No! No! No! No! No!

Opsimath

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FDA has approved lab grown meat.

For the first time, the Food and Drug Administration has cleared lab-grown meat, created from cultured animal cells, for human consumption, the agency announced on Wednesday.

The FDA green light applies only to chicken products made by Upside Foods, a California-based company founded in 2015, though in its announcement the FDA said it is ready to work with other firms that are developing cultured animal cell food.

The agency said that it had evaluated information submitted by Upside Foods as part of a pre-market consultation, and that it had “no further questions at this time about the firm’s safety conclusion.”

The company can begin selling its product after inspection and label approval by the Department of Agriculture. Upside makes cell-cultivated meat using biopsies from living animals as well as “recently slaughtered animals who were already a part of the food system.” It expects these cells to be capable of indefinitely self-renewing, with the goal of eventually phasing out all animal components.

An Upside spokesperson said in an emailed statement to Yahoo News that the company is “thrilled” by the FDA’s “historic announcement.”

“Cultivated meat has never been closer to the U.S. market than it is today,” the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson added that in addition to eliminating “the need to raise and slaughter billions of animals,” cultivated meat is projected to use substantially less water and land than farmed meat, and producing meat in a controlled environment may reduce the risk of harmful bacterial contamination.

Meat and dairy alone are responsible for 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations. But while proponents of cultivated meat point to its environmental benefits by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some experts are still debating whether large-scale cultured meat industries may exacerbate climate change by contributing to carbon pollution.
 

shihan

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Meat that doesn’t require killing millions of animals? Sounds pretty good to me.
 

FNG

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I checked out the Upside website....I couldn't find a pic of the actual product.

Wonder how the non-GMO crowd will react?

Seems like you would need some serious controls...hope a worker doesn't cut his finger and bleed on anything. Or a big rat ....
 

Rocky

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Wonder how the non-GMO crowd will react?

Seems like you would need some serious controls...hope a worker doesn't cut his finger and bleed on anything. Or a big rat ....
It's not GMO. And tissue culture medium is typically highly specialized for the type of cell grown. QA/QC should be pretty easy for this kind of thing.
 

FNG

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It's not GMO. And tissue culture medium is typically highly specialized for the type of cell grown. QA/QC should be pretty easy for this kind of thing.
It's not GMO now.

QA/QC would be easy in a large scale production operation?
 

lungimsam

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Question 1: Who has the more powerful Lobby? Farmers/Big meat or cultured meat?
Point of note: Who here grew up pre-1980? Regarding safety issues, it may be too late for us anyway. 😂🤣😂
 

Opsimath

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Why are you against this?
Growing "meat" in a lab. Just doesn't sound right. I have not looked into the how-to, but would guess it would call for lab chemicals? I guess I can't say exactly other than being a bit suspicious of "living tissues" being grown in a lab to be used as food. The thought does not make me hungry and I guess that's why.

However, anyone who wants to partake is more than welcome but I think I will pass.
 

FNG

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"In a nutshell, our production process starts by taking a sample of primary cells from a chicken or fertilized egg. From this sample, our team selects ideal cells for developing a commercial cell line. The winning cells are chosen based on their ability to produce high-quality meat and grow predictably and consistently. This process is called immortalization. Once a cell line is established, we're able to draw from it for years - if not decades - to come, reducing the need to take additional cell samples from animals."

From Upside...

Isn't selecting ideal cells for a commercial cell line the definition of GMO?
 

GGJaguar

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I'd like a Diet Coke with that, please.

1668797267974.png
 

Rocky

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Isn't selecting ideal cells for a commercial cell line the definition of GMO?
No, it's not. Selecting a cell line isn't conceptually any different that cutting a rose from your favorite rosebush, and rooting it.

Genetically modifying something involves inserting DNA from a different plant/animal/bacteria into their chromosome(s), or possibly removing something that was already there. Completely different.

Genetic modification can be things like 'Roundup-ready' grains, but it can also be things like modified bacteria or yeasts grown in bioreactors to manufacture insulin, or other biologics. They've been doing that for decades. Really old folks might remember 'bovine' or 'porcine' insulin extracted from pancreases gathered from slaughterhouses, and people developing alergies to them. Eli Lily set up shop in the midwest because that's where the raw material was. Once you ran through both types, you were done for. Do you want to go back there? I know I don't.

Immortalizing a cell line can involve genetic modification, but I'm not sure if it's required.
 
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fronobulax

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"In a nutshell, our production process starts by taking a sample of primary cells from a chicken or fertilized egg. From this sample, our team selects ideal cells for developing a commercial cell line. The winning cells are chosen based on their ability to produce high-quality meat and grow predictably and consistently. This process is called immortalization. Once a cell line is established, we're able to draw from it for years - if not decades - to come, reducing the need to take additional cell samples from animals."

From Upside...

Isn't selecting ideal cells for a commercial cell line the definition of GMO?

No.

A GMO, or genetically modified organism, is a plant, animal, microorganism or other organism whose genetic makeup has been modified in a laboratory using genetic engineering or transgenic technology.

What the lab is doing is more like evolution or natural selection - picking the traits you want for the next generation.

Selection got us broccoli...

BFF_Broccoli_2017-768x768.png


 
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