This 3D printing is amazing. One could hunt 3D printed meat with a 3D printed rifle.
“Forgacs starts by explaining just how costly a single quarter-pound beef patty is to produce. For that one serving, 6.7lbs of grains, 600 gallons of water, and 75 square feet of grazing land were used. Now multiply that by 1000 to find your (approximate) impact — the average American eats over 220lbs of meat each year. Additionally, at least 18% of greenhouse gas emissions are due to meat production. All this for one burger? “
Even if all that BS were true such a burger only costs ~$2 fully prepared at places like McDonalds. Who in their right mind would want a printed burger?
“Forgacs concedes that it does still cost a few thousand dollars to make a pound of meat in the lab. Unless you’re seeking the most expensive burger in the world, that’s no good. Still, the cost of real meat is inevitably going up and the printed stuff will become cheaper as economies of scale kick in. The process right now is taking place in a research lab, not a large production facility. “
Anyone who ever worked with cell cultures can tell you that it is extremely difficult and costly to produce a gram of cells let alone a pound. And if the culture gets infected with bacteria (VERY COMMON) the whole batch would be ruined.
I call bull on these numbers.
Figure that a side of beef weighs what? 500 lbs? Times 2 for 1000 lbs total. That's 4000 quarter pounders, if you were to grind it all up. (which I wouldn't. I like filet. :-) )
Means that the cow eats over 12 tons of grain. And took up over 6 acres of grazing land, on top of that.
Even halving the numbers would be ridiculous.
I wonder how the cells meant to be used to make this synthetic meat are going to be grown?
Will they be fed using serum from fetal calves killed at the time their mothers are slaughtered, the way cells in labs all over the year are fed?
Somehow, I don’t see this technique as ever becoming cheap, or resulting in fewer animals being killed.
Sure as hell beats bean sprouts and dandelion greens.
i don’t believe the figures that they say are needed to make 4 ounces of meat. cows weigh 1200-1500 pounds. there’s no way those figures are accurate.