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I’m in San Francisco, at an Italian joint just south of Golden Gate Park, enjoying meatballs and bacon not made of meat in the traditional sense but of plants mixed with “cultivated” pork fat. Dawn, you see, donated a small sample of fat, which a company called Mission Barns got to proliferate in devices called bioreactors by providing nutrients like carbohydrates, amino acids, and vitamins—essentially replicating the conditions in her body. Because so much of the flavor of pork and other meats comes from the animal’s fat, Mission Barns can create products like sausages and salami with plants but make them taste darn near like sausages and salami.

I’ve been struggling to describe the experience, because cultivated meat short-circuits my brain—my mouth thinks I’m eating a real pork meatball, but my brain knows that it’s fundamentally different and that Dawn (pictured above) didn’t have to die for it. This is the best I’ve come up with: It’s Diet Meat. Just as Diet Coke is an approximation of the real thing, so too are cultivated meatballs. They simply taste a bit less meaty, at least to my tongue. Which is understandable, as the only animal product in this food is the bioreactor-grown fat.

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[-] KaChilde@sh.itjust.works 104 points 1 week ago

Simpsons did it

But for real, I am super interested in the concept of cultivated meat. I’m no vegan, but if less animals need to be mistreated and murdered for my steak, I’m not going to complain.

[-] voxthefox 20 points 1 week ago

I mean I think in this case Norse mythology beat the Simpsons to this at least a few centuries before with Heidrun

If the animal has been given the best possible life it could have right to the moment of death would you still have misgivings about meat?

[-] KaChilde@sh.itjust.works 38 points 1 week ago

I barely have misgivings about meat as it is. But yes, an animal that is raised on quality feed, and given space to grow before being harvested is always going to be preferable to the industrial levels of farming that capitalism requires to meet demands.

[-] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 18 points 1 week ago

Makes sense I enjoy meat as well but I try to stay away from factory farmed meats and mostly get meat from family farms or hunting but that's not a luxury that everyone's able to do.

It blows me away that some towns or cities only have a walmart for their grocery store.

[-] pageflight@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

Most animals behave pretty clearly as if they don't want to die, and humans have been really bad, historically, at deciding correctly who is person enough to mind being enslaved/genocided/colonialized.

Warfare would look quite different if the winner had to eat the loser.

[-] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Bosmer lore in a nutshell.

[-] sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 week ago

Yes, it is still murder and their life was not full. I don't care how pampered the animal was its life was still cut short and its purpose was solely as a commodity for human consumption.

[-] SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 13 points 1 week ago

Sure it’s murder but meat is delicious and I care for my animals before I slaughter them and use everything I can.

[-] canofcam@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Unfortunately - and this is the problem - it is incredibly inefficient to raise animals properly. Almost any 'humane' animal products that you can think of have very harmful practices embedded in them.

Firstly - the animals having the best possible life right to the moment of death would still allow things like lamb. Surely giving a baby the best possible life before killing it young is still barbaric?

Secondly - secondary animal products would still require harmful practices. For a dairy cow to produce milk she has to be pregnant / have a baby. Some farms produce 'humane' dairy which involves allowing the mother and calf to live together, but then it also requires them to sell the male calves to be killed for veal because.. what else would a male calf be for?

And finally, onto the point of inefficiency. Do you have any idea how many chickens are killed every single day to supply our food system? You probably do, but you may be unaware of what that means - the Earth does not have enough land possible to raise these chickens, it is physically impossible and that is just one farm animal.

So the future of a humane world for animals either involves quality synthetic meat, or everybody is suddenly happy to go vegan, or more likely; everybody remains carnivorous and we continue to torture animals.

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[-] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The idea that a company can grow meat by just adding a few carbs and vitamins to a flask of cells is ridiculous. These synthetic meats are all fed fetal bovine serum. Fetal bovine serum (FBS) is made by drawing blood from bovine fetuses via cardiac puncture at government-approved slaughterhouses. The collected blood is allowed to clot, then centrifuged to separate the serum from the red blood cells. The raw serum is then frozen and undergoes further processing, including sterile filtration, to become suitable for use in cell culture.

Any steak made this way would have to cost thousands of dollars.

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[-] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 21 points 1 week ago

This is the best I’ve come up with: It’s Diet Meat. Just as Diet Coke is an approximation of the real thing, so too are cultivated meatballs.

I hope that wasn't meant to be a pitch for it. Diet Coke tastes like ass.

They simply taste a bit less meaty

See that's the disconnect - diet Coke doesn't taste like Coke that's less Coke-y, it tastes like Coke that had the sugar replaced with a scoop of Grandpa's ashes and a dash of betadine.

If we've made the meat equivalent to diet Coke, the best course of action is to just skip that nastiness and cook up some tofu or paneer or something.

If we've made the meat that's just a little less meaty, okay cool, I'll give it a shot.

...but those two are NOT the same thing.

[-] YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 5 points 1 week ago

Kinda agree, I might try the bacon if it's not prohibitively expensive. But an ethical source of pork fat would be pretty nice for any culinary focused vegetarian. But I actually liked the impossible stuff I hear people talk a lot of shit about, so I'm obviously no super tasting expert.

[-] kbobabob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago

Tasting expert can only tell you what they taste, not if it's any good because that is entirely up to the individual. Some (arguably quite a lot) people love diet coke, does that make OPs statement wrong? I'd say no because that individual doesn't like diet coke, but that doesn't speak for everyone.

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[-] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 points 1 week ago

Every Diet Coke drinker I've ever known has been a fat person who thinks they are addressing their weight problem by drinking Diet Coke, and doing literally nothing else.

[-] Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

In their defense, drinks are some of the worst offenders for excess calories, which is what drives weight gain.

Diet Coke isn't medicine or anything, but if you're drinking it when you would normally be drinking a normal Coke, then you just saved yourself a couple hundred calories.

Obviously not going to make up for a 3k calorie per day diet w/ no exercise, but it is a step in the right direction.

[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 17 points 1 week ago

If you can make ethical bacon, you can also make ethical long bacon

[-] knightly@pawb.social 12 points 1 week ago

I've been waiting for this for years. I can't wait to eat the first celebrity that donates some cells for a tie-in promo with Taco Bell. That shit is going to be so mid and our nightmare cyberpunk future is incomplete without it. XD

[-] BastingChemina@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago

I would definitely donate some of my fat to taste myself

[-] prole 3 points 1 week ago

Possibly even more ethical since humans are capable of consenting

[-] zqwzzle@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 week ago

One day they’ll breed an animal that makes it clear it wants to be eaten.

[-] OZFive@lemmy.world 34 points 1 week ago

Ameglian_Major_Cow

the Cow was the Dish of the Day at Milliways, which arrived when Zaphod Beeblebrox (accompanied by Arthur, Ford, and Trillian) requested to 'meet the meat'. It was described as a large dairy animal, a "large fat meaty quadruped of the bovine type." It was said to have large watery eyes, as well as small horns and what might have been an ingratiating smile on its lips. The creature seems peaceful and at ease, and at one point is described to have "mooed."

The creature offers Zaphod and his party his shoulder, braised in a white wine sauce, then goes on to offer other parts of its body, having worked hard to fatten itself up through force-feeding itself for months. Eventually, after Arthur and Trillian have expressed their shock and Ford has expressed his disinterest, Zaphod requests four rare steaks and the Dish of the Day goes off to shoot himself, telling Arthur not to worry, as he says "I'll be very humane."[1]

[-] zqwzzle@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 week ago

Indeed what I was referencing.

[-] otacon239@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Okja kind of has similar themes about a fictional animal bred for food.

[-] Onyxonblack@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

Beyond Lies the Wub

[-] FosterMolasses@leminal.space 10 points 1 week ago

Kinda... creepy. Just the way this article is presented, I mean.

It almost sounds like "Now we can finally eat Max the dog and know exactly what he tastes like without really eating him! Isn't that right Max?" lol

But if this is just a weird way of saying "we have synthetic pork now" then kudos I guess

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 5 points 1 week ago

Give me celebrity human flesh. I want to know what steve Buschemi tastes of

[-] FreeAZ@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

Give me Musk and Bezos so I know what to expect when the revolution comes.

[-] Apocalypteroid@feddit.uk 4 points 1 week ago

I expect they both taste like asshole

[-] xep@discuss.online 9 points 1 week ago

Excellent, more ultra processed material that our bodies have never encountered before and don't know what to do with, what could go wrong with eating it in with other things that we aren't supposed to be eating?

[-] frongt@lemmy.zip 11 points 1 week ago

It's exactly the same material.

Anything the body doesn't know what to do with, it excretes.

[-] classic@fedia.io 10 points 1 week ago

Not a commentary on this particular product, but I don't believe it's quite so simple

[-] Seleni@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Or, if someone doesn’t have the enzymes to digest it, it sits in their stomach and rots, which is fun.

It’s even more fun if you’re actually allergic to the proteins in meat, but I digress.

[-] frongt@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago

What you're describing is called gastroparesis, and it's a serious medical condition, not something that generally happens to people as a response to certain food.

[-] prole 2 points 1 week ago

Well, except for microplastics I guess. Those stick around forever.

[-] ccunning@lemmy.world 8 points 1 week ago

Trust me; my body has encountered pig fat and knows just what to do with it.

[-] pageflight@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I do think there's reason to scrutinize a new food manufacturing process. From morphine to microplastics to sugar, we've got plenty of prior art thinking we were on top of the health implications.

But, if we are trading some human health risk for known environmental catastrophe & animal lives, I think shifting responsibility into our court is a good step.

[-] Bronzor@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 week ago

Or we could you know, leave the fucking animals alone.

Did Dawn explicitly say "I would like to donate my fat"? No? Then it wasn't a fucking donation. Pretty gross to characterize the story in this way.

[-] southernbrewer@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago

That's ridiculous. You know that's ridiculous right?

People gonna eat meat. They can eat dead animals or they can eat this stuff. You choose which you prefer

[-] Bronzor@lemmy.ml 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

What's ridiculous is humans unconsensually raping and pillaging living beings for all they are worth just because you think your taste buds and minutes of pleasure outweigh a living breathing being with the capacity to experience. Sorry that my moral compass is more attuned than yours.

You forget the third option, leave animals the fuck alone and eat plants ffs.

[-] Jumbie@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 week ago

Yeah but meat in salad makes the whole thing even more delicious.

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[-] MisterNeon@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

I'm just gonna stick to beans

[-] pageflight@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

I can't tell from the article or Mission Barn's page whether they need a new sample for every batch, or just needed one sample to seed their bioreactors. I'm not sure (as someone who avoids meat for ethical and environmental reasons) if there's a big difference.

I'm actually happy with Beyond burgers/sausages when I do want meat taste, but nice to have more options. (Mozzarella and Parmesan are what I'd look for next, though Rebel Cheese is doing a good job with some more cheese-platter varieties.)

[-] phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 week ago

It may not be an every batch thing but you would need more samples at least eventually. Cells have division limits. While these are somewhat bypassed in these types of setups you do run into issues for longer term.

[-] remon@ani.social 6 points 1 week ago

Seems like half-assed lab grown meat. I'll wait till they figure out the real deal.

[-] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 week ago

Uh, no.

They did not grow meat by adding carbs and vitamins, they grew the the pork tissue by feeding it fetal serum from a pig or cow.

The amount of utter bullshit around synthetic meat is just marketing to ignorant hippies.

[-] Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago

You have a source for the bullshit you're spouting?

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[-] BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 week ago

No! Not animals not dying!

Dear God no!!

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this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2025
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