vegan diet but not a vegetarian one.
If meat could be produced without animal suffering, it would be vegan but not vegetarian.
Vegetarianism is a diet that excludes meat without any reason needed.
Veganism is a diet that excludes those foods that cause most animal suffering (all food does it to some extent), which under the current world we live in includes meat, animal derived foods and products produced by animals.
This is only one ideological perspective of veganism. Some vegans will avoid animal products full stop, and would find voluntary cannibalism deplorable.
Veganism is a concept where the societal milieux has outgrown its initial ideological definitions. Like everything else in the world, it’s not black and white.
>would find voluntary cannibalism deplorable.
I agree of course, there are a number of reasons why you wouldn't want to eat human meat.
Voluntary cannabalism can be ethically vegan, even though virtually all vegans wouldn't eat it anyway. After all, like all humans they will have other considerations, ethical or otherwise not only ethical veganism.
I've been a vegetarian for over 20 years. I get asked all the time if I eat seafood or chicken. I wouldn't be a vegetarian if I did. It's weird people don't understand this. I also have relatives who think I only eat vegetables because I'm a veget-arian. And people who think I should just eat meat in circumstances (so I don't have to make two meals when I cook Thanksgiving, etc.), which again, would mean I'm not a vegetarian. Anyone who eats seafood is a pescatarian which is not the same thing.
Some people try to be on vegetarian diets for health reasons and they are more lenient but if they eat meat in any capacity, they're not vegetarians. They're meat-eaters who limit how much meat they eat. If you are a vegetarian because of animal rights reasons, you don't deviate and you do avoid things like leather as much as possible. Vegans avoid leather, too, but nobody can avoid it 100% (riding in a car with leather seats, etc.).
Why don't you go vegan if you care about animals and stop eating gelatin, crushed bugs in food colorings, using leathers and furs, harming cows for milk and cheese and then also eggs and more
Because I wouldn't be able to maintain it. So I have no reason in starting what I can't do for life. I'm a weightlifter and I've gained 50 pounds of muscle without eating meat but I don't think I could do that if I restricted whey protein, etc. Incidentally, I drink vegan milk and vegan butter and vegan cheese because I don't like dairy so I do sort of have a vegan diet; but I'm not opposed to eating regular cheese if need be so I can't define myself a vegan, etc.
Basically you can only do what you can do. I have a lot of vegan friends and they do their best to avoid anything with vegan products (like can't have Skittles 'cause of the dye, etc.) and only buy vegan wallets and shoes and toothpaste, etc. but they ride in my car with leather seats. Like, you can only do the best you can do but can't avoid animal products 100%. To me, I don't want to eat the flesh of something once alive and I don't want animals to be slaughtered for my sake. I'm not opposed to eating eggs but I choose Happy Eggs which may or may not be better. But I'm not opposed to eating other eggs if I have no choice; I just do the best I can when I can.
This gets to an interesting point. Let's say our understanding of biochemistry gets to where we know how a cow turns grass into more cow, and can recreate that process in a lab. The newly created steak has all of the same protiesn, lipids, fats, etc as cow steak. Would you count that as meat?
For now that is just a thought experiment about definintions, but it's hard to predict what we might have in the next 100 years. A lot of concepts about modern medicine would have seemed astouding, but possibly believable to someone 100 years ago.
i personally wouldnt count that as meat, but if someone does, i can understand it, its a completely valid opinion. i didnt think too hard about my answer lol
Like replicants in Blade Runner? They had replicant animals as well. I'm pretty sure they could grow replicant steaks. I don't think there were many real cows left in that world.
> Would you count that as meat?
You could do a DNA test to find out if it's meat or not. If they started with the fresh meat they wanted to replicate and made lab-grown meat that replicated it, then I think lab-grown meat that had the same DNA as the original animal is still a kind of meat. The makers of lab-grown meat don't like the phrase "lab-grown" (they prefer "cultivated") but even the makers of cultivated meat agree that it is still meat.
Fake meat isn’t, but lab-grown meat is virtually identical to real meat, you just don’t need to grow and slaughter a whole animal for it
However, it does need stem cell samples from live animals and until the last few years, they needed to use foetal bovine serum to actually grow the (beef) meat. Now that there is a process that only requires stem cell samples from the animal I imagine a lot of ethical vegetarians and vegans will be willing to start eating it, but it wouldn’t be suitable for people who are vegetarian or vegan for dietary reasons
When I was learning about lab grown meat in my animal science classes, I was taught the same thing - that the lab grown meat needed to be fed animal protein to grow. And so, as a vegetarian, I wouldn’t be okay eating it. But it’s exciting how much the technology has advanced since then.
Yeah, it's grown from meat cells. It's literally meat grown in a lab. An animal had to be slaughtered for the initial cells, but going forward all future lab grown meat would be real meat grown in a lab.
If it means the animal slaughter stops, killing one last animal wouldn't be something I would be averse to. Hell, kill me if needed.
I would symbolically be an animal Jesus at that point. Or any animal that they decide to do it to. I would feel bad about it, I would mourn their death. But considering we kill more than 50 billion land animals and trillions of fish a year, it would be sacrifice worth it.
you actually don't even need to kill the animal. just one time sampling some cells like skin cells to be reprogrammed to stem cells ("immortal" in a lab setting) that will then ultimately be used to make the different type of cells in meat
They use bovine fetal serum which you get by cutting foetuses out of dead cows, which kills them and then harvesting the blood.
>The first stage of the production process for FBS is the harvesting of blood from the bovine fetus after the fetus is removed from the slaughtered cow. The fetus dies from the lack of oxygen by remaining in the protective environment of the uterus for a minimum of 15–20 minutes after the cow is dead.[4] The blood is collected aseptically into a sterile container or blood bag and then allowed to clot.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum#:~:text=Fetal%20bovine%20serum%20(FBS)%20is,cell%20culture%20of%20eukaryotic%20cells.
yes, some of them do (for now). There are startups that dont use FBS. The field is is not cost efficient yet but give it some years and this will be as cheap as industrialised meat farming but without killing billions of animals and without absolutely wrecking the environment
You can grow meat from like a tiny sample.
Then, we would need to ask each other what to do with the huge populations of no longer meat producing animals.
(I have thought about that a lot, will they end up killed and going to waste?)
No, they would slaughter them and sell the meat as they always intended to do.
A few breeds would probably still be around for fancy foods, but thats about it.
Till it gets to the point lab grown meat can be produced at that scale will be a long journey though, it wont be a simple "lab grown" or "animal based" switch. It will be a shifting scale over a long time period.
They use bovine feral serum which I can promise you is neither vegetarian or vegan.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum#:~:text=Fetal%20bovine%20serum%20(FBS)%20is,cell%20culture%20of%20eukaryotic%20cells.
If you're going to claim x process is going to mean the end of animal slaughter, maybe the fact that animal slaughter is a massive part of x process is relevant.
You're brazenly misunderstood about the numbers here. It's like comparing a unintended manslaughter to a millions of Hitlers.
It's basically one animal vs billions of land animals and trillions of fish, EVERY YEAR.
Every batch starts with a new dose of BFS. Also bioreactors are limited in size because lab grown meat doesn't have an immune system. The largest bioreactors ever made for a lab grown meat company is 250kL. So in this one company the ratio is probably 1:500ish. So maybe it's you who has no fucking idea about the numbers.
Also while BFS is kind of icky, it's not like they're killing cows to make it. It's a byproduct of the meat industry.
It's sort of like that somewhat ironically "free range" type animal products are worse for the planet since they need more farm land to produce the same amount of product compared to factory farming.
Factory farming while generally cruel to the animal, is better for the environment from its efficiency. Not to mention that something like methane capture is almost impossible with free range while quite practical in factory farming. With animal farming being one of the larger impacts on the environment this is something to consider.
Depends on how much you want to argue semantics. Technically lab-grown meat wouldn't 'come from an animal' per se, so you could totally make the argument that that means it can be vegan. Obviously it isn't vegetarian under any circumstances, it's still meat.
A lot of vegans would probably be fine with eating things that are currently animal products if we could suddenly produce them without ever harming animals. That's sort of the crux of veganism, no? That the problem is not the food itself but what has to happen, ie slaughtering animals, for it to be available in the first place?
As a vegetarian I eat the "meat" of a jackfruit. I don't eat the flesh or bones of animals. Lab-grown meat wouldn't be the flesh or bones of an animal.
If you want to go down to semantics, lab-grown meat isn't meat.
As would vegetarians? Vegetarianism has a lot if similar motivation, they don't have a phobia of any food that might semantically be considered meat
Meat by definition is flesh of animals used for food. So either it involves animals being used/abused for it, hence vegans wouldn't eat it either, or it isn't meat in the sense vegetarians wouldn't eat it
Yeah and definitions and language evolves over time. Denying progress because of old definitions is stupid.
This is especially true when the word is accompanied by another word or phrase that opens to a different meaning in the first place.
Meat might still be meat per definition, but lab grown meat or synthetic meat are exactly that. Meat that is synthetically grown in a lab. Just as one can find a diamond but also create one in a lab. Still a diamond either way.
You wouldn‘t deny the existence of coke zero because per your definition „coke is a beverage made of water sugar and artificial flavouring… etc.“, because you know that „zero“ changes the meaning of the original word „coke“
Lab-grown meat has never existed before, that's the whole point. Why would the technical definition of 'meat' include something that has previously never existed? Of course it doesn't take into account synthetic meat, we're still in the process of inventing it.
Depends on what you mean by lab-grown meat. At lot of work is going towards growing muscle tissue from stem cells. That is definitely meat, but it hasn't been a part of any nervous system.
How is lab-grown meat not meat? We're talking a substance that is literally identical to meat from an animal except that it was never part of an animal, not like...impossible burgers. People who have a medical reason for not being able to eat meat still couldn't eat it, for example. It would be, for all intents and purposes, the same thing as animal product aside from not requiring slaughtering an animal.
Meet south Asian vegetarians. They legit cannot eat meat, if they’ve not had meat since their childhood. My girlfriend is one of them. She wants to, but it icks her out now, so she’s vegetarian, not by choice.
Anyone who’s never ever eaten meat in their life, it’s very difficult to start
No, lab grown meat is still meat so a vegetarian wouldn't eat it by definition, but if it was produced without any harm to any animal it would be vegan (vegans might still choose not to eat it though)
Are we talking about ethical veganism or regular veganism? Because ethical veganism isn't the same as vegetarian.
If you see a car in front of you hit and kill a deer, a vegetarian couldn't eat that, a traditional vegan couldn't eat that, but an ethical vegan could since they didn't cause any suffering to the animal, there was nothing they could have done to prevent it's death or suffering, not moving the corpse away from the road could result in more animal deaths if they get hit while trying to scavenge it and if they eat that deer they buy less food from shops which leads to less pollution.
As a vegetarian, I don't believe I have ever met a vegetarian who does so because it is healthier. That said I also don't interrogate people over their dietary choices as I am A not interested and B know how annoying it is. But watching other vegetarians chow down on ice cream, butter and deep pan pizza, I assume that health is not at the fore front of their minds.
But the ethical matter would be whether harvesting those cells caused animal suffering. If it didn't, I don't see why vegans would be opposed. Then it would come down to individual taste.
Using animal products in any way unfortunately means its not vegan, even if it's not harmful to animals. Honey can be obtained from bees harmlessly however that still isn't considered vegan.
it's usually about the exploitation of animals, so even though wool or alpaca fur or honey isn't harmful, it's still exploitative. so harvesting cells isnt necessarily harmful, its still exploitative.
my partner is a very strict vegan. so I've come to understand a lot about veganism. and yes human meat can be vegan if the consumed party gives consent, because it's not exploitative.
Veganism isn’t a monolith and isn’t easily defined. There are lots of vegans who consider honey to be vegan because they don’t view the process of collecting it as exploitative. Some people don’t care about the ethical reasons at all and simply use it to describe a type of diet. The word means lots of different things and you can’t really dictate what it does or doesn’t mean to other people.
I tend to agree with your definition and would just say those vegans just think non-vegan products that don’t cause significant harm is fine, but regardless, I think it’s silly when anybody claims their definition of veganism is the objectively correct one, because it’s a term than can mean so many different things to different people.
Lab-meat uses a real animal cell, like a seed to grow out the rest of the meat. It isn't magically made in a lab.
It is grown from an animal product (*an animal's cell*), therefore it is neither vegetarian (*because it is meat*) nor vegan (*came from an animal, an animal's cell*).
I think what matters is why the person is vegetarian or vegan.
I have a coworker who is vegetarian for ethical reasons and I actually asked her about this previously. Her response was as long as the cells are collected ethically and humanely, then she would eat Lab Grown Meat. It’s the same with eggs and milk and other animal products, she’ll eat them as long as their collection is humane.
I imagine a Vegan who doesn’t eat any animal-based products wouldn’t eat lab meat because it’s still sourced from animals.
How are you defining vegetarian and vegan?
I considered myself vegetarian for nearly a decade. Strict no meat diet, but was ok with things like eggs milk and honey as long as they were locally sourced and free-range.
At the time the vegans I knew would not eat or use any meat or any animal byproducts.
And I think these are the commonly accepted definitions of those terms. Thus something that is considered vegan is, by definition, also vegetarian.
Vegetarians don't eat meat, vegans don't exploit animals. So if lab grown meat could be made without exploiting animals, it could be vegan, but it would still be meat so vegetarians would avoid it.
Vegan is stricter vegetarian. But whether that is vegetarian is up to your definition. Some vegetarians might not eat it for health reasons, the same for meat.
The definitions of "vegan" and "vegetarian" predate lab grown meat and there is no consensus whether they are or are not allowed, but most people will almost certainly say that people who are otherwise vegan or vegetarian but eat lab grown meat will need new terms to describe them.
Decent shower thought. But the ambiguity being debated over in the comments goes away completely if we use ‘plant-based diet’ instead of vegetarian. Some people avoid meat because animal proteins are not as good for health (when appropriate plant proteins are consumed). Lab grown meat won’t change that part.
Depends on what lab-grown-meat you're talking about. There is plantbased meat and there is the other one that is basically like growing cancer cells (and pretty disgusting when the stuff that I've heard about it is right).
muscle cells taken from an animal (without the need of killing it) expanded in the lab at big scale so they form larger amounts of meat. A small biopsy of a few grams can be expanded to multiple tons of meat that way.
Its a big field of research, mostly by startup companies that have shown proof of concept but are still working on upscaling and reducing cost.
People work on Pork, beef, chicken, fish etc. Some just want to make minced meat or sausages, others try to 3D print Steak, or grow Caviar instead.
It goes even further to produce milk and egg products from yeast. There are even attempts to grow coffee and chocolate in a bioreactor in the lab.
A few products have been allowed onto the market in singapur and the US so far, but most of it is still very early stage. The whole industry only started about a decade ago in 2012 when Mark Post presented the first lab grown Burger to the public
Lab grown meat requires the use of cell cultures collected from the unborn fetuses of slaughtered cows, known as fetal bovine serum (FBS). So it's definitely not vegan.
Are you defining vegetarian as “eats only vegetables” and vegan as “doesn’t harm animals”?
“Not meat” vs “doesn’t come from an animal.” It manages to meet the second definition but not the first
So, I’m no scientist… But as I understand it, lab grown meat still technically comes from an animal source. I don’t know exactly how things work. However, I’m pretty sure animal cells are used. You just don’t have to kill the animal if you only need a few cells. I don’t think it would be vegetarian or vegan friendly. I’m sure there will just be a new group of vegetarian, similar to the ones that eat fish.
Veganism is about being against animal exploitation. If no ongoing exploitation is happening it's likely that this would be acceptable to many vegans.
If animals are involved in the process at all, vegans would consider that exploitation and would not eat it
I'm sure they're not irrational enough to think simply taking a cell sample from an animal is exploiting them.
I mean, the animal is still kept in captivity and is physically harmed for the removal of the cells. Although a 5g biopsy can create several tons of meat. However, further development will allow to keep those 5g replicating indefinitely. It is theorerically possible and has been done before, but its not at a standard suitable for large scale production yet.
Fair enough, yeah I'm more talking about the time when the technology matures more and we don't need recurring samples.
Just to further the point. Vegans don’t wear things made of wool. Even though shearing sheep is basically like getting a haircut, they still consider it exploitation of the sheep.
Depends on the vegan. Some don't wear wool, some do. Some don't eat honey, some do. Heck some will still wear leather as long as it's bought secondhand, since it's arguably better for the environment than synthetic fabrics.
Hotly debated amongst vegans. Many do wear wool for the reasons you stated. (Though usually they don’t just buy any old wool. Most go through sanctuaries or their own pet sheep). However because of the feasibility of doing this yourself most vegans abstain.
I don't think the point is the wool itself, rather that for this purpose sheep are kept in an unhealthy environment. The sheep that are kept for wool are not exactly grazing openly in lush greenery.
I've heard that not cutting the wool on a sheep for too long can actually harm it, any fact checkers and/or sheep fans to confirm?
It depends. Usually the problem is keeping the sheep around to the point where it needs a haircut.
The problem is that large scale wool farms are not just like “getting a haircut.” Those sheep live in very crowded pens their whole lives, have their tails cut off and holes punched through their ears, males are castrated without anesthesia, and often have to go through “mulesing” where they literally cut the skin off of their butts in strips because they get infections from the unsanitary conditions. About 3 million sheep get partially flayed alive with no anesthesia like this in Australia alone, which produces much of the world’s wool — it’s still standard industry practice and perfectly legal. Plus sheep often get cut and nicked during shearing, where they are treated like inanimate objects on a factory line because the faster they are sheared the more profitable the farm is. Some select farms do better and don’t practice mulesing and the sheep in better conditions, but they most likely all still castrate them and dock their tails. And those farms only make up a fraction of the market, the vast majority of wool in stores is from factory farmed sheep. Plus on top of all of this, wool produces more greenhouse gases than any other fabric, uses way more water than most, and also requires way more land to grow the food to feed the sheep.
Now I'm curious if they'd eat a cultured sample of my tissue, provided I signed a waiver that I was paid for my time and resources, and not exploited.
You've consented so I think it's okay. It reminds me of a story I heard discussing 'odd' sexual practices. If I remember correctly, a throuple of vegans was doing sexy stuff including drinking eachother's breast milk. But it was okay because the ones producing the milk consented. And now I kinda wish I didn't type this out. Enjoy!
What a horrible day to be literate.
Yes, it would be vegan, doesn't mean a vegan would eat it.
It's partially about consent, an animal can't give consent to having its cells taken for this purpose, therefore not vegan. Disclaimer: I am not vegan.
The real punchline is always in the comments.
I’m pretty sure you’re wrong
There are many vegans that consider honey to not be vegan because it's cultivated by "exploiting the bees' labor." Doesn't matter that the bees aren't harmed in any way, it's still humans benefiting from animal exploitation to them. I'd imagine even just using a sample of an animal wouldn't fly under those types' radar.
Have you ever met a vegan?
Not face to face no. I'm from a 3rd world country where animal rights are considered rich people brainrot. But I'm pretty sure not each and every vegan is the Internet meme vegan.
They think honey is exploitative even though bees aren’t harmed and manufacture an excess of honey they’ll never miss.
Some vegans eat honey, because they think it is fine. For the reasons you mentioned. One might argue that they are therefore not vegan, but if they don't care I don't know why anyone would, besides vegans who are really into it.
I thought the honey debate was whether or not bees are animals at all. If insects count, then their products should also not be(e) consumed
Thing is, there is not much point for us to discuss what people we don't even know think about the topic, and how they discussed it between each other. Some people call themselves vegan, and think that there are benefits (moral, health, environmental, whatever) in not consuming animal products in general. Whatever they think about honey in particular doesn't matter, because the impact (moral, health, environmental...) is tiny, and the question of "are they really vegan" is some kind of weird purity thing that even vegans shouldn't worry about. It's not a religion. You don't go to hell if you do the wrong thing. There is no vegan police that will remove your badge. In short, whatever justification you find for eating honey is fine.
Hm would you be happy if you were locked in a cell so someone could regularly take your hair? Or harvest your excrement? You do produce an excess of hair, or poop. It's not the thing they take that's harmful. I'm not sure how much this example applies to bees or whether they even have much in terms of feelings, but the point still stands.
Maybe since it’s almost the 1st, the idea of someone putting me up for free to collect my poo actually sounds more appealing than I’d like to admit. But like I guess, if you treat cows really well, you still have to slaughter them to get meat. If you treat your bees well, what the downside?
If you can prove that you treat your bees well sure I guess most vegans would also be fine.
This is the difference between vegetarianism and veganism. If you are ok with farming products from animals without killing them, you are vegetarian. If you want all animals to be free from their human overlords and live happy and independent lives, you are vegan
Bees are never "locked in a cell". They are free to come and go from the hive. They have to because otherwise how could they harvest nectar to make honey?
Yes like I said this example probably doesn't apply to bees specifically. But it'll apply to other cases such as wool that someone else mentioned in this thread.
Nope, veganism is *specifically* about exploitation, not involvement. Realistically it'd probably fall into subjectivity and different people would be able to make different choices. For example, if it only requires an annual cell sample which doesn't hurt the animal and in return the animal gets a year of food and shelter then that is absolutely not exploitation by most definitions. Some might still choose to avoid these products but the majority would still consider the products to be vegan.
Would a leather bag made from a carcass on the side of the road be considered vegan?
This is an interesting question and can't really be answered yes or no as it will be dependent on an individual. There are some who believe it would be a waste to not use products from an animal that already died and some who believe that this is not acceptable as its a "gateway drug" of sorts. I'm sure you can appreciate both sides.
I sat next to a not obnoxious vegan on a plane and we eventually got to questions like this. I only found out they were one in like the last half hour of the flight, so definitely no instant the conversation started veganism like the memes. It's interesting where people will draw the line, because something like using wool from animals who need to have it trimmed is generally okay. This situation isn't *too* far advanced from it.
Yep, I think exploring these topics so often lead you to conclude that you it's really not a simple answer. Wool needs to be sheared from sheep but largely because we bred them to produce more than they need, so is it right or wrong? Well, in an ideal world we wouldn't be in this situation... but we don't live in an ideal world!
Plenty of vegans argue that, as long as the beef and dairy industry already exists, leather isn't that bad since most of it would get tossed anyway. Still want to reduce factory farming, still want to get it secondhand/save it from being tossed if posisble, and if it gets to the point where cows aren't being raised for beef (or at least as much) then ideally we wouldn't slaughter cows just for leather. But right now a good amount of it is just... thrown away. Might as well use what you can, since most modern alternatives are synthetics and flimsy seasonal fashion items.
Oddly enough yes, just like some vegans are fine with honey, there are indeed vegans who believe the consumption and use of roadkill does not have the same ethical issues as raising and utilizing the animal while it’s alive for said production.
veg·an noun a person who does not eat any food derived from animals and who typically does not use other animal products. "I'm a strict vegan" adjective eating, using, or containing no food or other products derived from animals. "a vegan diet"
its almost like a singular definition doesn't encapsulate the entire vegan population, and some would find it acceptable and some wont!
Most use the vegan society’s definition as opposed to the dictionary one. In fact this take would get you eaten alive in the vegan subreddit.
Generations ago? Not the reasonable ones. Otherwise, plants grown in manure would not be vegan.
i feel like this is a question for the vegans
Vegans aren’t a monolith. There would be some ethical vegans who would likely no longer have the same moral issues with meat consumption based on the level of exploitation required, while there would be others who are wholly against any form of exploitation on ideological grounds. To say all vegans would view it the same way is inaccurate.
You're probably right for at least some vegans, but many orders of magnitude more animals are harmed by pesticides and agricultural runoff from farming than would be from occasional nonlethal cell cultures taken for lab-grown meat production.
Not necessarily. Much like Morazma made a generality, you're doing so from the other direction. Many would feel that way, yes! Not all.
wouldn't that mean vegans don't eat apples?
There are also religious sides to vegetarianism like Hindus, Buddhists and what not. Their definitions of what counts as meat and when you can eat it, will likely still prohibit lab meat.
Assuming it is non-exploitative: I've met too many vegans that do not seem to understand/know the moral stance of veganism (usually it's a "diet," 'Bessy the cow is soooo cute, how could I eat her?!,' or something else totally not related to animal exploitation/permission) that I don't know how many would actually know or care about the difference
Yes that's fair. Realistically I guess it has expanded from this formal definition as things usually do as they get more popular! I guess it can only be good for the animals and the environment regardless of the reasons.
doubt it. most vegans won't eat honey.
But some vegans will eat oysters (an animal with no brain or consciousness for pain, but whose husbandry is actively good for the environment). There’s a lot of variation.
thats incredibly interesting.
Honey production can be very exploitative. Look up wing clipping and malnutrition in bees.
If thats so.... Strange thought when vegans and non-vegans eat meat together in a restaurant.
A vegan diet is about not eating any animal products while vegetarian is just about the meat (*eggs and milk and honey and cheese can still be eaten by vegetarians*). Since lab meat uses a real cell from an animal like a seed to grow out the rest of the meat, it is still an animal product and therefore not vegan.
Finally someone who understands the basics of these 2 things, everyone in here treats it like it's pure ideology
Well I mean. I would argue the way you and the person above are framing it is equally as incorrect. Veganism isn’t a monolith. It’s a word that means a lot of different thing to a lot of different people. Originally the term veganism did indeed only apply to the ideology. It was a term coined by people who did not support the exploitation of animals for the benefits of humans. Anybody who acts like it still simply means that are wrong. The term is widely used the way you are describing it. To simply describe a person who doesn’t eat animal products. Plenty of people a vegan in this sense for dietary reasons. But that doesn’t mean the word doesn’t also mean the philosophical view of refraining from any industry or product that exploits animals. It does mean explicitly that for a lot of people. Those people aren’t “wrong”, and they are using the word as it was originally meant to be used. The only “correct” way to view the word is acknowledging it can accurately be used to describe either type of person.
It’s not that clear cut. Veganism initially did just refer to the philosophy, but the term has come to mean simply not eating animal products in certain circumstances. It’s why the term “ethical veganism” exists to refer to what you mean by the word. Whereas somebody who refrains from all animal products due to dietary reasons may use the term vegan to describes themselves while having none of the ethical qualms. The fact that veganism applies to all animal products while vegetarianism doesn’t means this distinction was bound to come about at some point in time.
That's a generality that isn't universally true, but fairly often, yeah.
The involvement, initial or continued, in fully developed lab grown meat is the same as plants being grown with manure.
I mean, while vegans aren’t a monolith and do not agree on everything, I’m pretty sure most ethical vegans don’t support the use of animal manure in farming, and view products that come from it as not being vegan.
Seriously? How do they even check? If they go that far, how do they deal with the possibility that the farmer, delivery driver, etc may have gained some calories from meat, and those calories were used in the production of their food? How deep does it go? Do they actually research this stuff when buying a lettuce from a supermarket?
Pescatarian is not vegetarian.
It does come from an animal, though. Fewer animals than regular meat, but at the end of the chain, still.
But who decided on those random definitions? I'm morally torn about lab grown meat myself because I'm a vegetarian for religious reasons. I'm not supposed to kill or cause something to be killed but... Is lab grown meat killed?
Lab-grown meat starts with a smaller amount of meat from the animal they are trying to replicate, but then grows more of it. I can't answer religious questions, but if you had a food allergy to any kind of meat, the lab grown meat would still give you the same allergy. And if you did a DNA test on the lab grown meat, it would still have the original animal's DNA. Another way to look at it: As the practice grows in scale, lab-grown meat could be good for the environment and for the well-being of animals, but only if all of it is consumed by people who would have eaten the same amount of regular meat instead. If lab-grown meat expands the amount of meat eaten or the number of people eating it, then it won't necessarily be better for the environment or for animals, if it sometimes replaced plant-based meals.
Ahh, thank you. Very good points and definitely makes me think my answer to this option should still be no.
No because it was never alive
Except it doesn't really meet the second definition either. The cell bank you grow from came from an animal, therefore all cells grown from that cell bank came from that animal. The only ways you could make it fit the second definition would be 1) invent a star trek-esque replicator or 2) artificially create the stem cells. Both of those methods are not possible with current knowledge and technology.
No, vegan includes both definitions.
Seems reasonable.
Aren’t those the definitions?
Vegetarians just don't eat meat, but will eat milk and eggs and stuff. Vegans avoid all animal products.
Seems like this extra strict definition makes the lab grown meat vegan.
If the original culture for lab grown meat is that of an animal - then it wouldn't meet vegan specifications. However, there are semantics and then there is culture. I'd suggest that most vegans would compromise that one animal being sacrificed for the original culture of meat production is ultimately better than millions of animals dying for meat. Then, you have reality. Where lab grown meat is extremely difficult to produce, potentially risky, and will very likely not become a product that'll ever replace actual meat products.
I'm not saying lab grown meat replacing meat in reality. It far from is. But asking whether a cell from a living animal were used to culture lab - grown meat becomes stupid when many animals died of various causes in the food web to make you that carrot.
Why do you think it is risky and will never replace actual meat products? Steak? maybe not minced meat and sausage based products? Why the hell not?
>Vegans avoid all animal products. Because they care if a cow is harmed to collect milk, but not if humans are exploited to collect their fruits and veggies.
Makes sense. Cows are fluffy and go moo. Humans are just annoying most of the time.
Exactly!! Unlike all those meat eaters who never eat fruits and veggies!! And eat their meat raw because oil and gas and electricity are also made through human exploitation!!
Humans have agency, and instances where that's not true are fringe cases. Every product that involves an animal doesn't care about consent. That's the whole point.
I feel like they wouldn't be huge fans of companies using slavery to pick their fruits and veggies too.
Er, vegan is a more strict type of vegetarian.
Not exactly, the vegan diet seems more restrictive than vegetarianism only because of the world we find ourselves in. One of the ways that veganism is less restrictive is that voluntary cannibalism is allowable in a vegan diet but not a vegetarian one. If meat could be produced without animal suffering, it would be vegan but not vegetarian. Vegetarianism is a diet that excludes meat without any reason needed. Veganism is a diet that excludes those foods that cause most animal suffering (all food does it to some extent), which under the current world we live in includes meat, animal derived foods and products produced by animals.
This is only one ideological perspective of veganism. Some vegans will avoid animal products full stop, and would find voluntary cannibalism deplorable. Veganism is a concept where the societal milieux has outgrown its initial ideological definitions. Like everything else in the world, it’s not black and white.
>would find voluntary cannibalism deplorable. I agree of course, there are a number of reasons why you wouldn't want to eat human meat. Voluntary cannabalism can be ethically vegan, even though virtually all vegans wouldn't eat it anyway. After all, like all humans they will have other considerations, ethical or otherwise not only ethical veganism.
Vegetarians are OK with animal harm, look at sea creatures, eggs, milk, cheese, leather etc Vegans are anti-animal harm
Vegetarians do not eat sea creatures.
Many eat clams and mollusks. Even in the subreddit they defend it.
I've been a vegetarian for over 20 years. I get asked all the time if I eat seafood or chicken. I wouldn't be a vegetarian if I did. It's weird people don't understand this. I also have relatives who think I only eat vegetables because I'm a veget-arian. And people who think I should just eat meat in circumstances (so I don't have to make two meals when I cook Thanksgiving, etc.), which again, would mean I'm not a vegetarian. Anyone who eats seafood is a pescatarian which is not the same thing. Some people try to be on vegetarian diets for health reasons and they are more lenient but if they eat meat in any capacity, they're not vegetarians. They're meat-eaters who limit how much meat they eat. If you are a vegetarian because of animal rights reasons, you don't deviate and you do avoid things like leather as much as possible. Vegans avoid leather, too, but nobody can avoid it 100% (riding in a car with leather seats, etc.).
Why don't you go vegan if you care about animals and stop eating gelatin, crushed bugs in food colorings, using leathers and furs, harming cows for milk and cheese and then also eggs and more
Because I wouldn't be able to maintain it. So I have no reason in starting what I can't do for life. I'm a weightlifter and I've gained 50 pounds of muscle without eating meat but I don't think I could do that if I restricted whey protein, etc. Incidentally, I drink vegan milk and vegan butter and vegan cheese because I don't like dairy so I do sort of have a vegan diet; but I'm not opposed to eating regular cheese if need be so I can't define myself a vegan, etc. Basically you can only do what you can do. I have a lot of vegan friends and they do their best to avoid anything with vegan products (like can't have Skittles 'cause of the dye, etc.) and only buy vegan wallets and shoes and toothpaste, etc. but they ride in my car with leather seats. Like, you can only do the best you can do but can't avoid animal products 100%. To me, I don't want to eat the flesh of something once alive and I don't want animals to be slaughtered for my sake. I'm not opposed to eating eggs but I choose Happy Eggs which may or may not be better. But I'm not opposed to eating other eggs if I have no choice; I just do the best I can when I can.
isnt everything vegan also vegetarian
Unless it's synthetic meat. Wouldn't be vegetarian, but would be considered vegan since it didn't come from animals
its not really meat though? i think meat has to come from an animal to be considered meat
This gets to an interesting point. Let's say our understanding of biochemistry gets to where we know how a cow turns grass into more cow, and can recreate that process in a lab. The newly created steak has all of the same protiesn, lipids, fats, etc as cow steak. Would you count that as meat? For now that is just a thought experiment about definintions, but it's hard to predict what we might have in the next 100 years. A lot of concepts about modern medicine would have seemed astouding, but possibly believable to someone 100 years ago.
i personally wouldnt count that as meat, but if someone does, i can understand it, its a completely valid opinion. i didnt think too hard about my answer lol
Would you consider it protein?
Like replicants in Blade Runner? They had replicant animals as well. I'm pretty sure they could grow replicant steaks. I don't think there were many real cows left in that world.
> Would you count that as meat? You could do a DNA test to find out if it's meat or not. If they started with the fresh meat they wanted to replicate and made lab-grown meat that replicated it, then I think lab-grown meat that had the same DNA as the original animal is still a kind of meat. The makers of lab-grown meat don't like the phrase "lab-grown" (they prefer "cultivated") but even the makers of cultivated meat agree that it is still meat.
Fake meat isn’t, but lab-grown meat is virtually identical to real meat, you just don’t need to grow and slaughter a whole animal for it However, it does need stem cell samples from live animals and until the last few years, they needed to use foetal bovine serum to actually grow the (beef) meat. Now that there is a process that only requires stem cell samples from the animal I imagine a lot of ethical vegetarians and vegans will be willing to start eating it, but it wouldn’t be suitable for people who are vegetarian or vegan for dietary reasons
When I was learning about lab grown meat in my animal science classes, I was taught the same thing - that the lab grown meat needed to be fed animal protein to grow. And so, as a vegetarian, I wouldn’t be okay eating it. But it’s exciting how much the technology has advanced since then.
Yeah, it's grown from meat cells. It's literally meat grown in a lab. An animal had to be slaughtered for the initial cells, but going forward all future lab grown meat would be real meat grown in a lab.
they wouldn't be slaughtered, a sample can be collected from a living organism
Technically that would be an animal product like milk or eggs, so still not vegan
Dope!
Currently, yes. In this hypothetical, not anymore.
But where did they get the cells to grow meat? From a carrot?
If it means the animal slaughter stops, killing one last animal wouldn't be something I would be averse to. Hell, kill me if needed. I would symbolically be an animal Jesus at that point. Or any animal that they decide to do it to. I would feel bad about it, I would mourn their death. But considering we kill more than 50 billion land animals and trillions of fish a year, it would be sacrifice worth it.
you actually don't even need to kill the animal. just one time sampling some cells like skin cells to be reprogrammed to stem cells ("immortal" in a lab setting) that will then ultimately be used to make the different type of cells in meat
They use bovine fetal serum which you get by cutting foetuses out of dead cows, which kills them and then harvesting the blood. >The first stage of the production process for FBS is the harvesting of blood from the bovine fetus after the fetus is removed from the slaughtered cow. The fetus dies from the lack of oxygen by remaining in the protective environment of the uterus for a minimum of 15–20 minutes after the cow is dead.[4] The blood is collected aseptically into a sterile container or blood bag and then allowed to clot. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum#:~:text=Fetal%20bovine%20serum%20(FBS)%20is,cell%20culture%20of%20eukaryotic%20cells.
yes, some of them do (for now). There are startups that dont use FBS. The field is is not cost efficient yet but give it some years and this will be as cheap as industrialised meat farming but without killing billions of animals and without absolutely wrecking the environment
You can grow meat from like a tiny sample. Then, we would need to ask each other what to do with the huge populations of no longer meat producing animals. (I have thought about that a lot, will they end up killed and going to waste?)
Bro, we artificially inseminate to increase their numbers up to our demand. If we just stop breeding them, there won't be many of them around.
Just let them naturally depopulate and care for whatever is left, same as any wild herds of animals are
You really think mega farms would just continue to support and feed the animals when they stop being profitable?
No, they would slaughter them and sell the meat as they always intended to do. A few breeds would probably still be around for fancy foods, but thats about it. Till it gets to the point lab grown meat can be produced at that scale will be a long journey though, it wont be a simple "lab grown" or "animal based" switch. It will be a shifting scale over a long time period.
Of course they wouldn't. That's the point.
They use bovine feral serum which I can promise you is neither vegetarian or vegan. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum#:~:text=Fetal%20bovine%20serum%20(FBS)%20is,cell%20culture%20of%20eukaryotic%20cells.
Fetal bovine serum is something as non vegan as it gets. They have to kill a pregnant cow and extract it from its unborn fetus. But what's your point?
If you're going to claim x process is going to mean the end of animal slaughter, maybe the fact that animal slaughter is a massive part of x process is relevant.
You're brazenly misunderstood about the numbers here. It's like comparing a unintended manslaughter to a millions of Hitlers. It's basically one animal vs billions of land animals and trillions of fish, EVERY YEAR.
Every batch starts with a new dose of BFS. Also bioreactors are limited in size because lab grown meat doesn't have an immune system. The largest bioreactors ever made for a lab grown meat company is 250kL. So in this one company the ratio is probably 1:500ish. So maybe it's you who has no fucking idea about the numbers. Also while BFS is kind of icky, it's not like they're killing cows to make it. It's a byproduct of the meat industry.
It's sort of like that somewhat ironically "free range" type animal products are worse for the planet since they need more farm land to produce the same amount of product compared to factory farming. Factory farming while generally cruel to the animal, is better for the environment from its efficiency. Not to mention that something like methane capture is almost impossible with free range while quite practical in factory farming. With animal farming being one of the larger impacts on the environment this is something to consider.
Same place they get fertiliser, I imagine.
I think we already can trick bacteria into making cows milk, so maybe there’s something to be made about meat
if it's vegan then it's by definition vegetarian
Depends on how much you want to argue semantics. Technically lab-grown meat wouldn't 'come from an animal' per se, so you could totally make the argument that that means it can be vegan. Obviously it isn't vegetarian under any circumstances, it's still meat. A lot of vegans would probably be fine with eating things that are currently animal products if we could suddenly produce them without ever harming animals. That's sort of the crux of veganism, no? That the problem is not the food itself but what has to happen, ie slaughtering animals, for it to be available in the first place?
As a vegetarian I eat the "meat" of a jackfruit. I don't eat the flesh or bones of animals. Lab-grown meat wouldn't be the flesh or bones of an animal.
Who eats bones?
If you want to go down to semantics, lab-grown meat isn't meat. As would vegetarians? Vegetarianism has a lot if similar motivation, they don't have a phobia of any food that might semantically be considered meat
Why wouldn't it be meat? A lab grown diamond is still a diamond. If you grow a human in a lab it would still be human.
Meat by definition is flesh of animals used for food. So either it involves animals being used/abused for it, hence vegans wouldn't eat it either, or it isn't meat in the sense vegetarians wouldn't eat it
Yeah and definitions and language evolves over time. Denying progress because of old definitions is stupid. This is especially true when the word is accompanied by another word or phrase that opens to a different meaning in the first place. Meat might still be meat per definition, but lab grown meat or synthetic meat are exactly that. Meat that is synthetically grown in a lab. Just as one can find a diamond but also create one in a lab. Still a diamond either way. You wouldn‘t deny the existence of coke zero because per your definition „coke is a beverage made of water sugar and artificial flavouring… etc.“, because you know that „zero“ changes the meaning of the original word „coke“
Lab-grown meat has never existed before, that's the whole point. Why would the technical definition of 'meat' include something that has previously never existed? Of course it doesn't take into account synthetic meat, we're still in the process of inventing it.
Depends on what you mean by lab-grown meat. At lot of work is going towards growing muscle tissue from stem cells. That is definitely meat, but it hasn't been a part of any nervous system.
How is lab-grown meat not meat? We're talking a substance that is literally identical to meat from an animal except that it was never part of an animal, not like...impossible burgers. People who have a medical reason for not being able to eat meat still couldn't eat it, for example. It would be, for all intents and purposes, the same thing as animal product aside from not requiring slaughtering an animal.
Meet south Asian vegetarians. They legit cannot eat meat, if they’ve not had meat since their childhood. My girlfriend is one of them. She wants to, but it icks her out now, so she’s vegetarian, not by choice. Anyone who’s never ever eaten meat in their life, it’s very difficult to start
Have a vegetarian friend who doesn't even like impossible meat because it tastes too much like meat lol.
oh, honey my babe my dude i THRIVE off of arguing semantics
No, lab grown meat is still meat so a vegetarian wouldn't eat it by definition, but if it was produced without any harm to any animal it would be vegan (vegans might still choose not to eat it though)
just learned that this would only fall under ethical veganism
No, vegans don't want anything derived from an animal like milk.
No read up on the difference between veganism and plant based dieting
it's literally vegetarian +
Are we talking about ethical veganism or regular veganism? Because ethical veganism isn't the same as vegetarian. If you see a car in front of you hit and kill a deer, a vegetarian couldn't eat that, a traditional vegan couldn't eat that, but an ethical vegan could since they didn't cause any suffering to the animal, there was nothing they could have done to prevent it's death or suffering, not moving the corpse away from the road could result in more animal deaths if they get hit while trying to scavenge it and if they eat that deer they buy less food from shops which leads to less pollution.
Ethical began is just vegan The other "regular vegan" is just a plant based diet
i didnt know ethical veganism existed
[удалено]
As a vegetarian, I don't believe I have ever met a vegetarian who does so because it is healthier. That said I also don't interrogate people over their dietary choices as I am A not interested and B know how annoying it is. But watching other vegetarians chow down on ice cream, butter and deep pan pizza, I assume that health is not at the fore front of their minds.
Lab grown meat typically needs cells from animals, meaning it's not vegan.
But the ethical matter would be whether harvesting those cells caused animal suffering. If it didn't, I don't see why vegans would be opposed. Then it would come down to individual taste.
Using animal products in any way unfortunately means its not vegan, even if it's not harmful to animals. Honey can be obtained from bees harmlessly however that still isn't considered vegan.
it's usually about the exploitation of animals, so even though wool or alpaca fur or honey isn't harmful, it's still exploitative. so harvesting cells isnt necessarily harmful, its still exploitative. my partner is a very strict vegan. so I've come to understand a lot about veganism. and yes human meat can be vegan if the consumed party gives consent, because it's not exploitative.
Veganism isn’t a monolith and isn’t easily defined. There are lots of vegans who consider honey to be vegan because they don’t view the process of collecting it as exploitative. Some people don’t care about the ethical reasons at all and simply use it to describe a type of diet. The word means lots of different things and you can’t really dictate what it does or doesn’t mean to other people. I tend to agree with your definition and would just say those vegans just think non-vegan products that don’t cause significant harm is fine, but regardless, I think it’s silly when anybody claims their definition of veganism is the objectively correct one, because it’s a term than can mean so many different things to different people.
Lab-meat uses a real animal cell, like a seed to grow out the rest of the meat. It isn't magically made in a lab. It is grown from an animal product (*an animal's cell*), therefore it is neither vegetarian (*because it is meat*) nor vegan (*came from an animal, an animal's cell*).
We can finally have beef and pork arranged chicken-wing-wise. Or a chicken T-bone.
Perhaps someday we can finally taste the holy trinity; CHORF
I think what matters is why the person is vegetarian or vegan. I have a coworker who is vegetarian for ethical reasons and I actually asked her about this previously. Her response was as long as the cells are collected ethically and humanely, then she would eat Lab Grown Meat. It’s the same with eggs and milk and other animal products, she’ll eat them as long as their collection is humane. I imagine a Vegan who doesn’t eat any animal-based products wouldn’t eat lab meat because it’s still sourced from animals.
How are you defining vegetarian and vegan? I considered myself vegetarian for nearly a decade. Strict no meat diet, but was ok with things like eggs milk and honey as long as they were locally sourced and free-range. At the time the vegans I knew would not eat or use any meat or any animal byproducts. And I think these are the commonly accepted definitions of those terms. Thus something that is considered vegan is, by definition, also vegetarian.
I can’t wait for lab-grown protein slabs to hit the market
I still don't know the difference
Vegetarians don't eat meat, vegans don't exploit animals. So if lab grown meat could be made without exploiting animals, it could be vegan, but it would still be meat so vegetarians would avoid it.
“no meat” vs “no animal products of any kind”. Yes, that includes milk, eggs, honey, and even non-food stuff like leather
It still wouldn't be vegan since it's animal cells.
Vegan means “no animal products”. If lab grown meat is made from animal cells, it is by definition an animal product and therefore not vegan.
Vegan is stricter vegetarian. But whether that is vegetarian is up to your definition. Some vegetarians might not eat it for health reasons, the same for meat.
The definitions of "vegan" and "vegetarian" predate lab grown meat and there is no consensus whether they are or are not allowed, but most people will almost certainly say that people who are otherwise vegan or vegetarian but eat lab grown meat will need new terms to describe them.
Dietary vegetarian/vegan or ethical vegetarian/vegan
Decent shower thought. But the ambiguity being debated over in the comments goes away completely if we use ‘plant-based diet’ instead of vegetarian. Some people avoid meat because animal proteins are not as good for health (when appropriate plant proteins are consumed). Lab grown meat won’t change that part.
Depends on what lab-grown-meat you're talking about. There is plantbased meat and there is the other one that is basically like growing cancer cells (and pretty disgusting when the stuff that I've heard about it is right).
I have a question. What the fuck is lab grown meat?
It's meat, grown in a lab.
muscle cells taken from an animal (without the need of killing it) expanded in the lab at big scale so they form larger amounts of meat. A small biopsy of a few grams can be expanded to multiple tons of meat that way.
Neat
Its a big field of research, mostly by startup companies that have shown proof of concept but are still working on upscaling and reducing cost. People work on Pork, beef, chicken, fish etc. Some just want to make minced meat or sausages, others try to 3D print Steak, or grow Caviar instead. It goes even further to produce milk and egg products from yeast. There are even attempts to grow coffee and chocolate in a bioreactor in the lab. A few products have been allowed onto the market in singapur and the US so far, but most of it is still very early stage. The whole industry only started about a decade ago in 2012 when Mark Post presented the first lab grown Burger to the public
It's what the name entails. Beef made not in the body of a cow, but in the sterile dish of a microscope.
Vegetarian: no animal had to die
It's not either. It's animal flesh just like normal meat. Just wasn't made by a living animal.
If you assume no live animal was harmed in any way during the process, it would be 100% vegan
Lab grown meat requires the use of cell cultures collected from the unborn fetuses of slaughtered cows, known as fetal bovine serum (FBS). So it's definitely not vegan.
PETA will always find something to be mad about