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Harald Jezek

Owner, Nuada beauty+wellness

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Meat production without livestock. A way to feed the world ?

Not only is food production a limiting factor for the carrying capacity of planet earth, but livestock is one of the main contributors to environmental pollution.
The University of Uetrecht in the Netherlands grows pork meat from stem cells. While it is still a long way to go until we'll find lab made steaks on restaurant menus, it seems to be a technology that could tackle a number of challenges humanity is facing.
Do you think lab made meat will eventually replace livestock ?
Could this technology solve starvation problems around the world ?
What downsides, if any, do you see in lab made meat ?

Topics: Food scarcity animal rights environment
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    Sargis B.

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    Mar 29 2011: I think meat consumption will eventually end when people realize just how damaging it really is to our bodies, especially with the rapid increase of diseases and what not. It is a myth that we need meat to survive or that if we don't eat meat, the ecosystem will somehow screw up. A mighty bold statement coming from men who have screwed our world over. Nature is perfect and it can handle its issues, the biggest of which has become the ignorance of human beings. Let's handle that one issue and the rest will fall into place quite naturally lol.

  • Rebecca Hall

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    Mar 29 2011: Do we want to be consuming synthetic food? I think the FDA has played with our "food" or what we think is food, for far too long
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    Timothy Cobbs

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    Mar 20 2011: the unfortunate downside I see to this, is that we will stop the corse of forced reproduction we put our livestock through and therefor we will create a smaller population that way. I think the idea of lab-meat is great but what happens when we say. "hey we don't have to save cows for meat, we can now increase leather production, dairy production, and all of a sudden crop production goes up and everything seems great", but then we notice farmland loses a large natural fertilizer and our vegetable products start to go into almost a negative swoop. It all just depends on how human greed reacts into this equation
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    Krisztián Pintér 200+

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    TED Translator
    Mar 20 2011: i'm waiting for that for like ten years now.
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