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this post was submitted on 22 Mar 2024
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Futurology
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Sausage seems like the perfect entry point for this technology. People don't really care what goes in them as long as it tastes good. It's also a lot more forgiving from a texture perspective. It would even be feasible to expand to more exotic sausages like pheasant or alligator.
I know i'm in a significant minority, but I care a great deal what goes in processed pork products (or rather, my gut cares). I've yet to pin down which "preservative" commonly used in pork/pork-like products I'm allergic to, but I have a serious problem with even Kosher Hot dogs.
Basically, if its not fresh homemade bratwurst or sausage, I just can't eat it.
I'm sure that, if these methods continue to become more viable than their livestock counterparts, then the need to use at least some preservatives will decrease... hopefully.
Man, that's gotta suck. Not knowing exactly what's causing the problem can mean it being a problem unexpectedly with other things.
Its not awesome, but for theost part, that specific reaction is limited to just that. I'm pretty adventurous when it comes to food, so i'm sure that whatever chemical causes it is limited in use outside of that market.
Maybe is not one specific product but the mix in those sausages.
One problem I've noticed with currently available meat alternatives is that they are even more processed than real meat.
Yes. I'm not sure how much of the non-meat chemicals are for the preservation / shelf life as opposed to the ones necessary to the creation(?) process.
I suspect that at first the meat will still require the more aggressive preservation methods because the distance in both time and geography from the lab will be similar to that of the slaughter locations.
But without needing to work around breeding seasons and just general herd growth variations throughout the year, the creation of the meat could be much closer to the demand. Storage costs for temperature sensitive products that are also time sensitive has got to be a huge industry cost, so there is more economic reasons than just "use less chemicals" for it to start to trend that way. (Also, I'm sure the chemicals used are absurdly cheap and hardly a factor)
Some ideas you've probably already considered:
Nitrates and nitrites: in pretty much every commercial sausage. May be listed in the ingredients as curing salt or Prague powder.
Onion or garlic powder
Breadcrumbs
Emulsifiers: in any kind of hotdog or Weiner where it's all blended and looks smooth, as opposed to a sausage where you can actually see little pieces of fat and meat. Listed in the ingredients as some kind of gum or some kind of glyceride.
Those first three I don't think are exclusive to pork products, and I'm sure its not Onion/Garlic powders or breadcrumbs. I use them frequently when cooking without getting sick.
But emulsifiers.... would sausage/bratwurst of a lesser quality also have them? And are they exlclusive to tubular pork? Because they sound they may be the same thing that's in most sugar-free gums, and glyceride by itself is everywhere, unless it's a specific kind.
I appreciate the help, but like I said I have narrowed it down to something that's pretty exclusively used to preserve pork for really any duration of shelf life of a grocery store. I don't get sick when I eat fresh pork of any kind, well I guess so long as it's cooked, and I don't get sick when I eat other animal products with preservatives in it, or at least not consistently at all.
I'm good with just leading this pseudo-jewish life for the time being. Honestly unless it's like quality fresh brought worse at Oktoberfest, then I don't really feel like I'm missing out anyways.
I don't know of any preservatives that are exclusively used for pork. I'm a butcher so I have pretty good knowledge of that stuff. I didn't really expect it would help you but I thought I'd take a shot in the dark.
Grocery store sausages, definitely not.
This is also why I see milk and eggs being easier to develop. Non-animal dairy actually already exists (see: Perfect Day Foods), though I've only seen it in a few products.
You have to compete with plant based sausages though which, unless some big breakthrough happens, will be much cheaper. They'll also probably taste pretty similar cause this is only generating cells, they'll have to add in a bunch of other artificial stuff like heme to make it taste like a sausage at which point I'm not sure if people could taste the difference between animal cells and plant cells as the base.
As someone who really enjoys meat but tries to eat vegetarian (and does so 99% of the time), I can't say that I've ever been impressed by the taste of a non-meat sausage. Every single one I've had has left me wishing I'd just had falafel instead. Fortunately falafel is delicious and cheap
Notably, though, vegetarian haggis - which is essentially just a large sausage - is usually pretty damn good. I have no idea why it seems to end up differently. Maybe because haggis depends less on the meat flavour in the first place?
I had a vegetarian sausage that had a close-ish flavor recently. It might have been Beyond? The texture was surprisingly awful though. Far from inedible, but I'd expect all parts of the texture to be closer, especially the casing.
The big difference will be if they can generate fat cells too.
American, I presume?
Bingo!