meatless meat

Not long ago I posted an extract from an Animal Lib organisation that apparently supported meatless meat (cloned creatures). I felt disturbed by this because animals are still living beings regardless of the method of their birth. So I posted it on a thread here (but can't find it now) as I really wanted some feedback. A couple of posters put their views, which boiled down to believing it was not an animal lib organisation but animal welfare! Of course I don't get newsletters from animal welfare orgs, and this was ALV letters-writers group, of which I am one.

I emailed back to ALV saying: Carmen, I didn't respond to this email, as I found it quite disturbing. However, I posted part of it on Veganforum.com and asked fellow vegans what they thought of this position. Someone today did comment and thought that the idea must be from some animal welfare organisation.

Can you please tell me if there is a vegan stance, on this matter?
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The reply came today as follows: There are lots of vegan organisations, and I don't know their positions on this topic, but PETA (people for the ethical treatment of animals) who are vegan, has invested money in this technology in a hope that victimless 'meat' can be found for consumers who can't kick the habit of eating animals. One of the issues here is that only plant based growth nutrients must be for the tissue cells. (as there are animal based ones too.) Hope this helps.

Hmmmm

I have to get on that list eve...
So it is tissue grown in a laboratory using stem cells. Cell development occurs through chemical signals and is regulated by positional control. A stem cell placed next door to a skin cell will grow into a skin cell if chemical signals tell it to do so. When they clone a cell they cannot put only the DNA for specific cells into the cell, they must put the whole lot in. They can't use plant DNA for example. So DNA is coming from live animals and so are stem cells.

Any vegan that supports this doesn't understand the process...

I hope you do go onto that list adam, as every week or fortnight, Carmen Stanfield sends a lengthy email (pdf) with extracts from various newspapers etc re animals. The idea is that it gives useful info to put into the letters, as well as addresses to write to.

As to your DNA comments, this is something referring to the matter, but frankly it is all too spooky for me:
"A new study conducted by University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny and his colleagues describe two possible ways to grow commercial amounts of cultured meat. Writing in the journal Tissue Engineering, Matheny said scientists could grow cells from the muscle tissue of cattle, pigs, poultry or fish in large flat sheets on thin membranes. These sheets of cells would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked to increase thickness and resemble meat. Using another method, scientists could grow muscle cells on small three-dimensional beads that stretch with small changes in temperature. The resulting tissue could be used to make processed meat such as chicken nuggets or hamburgers. :confused:

Here's an article detailing what Eve just outlined, emailed by ALV members when I asked about this issue.

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Burgers from a lab? Study says it’s possible

Laboratories using new tissue engineering technology might be able to produce meat that is healthier for consumers and cut down on pollution produced by factory farming, researchers have said.

While NASA engineers have grown fish tissue in lab dishes, no one has seriously proposed a way to grow meat on commercial levels.

But a new study conducted by University of Maryland doctoral student Jason Matheny and his colleagues describe two possible ways to do it.

Writing in the journal Tissue Engineering, Matheny said scientists could grow cells from the muscle tissue of cattle, pigs, poultry or fish in large flat sheets on thin membranes.

These sheets of cells would be grown and stretched, then removed from the membranes and stacked to increase thickness and resemble meat.

Using another method, scientists could grow muscle cells on small three-dimensional beads that stretch with small changes in temperature. The resulting tissue could be used to make processed meat such as chicken nuggets or hamburgers.

“There would be a lot of benefits from cultured meat,” Matheny said in a statement. “For one thing, you could control the nutrients.” Meat is high in omega-6 fatty acid, which is desirable, but not in large amounts. Healthful omega-3 fatty acids, such as those found in walnuts and fish oils, could be substituted.

“Cultured meat could also reduce the pollution that results from raising livestock, and you wouldn’t need the drugs that are used on animals raised for meat,” Matheny said.

Raising livestock requires million of gallons of water and hundreds of acres of land. Meat grown from tissue would bypass those requirements.

The demand for meat is increasing worldwide, Matheny said.

“China’s meat demand is doubling every 10 years,” he said. “Poultry consumption in India has doubled in the last five years.” Writing in this month’s Physics World, British physicist Alan Calvert calculated that the animals eaten by people produce 21 per cent of the carbon dioxide that can be attributed to human activity. He recommends people switch to a vegetarian diet as a way to battle global warming.

“Worldwide reduction of meat production in the pursuit of the targets set in the Kyoto treaty seems to carry fewer political unknowns than cutting our consumption of fossil fuels,” he said in a statement. — Reuters

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This article doesn't mention cloning... I'm not sure if there is more to this or it's a crossed wire. This process would absolutely need animals to provide the original cells. Cloning requires further animal cells but since skin is grown for burn victims, potentially muscle may also be grown without stem cells so only the original cells would need to be harvested from an animal.

I guess it's the vegan dilemma of vivsection all over again... "do I take a medicine that while is not tested on animals anymore, gives money to those who did exploit animals in order to establish a product" will translate to this 'laboratory harvested meat'.

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eve

Not long ago I posted an extract from an Animal Lib organization that apparently supported meatless meat (cloned creatures) . . .

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Why on earth would they call it that? What a stupid appellation. I thought I was going to read about some exciting new plant-based food when I saw the title of this thread.

I think the whole idea is sickening. Aside from the fact that the article is written in such a way that entirely disregards animal suffering, placing all the emphasis on human health, nutrition and environmental issues; I just think that it's a way for people to produce cheap meat without the inconvenience and hassle of providing the wretched creatures with shelter, fresh water and food.

Apart from that, it saddened me to read the extent to which the worldwide demand for meat is increasing. How awful :(

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miss_laura

I think the whole idea is sickening. . .
Apart from that, it saddened me to read the extent to which the worldwide demand for meat is increasing. How awful :(

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Totally agreed. All we can do is hope that somehow, some way, the truth that humans are not natural carnivores will cause a new paradigm.

People of the future will wonder how their ancestors could have lived in such an unnecessarily brutal way, as though influenced by an evil parasitic spirit living off their evil-smelling humours, hidden in their beautiful bodies, like golden sepulchres, all rotten and corruption inside. I'm so glad I broke free from that devil. I have a few more to deal with. :rolleyes:

adam, this is where I got the word 'clone' from:

Dear Writers,
> Edible meat might now be grown in the laboratory by cloning meat cells. This means those who can't kick the habit will still be able to > indulge without adding to the slaughter or subsidizing factory-farm cruelty.
> Growing meat without the suffering would be the next best thing to > being a vegetarian. > There are so many advantages for animals, the environment and human health. > The marketing of meat is careful to hide the fact that it comes from a > struggling animal in a blood soaked abattoir. > We are conditioned by advertising to think of nuggets and patties and 'popcorn' chicken rather than associate with the animal.

> Meat is carefully presented to us in plastic wrapped trays, minced, crumbed and sliced -so as not to resemble the corpse it came from. > Laboratory meat should therefore be easy to assimilate into > supermarkets and fast-food outlets. > Here are a couple of articles from the USA about growing 'victimless meat.'

sorry about all the > marks. By the way, the title should have read "Victimless meat" not meatless meat - my mistaken memory!

rhttp://www.local6.com/news/4851623/detail.html growin meat in test tubes?