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SYSK Selects: Lab-grown meat: Order up! · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's s
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Y s K Selectum choosing Uh the episode on lab
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: grown meat. It first aired in December two, twelve, UM,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and it's good to check in on these things. We've
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: made some progress in the field, true, but we still
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: have a very long way to go before there's a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: lab grown slab of meat in every pot in every
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: house in America. So let's step it up, people. Uh,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and also keep an ear out for goodbre four Gas.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Such an excellent name. It actually rivals Ganto genev as
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the possible future name for my horse. Uh. Enjoy. Welcome
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: as always as Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Um. This
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: here is Stuff should Know the podcast. Welcome bien venue,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Bill Coleman. What is that from the producers? I don't know.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Is that from something? Yeah? I think maybe Cabaret. I've
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: never seen it. I don't know. I just just saying
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: welcome in different languages. Um. So you're feeling good right now.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling better now that we have gotten the Condom
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: podcast out of the way. I was a little bit
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: uh sweaty oh yeah during that one got me all
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: worked up. Um, so now we can talk about lab
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: grown meat. What a great one to punch. Jerry's giggling.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: We are talking lab grown meat, man, We're talking about
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: possibly the future of humanity or what the future of
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: humanity will eat. Um. And this has kind of been
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: a big thing ever since two thousand one, which we'll
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: get to a second. Let's flash forward by flashing back
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: to two thousand eight when Peter the People for the
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Ethical Treatment of Animals and posted a one million dollar
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: reward to the first researcher that could come up with
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: lab grown a K in vitro a k a cultured
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: meat that was commercially viable, meaning it was for sale
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: and within in ten states by June twenty thousand twelve.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: That didn't happen. No, it didn't happen. But Peter is
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: very excited because they said in October the first taste
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: test of in vitro hamburger took place. And I think
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: we know who that was, don't we was that the man?
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: I believe it was a guy named Gabor four gacks. Yeah,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: that's a funny name, but he is one of the
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: leaders in the lab grown meat. He's basically one of two.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: There is a Bill Gates and the Steve Jobs in
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: the in vitro meat game and Gibor four Gacks. I
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: take it as the Steve Jobs. Yeah. He's from the
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: University of Missouri and he's a tissue engineering specialist, and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: he has a company called Modern Meadows. Great name, it's
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: a It's one of the better company names I've heard
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: of in my life. Yeah, it really fits. It's not
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: too clever, you know. I hate the ones that are
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: too like not a winkie, you know, like robo cow.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah is that another one? No, I just made it.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Oh see, that's awful. That's great. I channel my inner
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: John Strickling. That's very good. Um this is I just
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: pictured Strickling, like just sticking his head in the door
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: and saying a robo cow. Um. So anyway, Modern Meadows
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: is his company, and their aim is to get this
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: stuff tasty enough and cheap enough to make it a
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: viable solution for either people who want to eat meat
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: but have reasons to not, or to help solve the
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: impending hunger crisis. Not impending it's kind of already here. Uh.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: And apparently it may not have been four gack, so
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: it could have been. I don't know, but four gas
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: definitely did a taste test himself earlier in two In
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: two thousand eleven, Um he went to a ted Med
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: conference and talked about his synthetic meat and then eight
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: some on stage, which is kind of weird because it's like, yeah,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: it's kind of weird. It's like, I mean, I guess
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: if you were like hawking hot dogs or something, you
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: would eat them in public. So that's not that odd,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: and it seems at first blush, it's a little sounds
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: a little bit of a carnival barker uh feel to that. Though.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: They say that every great scientist is one part BF Skinner,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: one part P. T. Barnum. Yeah, well that's a principal
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: Skinner said, oh yeah on The Simpsons. Yeah that's good.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: That's good saying though, like it. Yeah, um, the other
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: the Bill Gates or was that the Bill Gates? I
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: think four Gacks is Steve Jobs. Okay, so the Bill
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Gates is Marquis post from night Court from TV's Night Court.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: Oh no, Mark post from My Strict You Diversity um
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: which is in the Netherlands. Right, It's like these two
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: universities get their researchers swapped smart Post is in the
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Netherlands and get more four gases and when University Missouri
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: maybe they did an exchange program or something. So Post
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: is a vascular physiologist and he and they say that
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: they're not competing. No, And if you look at their
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: their stuff, they're coming up with two very different means
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: to the same end eventually. But who knows, maybe their friends.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I would imagine that's a pretty small community, the synthetic
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: meat community. Yeah, they're probably on each other speed dial,
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: I bet right. And they're supposedly only about thirty groups
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: working on this right now. But what's what's mind boggling
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: is just how much of an impact a breakthrough, a
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: real breakthrough. And by breakthrough, it was like you were
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: saying four gacks said like, you have to get it cheap,
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: you have to get it tasty, and then you have
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: to get the public to eat it. But how much
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: of a real breakthrough that would be. If someone were
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: able to do that, it would be tremendous, okay, and
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: potentially solve a lot of problems that are impending so
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: this idea is not new, the idea of creating lab
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: grown meat, the Churchill thing. Yeah, you don't think that's
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: exactly what we're talking about. Oh, I guess so. Plus
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: it's Winston Churchill. He's like one of the coolest people
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: of all time, that's true. Before he was a prime minister,
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Churchill predicted that by quote, we shall escape the absurdity
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: suitable medium. And he was off roughly by twenty years man,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: you know, and he may have met like mass produced,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: like we'd be doing that by then in fifty years
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: in two thousand one, twenty years after his prediction, UM
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: or the deadline of his prediction. UM A guy from
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: UM two or O College. I've never heard of them,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: New York Toro College, t U r oh never heard
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of it either. Well, his name is Morris Benjaminson. His
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: dad's name is Benjamin. Uh. He came up with this
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: idea to take gold fish goldfish muscle cut fresh out
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of a live goldfish. Yeah, it was pretty bad for
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: the goldfish, and then thrown into a vat of nutrient
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: rich fetal bovine serum, which is wow. I wonder why
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: use goldfish? That's what I don't get. Why didn't he
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: use like talapia or something someone might want to eat.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe that was the only thing that
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: was handy. There was an office goals. She brought it
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: into his little plastic bag and instead of eating it
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: live for his fraternity prank, he grew some more. He
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: actually grew fourteen percent more. Yeah, um of what was
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: what he put into this fetal bovine serum? The cells divided, yep,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: they he They were live, which is big, but the
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: serum coaxed it in, continuing to divid ed and again
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: formed four more mass than was originally introduced, more mass
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: or did you write this? No? This is Patrick Kiger,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: as Patrick puts it, worth of additional flesh on the chunks. Yeah,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I like your like mass better than flesh on the chunks.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Flesh on the chunks is good. It's a band name. Yes,
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: So this guy has this bit and he's like, holy cow,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: it worked, let's eat it. So he tried to. He
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: started to fried up with a bit of lemon olive
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: oil and garlic and pepper, right yeah, it makes great sense,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: and no one would eat it. I would have tried it.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I would have to. Actually, I don't know if I
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: would have tried goldfish, if it would have been something else,
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the goldfish is still a big turn off. So his
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: initial thought was this could be great for astronauts, um,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: if they could eat goldfish or I guess fake meat
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: out in space. That was his original thought, was astronaut used,
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: isn't that what everybody thinks whenever you think of something
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: made in the lab that normally nature produces, it's like, oh, well,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: astronauts will go bonkers for this. Well, apparently Benjamin said
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: had the same idea, like you said. But as news
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: of this got out, UM Peter and other animal rights
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: organizations were like, whoa, whoa, wait, what did you just do?
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: We are full supporters of this idea, because again People
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the Americans Society for
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. When you eat a steak,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: when you eat um pork or bacon or ham, all
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: these things come from an animals, often lovable animal, but
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: people still like to eat them. People still get nutrients
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: from So if you take the idea that an animal,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: a live, sentient animal, suffered and died so that you
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: could eat it and still eat it. Man. That's like,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: that's the bonanza right there. It is for at least
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: for people who object to eating meat for out of
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: cruelty and still want to eat meat, object on the
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: grounds of cruelty to write to eating meat. Um. In
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: two thousand and eight in Norway they had a conference
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the first time ever on testued meat and they released
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: a study saying, you know what, we could potentially manufacture
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: the stuff for five thousand dollars a ton, which would
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: make it competitive on an economic basis with real meat, um,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: by which is right now they are about thirty different
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: research teams working on this. But like we said, I
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: get the feeling that post in igor what was his name?
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Good four gags are definitely a deleting edge. Um. And
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: I did a little calculating here, Chuck, if if you
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: don't mind, I found how much it costs in Illinois
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: in two thousand seven to raise a pound of beef
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: and it was something like sixty five cents a pound, right, which, um,
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: that's how much it costs to raise it Right about now,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: it's about two eight eight a pound for ground beef retail.
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: It's like a markup of like four point five times
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: for chuck or for or are we just talking? I'm
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: just okay, yeah, I'm just this is just rough back
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: of the envelope kind of stuff. Um, if if you
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: took that five thousand dollars a ton um in vitro
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: meat figure and that's how much it costom manufacturer, and
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: then also did that same four point five time mark up,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: you come to about eleven dollars a pound, which is
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: pretty competitive. Yeah, because I mean think about it. You're
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: paying that much for filet, right, Uh well, yeah, if
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: this were marketed correctly, it would seem even cooler than filet,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and people see it tasted good. Yeah, And people pay
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: a lot of money for kobe beef. Most times are
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: not even getting kobe beef. You know about that whole thing, right,
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: It's it's a big a lot of times, it's a
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: big scam. I could see that because I mean, who knows,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: there's probably a handful of people in the world who
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: could differentiate the taste of kobe beef from other beef. Yeah, exactly.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Even like really renowned restaurants are serving what they call
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: kobe beef for a lot of money. It's not Kobaby
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: is messed up it up. That's like a lobster. Lobster.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: The price of lobster is like in the basement right
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: now in restaurants are still charging as much as ever
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: for it and making tons of money, and but the
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: lobster men are just getting like the short end of
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: the stick because there's a huge supply of them right now. Yeah,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: but in lobster, one of those where they usually don't
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: say market price on the menu, isn't usually like just
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: straight up it'll say market price even if it does,
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: and they're still charging you a bunch like what market
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: price used to be when the price of lobster actually
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: was high. I wonder if you could come in with
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: some numbers and say, no, no, no, that's not market price.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Apparently you can argue with just about anybody really. Yeah,
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: And and often when you know, our buddy Julie was
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: in Maine, she vacations in Maine some and she said
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: they're like given her lobsters on her last trip, like
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: here's twenty of lobsters, Like we don't want them to
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: go to waste. Julie of stuff to blow your mind. No,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: Julie Smith, Oh okay, yeah, a producer, Yeah you have
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: TV um. Yes, it's because there's like a huge boom
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: in the lobster population. Yeah, man, I love a lobster
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: roll boy. We got really off track here, all right.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: See little there's synthetic lobster. It's actually cod right. Oh
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the that' sementation crab meat. Yeah, that's not synthetic though,
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: it's imitation. Yeah, imitation a big difference. Alright. So um,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: the Dutch team headed by Marquis Posts, they are using
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: cow stem cells to create this meat. So they culture
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: the stem cell little petrie dishes, put it in a
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: small container um to produce muscle cells. Sounds kind of gross,
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: and they form little small pieces of muscle about two
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: centimeters long, centimeter wide, and a millimeter thick. And they
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: say that it looks a little more like calamari than
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: any kind of a hamburger. And the taste initially is
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: pretty bland, right, And the reason the taste is bland
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: is because it's missing a lot of essential ingredients to meat,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: like blood, blood uh fat, yeah, blood veins, And it's
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: sent as muscle cells, but muscle fibers are you're eating.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: And do you know that it was only within the
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: last couple of months that I realized meat steak is
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: muscle mass. That told me that you were shocked back then,
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: and I was like, what do you think it was?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I I hadn't really thought of it. I thought it
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: was its own thing, like there's fat, muscle meat and
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: then steak. Yeah, like that's really what I thought. And
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: then I suddenly just I don't know why I was
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: thinking about it. I think I wanted a steak because
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: I was thinking about a steak and I thought too
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: hard and all of a sudden realized what a steak was. Um.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: But yeah, so it's but it's not just this muscle.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: It's muscle fibers, it's fat, it's blood. It's like all
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: this stuff comes together and they're gonna have to really
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: lick that before they can make the stuff commercially viable. Absolutely. Um.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: One of the ideas that modern meadows using is to
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: use a three D printer to spray what they call
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: bio inc which is muscle cells and stuff like that
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: to build up you know, they like spray many layers
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: of the stuff to build it up into like more
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: viable meat. Option, which is pretty cool. Three D printers.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Pretty awesome to hear about Japan's photo booth. They they're
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: opening the world's first three D printing photo booth. So
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: you go in and you come out with like a
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: little statue of you or you and your your lady
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, I would do that totally. I don't know,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: but I would guess a lot. It's sort of like
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: in vitro meat. Alright, So what are the other hurdles here? Um,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: it's tricky, like you said, it's it's a a mix
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: of fuel and salt and minerals and hormones, and this
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: is just to grow the cells that are healthy enough
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: to survive. Like that's not even talking about getting it
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: to look like a steak or a hamburger patty, because
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: like you said, it's not just you know, it's very
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: complex a group of stuff in there. It's not just
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: like muscle and that's it. And uh, it's extremely expensive.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: Right now, I think we were kind of touched upon.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: But Mark Posts said that his his hamburger, the first
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: one that he would ever make, would cost about grand Yeah,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: but he's looking for a celebrity chef to cook it.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: Kind of drum up business and gabore um fo gas Right,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that's his last name, four gack four gack Um. He
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: was saying his modern Meadows stuff would be between umte
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: a d eighty bucks a pound, right, which like you said,
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: is competitive with Kobe. Yeah. And and that's four Gacks
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: sees this as he I don't think he sees it
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: as like, hey, this is gonna be the everyday solution.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: He sees it as a niche industry. Um. He also
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: said that his first product is more likely going to
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: be leather because it's not as regulated and it's a
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: little easier to accept us for the public at large. Um.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: He also was saying that as far as creating food goes,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: like we are imaginations immediately jumped to building a steak building,
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: a hamburger building like a pork top or something like that. Right.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: He was saying, probably the first stuff that we're gonna
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: see is going to be like flower and he pointed
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: out in this one CNN article we read like you
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: don't eat flour flowers and like everything that you eat. Um.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: And he was saying, like this will be stuff to
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: create meatballs with or pete. It's like instead of taking
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: a chicken and chopping it up and then using it
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: in that pete. You would, you know, use it although
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: more as an ingredient rather than like the steak on
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the plate exactly, at least for now makes sense. Um,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: this could potentially be a great thing for many reasons,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: one of which is uh not, the least of which
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: is that lab grown meat would have about seventy eight
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: fewer greenhouse gasses, less land obviously, eighty two to ninety
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: six percent less water, and eight of the world's greenhouse
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: emissions come from the livestock sector right now. And you
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: know from what well, gas and and gas yeah, two
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: types of gas. Yeah, like we have a methane problem
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: from cow poop and gas and then all the gas
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: used to you know, obviously take care of the industry.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: Plus it's also just a lot more energy efficient. We
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: use a hundred grams of grain to produce fifteen grams
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: of meat. That's acent efficiency. Because what do you do
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: in chuck when you like, feed something something? Right, you take, um,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: you take the energy found in a plant and feed
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: it to an animals. It's energy transfer, but you lose apparently,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: and you're thinking, um, with lab grown meat, the energy
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: efficiency will be like, that's awesome, and some of the
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: other costs. To grow a pound of beef regular beef
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: necessitates gallons of water, twelve pounds of grain, thirty five
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: pounds of top soil, and the equivalent energy wise of
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: one gallon of gas to grow a pound of meat
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: just one pound of ground beef. Right, So you've got
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: a lot of people standing for meeting meat because of
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the animal cruelty aspect um. You have a lot of
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: people saying it's just socially irresponsible to eat meat. Um.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: And then you have people who, um, well, I guess
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: that's it, right, that's the only reason people don't eat me.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah, Well people like my wife who don't like
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the taste. Okay, well this is not going to appeal
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: to hurt at all, there no, no, no, um. But
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: you were saying like that this this the environment or
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: ecological consumption that it takes to create a pound of meat.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Apparently they think that meat production is going to have
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to um double in the next forty years because of
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: increasing incomes around the world. Typically, when your GDP goes up,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: your consumption of meat goes through the roof, and China
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: and India are on the way up, and they're thinking
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: that meat is going to get in higher demand. Not
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: enough land right like right now, I think it's said
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: seventy of dry land on the earth is used for
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: either grazing or some factor of livestock. So like, what
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: are you gonna do there's not that much more land
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: left to just use for cattle. Well, what they would
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: do is the price of meat would just go up
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: and up and up. Yeah, it would just become more scarce.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: I guess ye until this is but as the price
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of meat rises, the economic sensibility of lab grown meat
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: will become more viable. Yeah, you know true, because I mean,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: right now, one of the things is so cost prohibitive
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: aside from the fact that it looks like calamari and
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: it tastes plan Yeah, they said it potentially could be
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: healthier to UM. Jason Matheny, director of New Harvest. It's
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: a nonprofit research org, and they said that it would
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: have health advantages like UM because it's easier to control
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: pathogens and a lab and fat content could be systematically controlled,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: making it healthier. Like we're gonna put this layer of
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: fat in with our three D printer because you need
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: the fat. That's where the lot of flavor comes from. Definitely,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: you gotta have fat, and then you just got to
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: convince people once it gets cheap enough and tasty enough.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Like you said, the third hurdle is like eat fake
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: meat people, right, you'll like it, trust me. I think
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: the big lesson is to not call it something like
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: soil and green modern meadows is perfect. Yeah. I wonder
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: what posts the name of his group is. I didn't see,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: did you. I don't know. I would taste this just,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: you know, if they I wouldn't pay three dollars for
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: a hamburger, but um, I would taste it just to
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: see what it tasted like. But I don't know. It
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: sounds kind of gross to me. I would. I would try,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: But a lot of people say that eating meat is gross. Year.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So before you send in those emails, let me cut
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: you off. I understand that. Good go and chuck uh.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about lab grown meat
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: or any kind of things like that, you should check
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: out the Innovations channel on how stuff Works. It's pretty awesome.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Um go to how stuff Works homepage and you will
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: see in them top navigation bar. Innovations is one of
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the channels that we have to click on that or
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: you can just search for lab Grown meet in the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: handy search part how stuff works. And I said handy
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: search part, which means it's time for listener mail, Josh
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: when we call this mentor ship email. UM, Hi guys,
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: my name is Colin and I've been listening to you
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: guys since the biking episode. I've never really been diligent
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: with emails, but I always wanted to write in. I'm
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: in my senior year of high school and involved in
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: a class called Independent Study Mentorship. This program works like
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: an internship for high school students. We're responsible for finding
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: a mentor in which ever career field we are interested in.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: We do hands on work with our mentors, and throughout
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the year we can pile a portfolio that will eventually
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: be a binder filled not with women, but with everything
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: we take part in and research throughout the year. It
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: will end up about as thick as a good sized
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: dictionary or two. My whole reason for writing you, guys
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: is to thank you for doing the podcast. I've been
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: able to get by without research for about a dozen
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: or so topics for essays and projects because you guys
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: usually cover far more than my school curriculum does. Um.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: I've even been moved up to several advanced classes thanks
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: to you. Keep on doing what you're doing. It's great.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: And if I happen to get a mention at the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: end of an episode, I'd be pleasantly surprised. I've always
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: kind of wanted to mention. Here you go, Colin, and
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: so all you need to do is ask, yeah, way
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: did you go? Well, you have to ask any excel
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: at school because of us. Yes, and he says, feel
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: free to mention my name if you find this worth
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: mentioning in. Yes, I did say, y'all because I'm from
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: text Is and everyone from Texas is required to inform
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: everyone else that they're from Texas. That's true, is it? Oh? Yeah,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: all right, well Colin from Texas. Good luck with your mentorship, buddy.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: And uh, I think it's a marketing he said, and
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: drop us the line. Let's so how it went, Uh,
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: that's awesome? Yeah. Uh, Let's see what do you want
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: to ask for, Chuck? Oh, would you eat in vitro meat?
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Let's let's get that debate going. Huh sure, And you
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: know what we're gonna cover, factory farming. Because we got
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of I got a lot of heat because
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: I went off on bull fighting and a lot of
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: vegetarian said, well, how can you go off from bullfighting
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and eat meat? Um, So I'm gonna make up for
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: that by doing like a factory farming podcast. Well that's great,
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: Can I do it too? You can sit in, you
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast,
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: you can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: you Should Know, and you can send us a good
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: old fashioned email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. H