Originally posted by sonhouse
Well, for now farmers are safe due to the pesky detail of that stuff costing $9000 a pound....
My daughter Heather is a vegetarian and I asked her if she would eat meat manufactured like that and she said yes, so I think there will be a market for it if the price comes down to something reasonable.
I did a little research. The company itself (Memphis Meats) does not publish their protocols. But from a basic science standpoint, many protocols are out there that have developed a serum-free, albeit much more expensive, methodology [1]. To summarize this 2017 review article, all of these products seem to be experimental, the technical limitations are still being worked out, there are significant safety and regulatory issues to overcome, and large-scale production would be a necessary step before it would be environmentally-friendly or financially-feasible. It sounds like a year 2030+ type of time scale.
But, there is a seemingly better version of this already available [2]. It's a veggie burger, technically, but they add in heme, which is a major protein in blood. Gustatorially, this added ingredient makes it taste a lot like the real deal. Aesthetically, it looks and feels more like meat. Nutritionally, it's nearly identical to a hamburger.
And, it wouldn't put farmers out of business, since it still needs wheat, potatoes and coconut oil. According to the article, it should be in grocery stores starting this year.
Since this already exists, what improvements could actual in vitro meat make?
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25942290
[2] http://www.eastbaytimes.com/2017/03/23/oakland-impossible-meatless-burgers-ramp-up-production-at-new-facility/