Chef David Chang was on Jimmy Kimmel Live promoting his new Hulu series, The Next Thing You Eat, about the future of food, particularly synthetic meat. It’s out October 21 and sounds really interesting. He brought up something to Kimmel that I never thought possible. Namely that scientists may soon be able to create made from dinosaur DNA! I’ve only recently heard about lab-created meat made from cells like chicken and fish. Lab-grown meat is created by using cells from a living animal and then feeding and multiplying them. If this technology gets widespread and cheap enough it can really help the environment by limiting the impact of animal agriculture on the environment. I guess you could take this to another level by using DNA to create the cells. Imagine eating raptor or t-rex meat. David said it’s coming and that it’s just in the early stages of this technology, which is bound to get better and more sophisticated. This blew my mind. Here’s some of what they said and you can see that interview below.
On lab-grown meat
It’s lab grown meat from cells. Theoretically they can make anything… steak, chicken, salmon from cells of the real thing. I had chicken, I had salmon. The chicken was pretty damn good. The salmon is going to get there. The best way I can explain it is playing video games in the early 80s. You can see that it’s going to get a lot better.On a scientist saying the in the trailer that they could even recreate dinosaur meat
That was a real head scratcher but it is sort of this Jurassic park kind of technology. It’s happening and I was really suspect until I tasted it. I’m here to tell you I think it’s an inevitability.
[From Jimmy Kimmel Live on YouTube]
David and Jimmy also wondered whether lab-grown meat is suitable for vegetarians or vegans. They didn’t have an answer for that and it seems up to the individual. This begs the question – if you’re a meat eater would you eat 1) synthetic standard meats grown in a lab like beef or pork and/or 2) synthetic dinosaur meat? I know I would eat regular lab-grown meat and have no issue with that. I’m still divided as to whether I would try dinosaur meat, but I probably would. I eat all sorts of weird manufactured food and I’ve had alligator and frog meat. I’m sure this would be safe by the time consumers could buy it. “Life breaks free, it expands to new territories.” This is amazing and exciting to me! I already eat Impossible Burgers and they taste so good. I bet you won’t be able to tell the difference within a few years.
Here’s that interview:
There is an interesting, very reasonable vegan on youtube (unnaturalvegan) who is pro lab meat and has video(s) on the subject, and I don’t believe she’s the only vegan who feels that lab meat is actually quite ethical and reduces harm/environmental impact. This recommendation coming from someone who does consume meat! I like her a lot, and her video of nuclear energy is pretty great too. It seems in most of these they’re aiming to use cells from an animal that goes on living, which I do find awesome. It is hard to get away from meat, another subject UV covers a lot, and why I find her approach to at the very least reducing meat consumption if not going veg-to-vegan, far more reasonable than being yelled at that you’re an awful murderer, etc. Her activism for animals is effective I find, basically. Thank you for writing this!
I agree. It’s not like anyone is going to be able to tell the difference between dead animal meat versus lab grown meat. My guess its this works best with ground meat which is something majority of meat eaters consume because its cheaper.
If it’s made without having to kill an animal, that is 100% wonderful for me. Some people really love meat and giving them a way to have that consumption with harming the environment less is a wonderful alternative. Props if it ends up being much cheaper than dead animal meat!
FYI – I am not a vegan or vegetarian (I regularly consume meat) and I would totally welcome this.
There’s a really well-written (and looooong) article that explains why lab-grown meat will never (at least in my lifetime) become a sustainable alternative: https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/
Basically, it’s prohibitively expensive to do at scale — the cost of all the materials you need: grow tanks, ingredients, facility construction (you’re basically building huge ‘clean’ labs), etc. is astronomical to create the amount of meat needed to make even a dent in reducing traditional meat sources.
And not mention the actual growing of the meat; it’s a very delicate process and labor-intensive. The slightest error in temperature or cleanliness can ruin an entire batch of meat. And it requires lab technicians — it’s not a blue-color industry where anyone can thrown on a lab coat and start working. I highly recommend that article; it’s really eye-opening.
I find the whole idea disgusting and gross!
As a vegetarian I wouldn’t go near it.
Sorry! It’s utterly unethical!
… Making lab-grown meat – which means NOT killing the animal is unethical??
As a fellow vegetarian, what about it makes it unethical? I’m probably missing something, but I personally think it’s a great idea, both in relation to the climate and to animal cruelty (or lack thereof).
It does open quite a can of spiritual issues, doesn’t it? I am likely to stick with vegetarianism out of principle.
Ummm, do “we” have dinosaur DNA? I was under the impression that DNA degraded to the point of not existing after so many million years. Off to do research!
Apparently DNA decays in half every 521 years putting 6.8 million year old DNA in possible reach. There have been finds over the years of possible soft tissue of dinosaurs being found, but no official studies have come out stating DNA has been found. That I know of!
I am a paleontologist and there is no way they can clone a (non-avian) dinosaur. The last non-avian dinosaur went extinct 66 million years ago. There have been possible remnants of soft tissue preserved, but they’re rare and still partially modified from the original (probably protected by iron nanoparticles). And it’s proteins that have been preserved not DNA. And you don’t have anything close to the original muscle tissue that needs to be present to grow lab meat. But the thing is, birds are dinosaurs, so they’ve already grown dinosaur meat–lab chicken is lab dino meat.
Instinctively, my response is yuck to lab grown meat but, really, how would I know the difference when it all comes pre-cut and packaged? I’m just trusting the labels not raising and slaughtering my own food. I’ve never tested my grass fed organic beef to to see if it’s organic and grass fed or not. So anyway, if it tastes the same and is cheaper, it’ll end up in restaurants eventually and, again, how will we know?
This is odd. I definitely need to research this subject. I try to purchase humanely raised animal products, but economically that’s not a realistic way to feed the entire planet. So researching different options is good. Dinosaur meat just sounds like a marketing ploy though, perhaps to get investment money. I would possibly try the chicken or salmon. I wonder how healthy Dino meat would be for our bodies? We have evolved but they haven’t. Would there be some kind of biological mismatch?
One of the big reasons I have restricted my consumption of meat it’s because of the environment damage cause by livestock breading. I have heard about cloned meat and how is less damaging to the environment, so I would totally eat a burger made of cloned meat. But dinosaur meat sounds quite crazy for me, but who am I to judge? I have eaten twinkies
I’m gonna pass on lab grown dino meat.
I just finished his memoir, Eat a Peach, a few weeks ago and really enjoyed it! It was so much more than I was expecting, focusing not only on his restaurants, but his mental health, thoughts on family, and full of raw emotion. Really great read.
I bought his Momofuku cookbook (really want to learn to make the noodles and the steamed pork buns) and I read his introduction all the way through (for the record, I *never* do this). He’s a very good writer and doesn’t shy away from addressing his weaknesses as well as his strengths. I came away with quite a bit more respect for him.
Also, no thank you to lab grown meat at this time.
I’ve read before that dinosaur meat would be awful—very gamey, stringy, no fat! But I’d definitely try it.