RPC3 t1_j21gr5i wrote on December 28, 2022 at 11:40 PM

Reply to comment by stealthdawg in What would food look like if we could scale up lab grown meat? by sandcrawler56

It won't drive the extinction of it because people can get it from live animals. It's important to understand how influential culture is. I have Muslim friends for example. They have to murder a goat a certain way or they can't eat it under their religious traditions. Lab meat doesn't solve that. For people who eat organ meats as cultural dishes, you can't just drive that to extinction by making it expensive. They'll just keep the animals around and slaughter them. Lab meat changes nothing there.

stealthdawg t1_j21z72x wrote on December 29, 2022 at 1:54 AM

There is certainly a breaking point between how expensive the item becomes and how strong of a tradition it is.

Cultures use odd things like organ meat because they have to use the whole animal, not as the primary product.

Those ingredients will be substituted for something else when they become too expensive to acquire.

RPC3 t1_j225inl wrote on December 29, 2022 at 2:41 AM

You are missing the culture part though. It's a meme in the real sense of the word. They had to use the whole animal in the past and it became part of their culture. They had to do it because organ meats can be the most calorie packed and full of nutrients. People's native foods are downright holy to them in many circumstances. Attempting to make it too expensive is how you kill people. Stuff like that hurts the poor the worst. Also, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna pass laws saying they can't raise animals? That's where this stuff comes from in the first place.

stealthdawg t1_j24fwi4 wrote on December 29, 2022 at 4:19 PM

Nobody will 'attempt' to make it too expensive. And by 'it' I mean non-mainstream, non-muscle, items like organs and other animal tissue that are ecclectic.

It will become too expensive because lab-grown meat will dissociate the supply of regular meat from those other items, and it will cost more to raise an animal at lower quantities.

Nobody is saying there won't be small-batch farmers raising animals for these markets, but in agregate the supply is, imo, going to be severely reduced.

And tbh yes I think wayyyyy down the line (100s of years perhaps), if we can synthesize all the products of an animal, there will be valid discussion on banning animal slaughter.