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Comment by kjksf | Hacker News Reader

As a counter point, the CEO of Impossible Burgers thinks that meat grown from cells is "stupidest idea ever" (http://www.news.com.au/technology/innovation/inventions/arti...).

And I kind of don't see how Memphis Meat can possibly compete with Impossible Burger (or other companies that can produce meat-like products from vegetables + industrial processing).

Today Memphis Meat costs "several thousand" per pound and generates literal pounds of meat. It's a pre-alpha prototype.

Impossible Burger's ground beef costs "comparable to organic beef" and are scaling production to a million pounds of meat per month. They've shipped and are increasing velocity.

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As a counter-counter-point, I recently tried the Impossible burger, and while it's amazing, it's not remotely close to real meat. And that's in ground-beef-covered-with-cheese-and-sauce-and-toppings form. Impossible vs a great steak or some grilled salmon? No way.

As another anecdote - I agree. I recently tried it as well, and almost gagged at the taste. Not because it was disgusting (I finished it), but because I was so taken aback at the taste (kind of similar to when someone puts water in your Sprite can).

It's decent, but its nothing like real meat.

What a dumb idea to base one's argument regarding these things on price.

As a new tech it will cost a lot (like computers once did, now you can get one for $5), but the price will eventually go down.

Perhaps my generation won't enjoy fake meat like a real steak just because of the idea, but younger people won't mind.

Personally, I'll take anything that can stop killing all those animals to then throw away huge quantities (if unsold).

Well the Impossible CEO has a good point in that if we can grow tissues on demand in a reliable and efficient process the first use will not be for food but for healthcare. Why grow quarter pounders when you could save lives and grow organs?

The bar for something that roughly has the right muscle and fat blend for you to throw on a hot fire and eat is very different from the one that has to be biocompatible with a living being.

That being said, I do favor the Impossible Foods approach to this. My position is that non-animal products like Impossible Foods can incrementally replace low-to-mid end meat consumption while the high end will continue to be served by actual living animals.

Growing an organ means you need it to genetically match the person, have all the different tissues hooked up together correctly, and somehow grow it faster than normally happens. And you need that fast growth to turn off before you put it in someone.

Growing a vat of meat tissue just means you get a lot of cells to absorb nutrients and reproduce. It's likely multiple magnitudes easier.

The body is very picky about what kind of tissue it will accept as-its-own, entirely different level of quality required. Our digestive system is not at all as sensitive. We will probably get to lab-grown organs (it is actively researched), but creating artifical meat for eating is easier to do first.

Here's a point by point rebuttal of Pat Brown's comments I wrote: https://medium.com/@sethbannon/cleaning-the-record-on-clean-...

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