Is Meat Really Murder?

pourmeanother · 03-28-2010, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

I know very well that our ancestors ate meat for a long time without cooking it and I'm of course not saying that was a huge problem. Just pointing out that parasites can be a huge problem and a strategy which reduces the parasitic load should be adaptive. Even regular pork tapeworms can kill people! I'm not saying it's the primary factor which makes cooking adaptive, just an interesting piece of curiosa.

As for the viability of factory-grown food, why do you think it would be so expensive? We are imagining the use of a technology not yet invented after all

I'd imagine if you had a hunk, or maybe a flat sheet of meat to increase surface to volume ratio, growing in or on a medium almost like a lump of cancer, you would not as much have to worry about things like space, sex, health, transportation of animals and you could likely grow it more effectively using less energy per pound meat than what is produced by real cows and pigs!

edit :

I have a sneaky feeling we may have gone through this before in this thread.

Just to throw my hat in the ring... There is an external cost benefit. Cow farts are one of the leading causes of global warming. Methane gas is simply not good, and a lot worse for the o-zone "time bomb" than anything being spit out by cars. I imagine lab grown meat- although more expensive up front- would have a huge positive impact on greenhouse gas emissions, and save money in the long-run (considering the amount being spent to stop global warming).

lucifer_sam · 03-28-2010, 01:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

I know very well that our ancestors ate meat for a long time without cooking it and I'm of course not saying that was a huge problem. Just pointing out that parasites can be a huge problem and a strategy which reduces the parasitic load should be adaptive. Even regular pork tapeworms can kill people! I'm not saying it's the primary factor which makes cooking adaptive, just an interesting piece of curiosa.

As for the viability of factory-grown food, why do you think it would be so expensive? We are imagining the use of a technology not yet invented after all I'd imagine if you had a hunk, or maybe a flat sheet of meat to increase surface to volume ratio, growing in or on a medium almost like a lump of cancer, you would not as much have to worry about things like space, sex, health, transportation of animals and you could likely grow it more effectively using less energy per pound meat than what is produced by real cows and pigs!

edit :

I have a sneaky feeling we may have gone through this before in this thread.

It's not economically viable and it diverts funds that could easily be used for stem cell research and battling cancer to pursue a poor and unnecessary goal. PETA has taken it upon themselves to spearhead this movement instead of targeting animal rights issues that actually matter. I'm a supporter of free-range farming and grass-fed animals, but trying to take the meat out of meat is an absurd goal for an organization that supposedly wants to preserve the integrity of animals.

Guybrush · 03-28-2010, 02:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucifer_sam

It's not economically viable and it diverts funds that could easily be used for stem cell research and battling cancer to pursue a poor and unnecessary goal. PETA has taken it upon themselves to spearhead this movement instead of targeting animal rights issues that actually matter. I'm a supporter of free-range farming and grass-fed animals, but trying to take the meat out of meat is an absurd goal for an organization that supposedly wants to preserve the integrity of animals.

Taking away funds? Is all research in the US government funded?

Taking the meat out of meat .. What does that even mean? It's still meat, just without everything else that traditionally comes with it, such as a capacity for experiencing pain and the killing needed to acquire the end product.

As for it not being economically viable, how do you know that?

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

Heh heh! This reminds me of the shock I felt when you wrote in the BS thread that you fried up your rat's tumor and now found yourself salivating whenever you looked at the little buggers! I didn't know the thread was BS when I read that, and I was shocked you'd pocket a tumor, fry it up, and then look at your little beloved pets with hunger!

You aren't kidding about the breastfeeding, Tore? Because human milk tastes *very* good. I tasted mine. It is sweet. Sweeter than cow's milk. Those breastfeeding babies, toddlers, and preschoolers are getting good stuff!

I remember seeing a TV show about people eating human placenta pate. The mother saved it after giving birth, and then they cooked it and turned it into pate for their friends to willingly eat at some afterbirth party (ha ha!). They said the human placenta pate tasted pretty good!

Yes, logic can't always stop emotions. I feel distaste when I see spiders...disturbed by the way they look, the way they walk (although I like all their little eyes). I try to hide or fight my distaste for spiders. I pick them up and take them outside. I sometimes let them walk on me. I have no desire to eat spiders. Some people eat tarantulas. I hope I'm never in a position where I have to eat a tarantula to survive!

So, tarantula or human placenta, Tore? Which would you prefer fried up?

Ugh, there are a few things about your post that creeps me out a little. That placenta story is gross!

I would definetly rather eat the spider than the patè. I would prefer it to anyone's breast milk as well!

pourmeanother · 03-28-2010, 03:53 PM

Plus, aren't you taking two conflicting views on a similar science...

-Meat grown in a lab is NOT meat and so I won't eat it!
-Stem cells grown in a lab ARE the stem cells for me!

I understand your viewpoint, it just seems a little contradictory.

Neapolitan · 03-28-2010, 05:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

Ugh, there are a few things about your post that creeps me out a little. That placenta story is gross!...I would definetly rather eat the spider than the patè.

I heard a person on average can (while sleeping) eat 3 spiders in his/her lifetime.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tore

I would prefer it to anyone's breast milk as well!

I heard men can lactate - you might want to consider rephrasing that.

Guybrush · 03-28-2010, 06:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neapolitan

I heard a person on average can (while sleeping) eat 3 spiders in his/her lifetime.

Variations of that "fact" have been circulating the net since the early 90s.

Quote:

Fear not. This "statistic" was not only made up out of whole cloth, it was invented as an example of the absurd things people will believe simply because they come across them on the Internet.

In a 1993 article, columnist Lisa Holst wrote about the ubiquitous lists of "facts" that were circulating via and how readily they were accepted as truthful by gullible recipients. To demonstrate her point, Holst offered her own list of equally ridiculous "facts," among which was the statistic cited above about the average person's swallowing eight spiders per year, which she took from a collection of common misbeliefs printed in a 1954 book on insect folklore. In a delicious irony, Holst's propagation of this false "fact" has spurred it into becoming one of the most widely-circulated bits of misinformation to be found on the Internet.

snopes.com: Spiders Swallowed Per Year

There are lots of made up "facts" like this on the internet. I've never heard of a real study that tries to find out how many spiders the average person eats during a lifetime, but perhaps 3 isn't such a stupid number.

VEGANGELICA · 04-01-2010, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucifer_sam

It's not economically viable and it diverts funds that could easily be used for stem cell research and battling cancer to pursue a poor and unnecessary goal. PETA has taken it upon themselves to spearhead this movement instead of targeting animal rights issues that actually matter. I'm a supporter of free-range farming and grass-fed animals, but trying to take the meat out of meat is an absurd goal for an organization that supposedly wants to preserve the integrity of animals.

I agree, lucifer_sam, that lab-grown meat (cultured meat) certainly isn't economical at present and may never be...at least not until the human population rises enough and resources are depleted enough that the price of all meat becomes quite high (which *will* happen). I also suspect most people who eat animals aren't bothered enough by their slaughter to convert to eating animal tissue grown in labs, anyway.

PETA isn't the only group interested in lab cultures of animal tissue. So is NASA. http://www.alternet.org/environment/38755 My university has research on possible foods for space travel, and cultured animal tissue is one of those foods.

I have a bad story relating to that. Not long ago some graduate students from the meat division of food science asked me to take part in one of their taste studies of lab meat, since they knew I'm vegan. Since the original tissue was taken from the muscle of a calf who is not going to be killed (I checked), I went ahead and participated, thinking this would be a good chance to learn more about it...and I felt that the benefits of the study outweighed the negatives. (I'd rather people ate lab-meat than meat of whole animals.)

I had to rank the attributes of the cultured meat samples, which looked a lot like beef jerkey but tasted pretty bland, about like how I remember meat tasted the last time I had some when I was 18.

When I got done and turned in my sheet to the students, they started chuckling, so I said, "What." Then they chuckled more and one of them said there had been a little "switch" made with my sample. I actually vomited right then and there, and the students got suspended by their supervisor.

**Janszoon** · 04-01-2010, 01:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

When I got done and turned in my sheet to the students, they started chuckling, so I said, "What." Then they chuckled more and one of them said there had been a little "switch" made with my sample. I actually vomited right then and there, and the students got suspended by their supervisor.

I hope you vomited directly on one of the chucklers.

VEGANGELICA · 04-01-2010, 08:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Janszoon

I hope you vomited directly on one of the chucklers.

Ha ha! I'm so sorry Janszoon...that whole story about students replacing cultured meat with real meat to get me to eat it was actually just one I made up for April Fool's day! I decided to see if anyone would fall for it. Now I feel guilty!

But thank you for your sympathy. Just so you know: I only tell lies on April Fool's Day! Well...except I did once tell kayleigh I'm a 30-something-year-old man, but she already knew I'm in my 20s. And I lie in the BS thread. And in the fake argument thread. And and and...

I doubt I'd actually vomit if I ate meat, though. Once during the last few years I accidentally ate a shred of some meat in some "marinara" sauce that had been mislabeled at a restaurant pasta bar, and I kept it down. It was a very small piece, though. The size of a maggot. I probably wouldn't even vomit if I ate a maggot. Or a spider. I eat peanut butter after all! That has all sorts of insect parts in it.

I once accidentally ate a fly, too, that flew into my mouth. I mostly just felt sorry for it...I had closed my mouth and crushed it, I think, before I realized it was there! I felt its little wings on my tongue...

FETCHER. · 04-01-2010, 08:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by VEGANGELICA

Ha ha! I'm so sorry Janszoon...that whole story about students replacing cultured meat with real meat to get me to eat it was actually just one I made up for April Fool's day! I decided to see if anyone would fall for it. Now I feel guilty!

But thank you for your sympathy. Just so you know: I only tell lies on April Fool's Day! Well...except I did once tell kayleigh I'm a 30-something-year-old man, but she already knew I'm in my 20s. And I lie in the BS thread. And in the fake argument thread. And and and...

I doubt I'd actually vomit if I ate meat, though. Once during the last few years I accidentally ate a shred of some meat in some "marinara" sauce that had been mislabeled at a restaurant pasta bar, and I kept it down. It was a very small piece, though. The size of a maggot. I probably wouldn't even vomit if I ate a maggot. Or a spider. I eat peanut butter after all! That has all sorts of insect parts in it.

I once accidentally ate a fly, too, that flew into my mouth. I mostly just felt sorry for it...I had closed my mouth and crushed it, I think, before I realized it was there! I felt its little wings on my tongue...

haha champ. course i didnt believe you. your 21 are you not?

03-28-2010, 03:53 PM	#234 (permalink)
pourmeanother Saaaad Panda Join Date: Dec 2008 Posts: 852	Plus, aren't you taking two conflicting views on a similar science... -Meat grown in a lab is NOT meat and so I won't eat it! -Stem cells grown in a lab ARE the stem cells for me! I understand your viewpoint, it just seems a little contradictory. __________________ Life is just blah, blah, blah You hope for blah And sometimes you find it, but mostly it's blah And waiting for blah And hoping you were right about the blahs you made And then, just when you think you've got the whole blah'd damn thing figured out And you're surrounded by the ones you blah Death shows up... anddd blah, blah, blah.