I think it's a great idea and it will eventually be cheaper than actual living animals. The same goes for cultured milk. Bacteria pumping out dairy will be cheaper as well. The faster it ends the meat and dairy industry, the better.

Here's the thing, as I see it. Meat eaters don't genuinely care about the ethics of meat. They give no shits about factory farming. So lab grown meat won't be popular until it becomes significantly cheaper than standard factory farming. And even then conservatives will insist on eating real meat for ideological reasons, just like they do today.

(I mean, look at the impossible burgers. They were damn near identical to ground beef, and at a similar price point. But similar wasn't good enough - they didn't get it cheaper than actual ground beef so it ended up just a brief fad.)

And lab grown meat doesn't have the short supply chain of a live animal in a field. Even factory farming at its most factoriest is pretty straightforward - grow corn, feed it to pigs in tiny cages, pump them full of antibiotics, repeat. Lab grown meat doesn't have the cruelty factor but the complexity of its supply chain and the amount of artificial inputs it requires, not only make it antithetical to solarpunk philosophy in a different way, but make it highly unlikely it'll ever be competitive price-wise.

What we need is a pre-industrial-revolution attitude towards food. Our calories should be primarily vegetarian and vegan, grown naturally from the soil. Food shouldn't be an industrial product. And there's nothing more industrial than lab-grown meat.

I think if it ends up being commercially viable, it'll hopefully cause factory farms to shrink. They've been pretty tight-lipped about how much energy it'll require, though.

But personally, I'm not all that interested at this point. The plant based alternative meats are just... Really damn good now, like crazy good. Impossible burgers and 'chicken' patties are literally indistinguishable for me. If anything, I think impossible burgers taste better than any real burger I've ever had, and I'm someone who was a pretty big meat lover.

For less expensive options, there's soy curls, which I've found to be a versatile, healthy, and protein rich generic meat that can take on any flavor I put on it. So I can still have pulled pork BBQ, Beef in my chili, or some great low-carb tacos.

I tried some plant-based breaded fish thing from trader joes recently, and god dang if it wasn't excellent.

The alternatives are already here, and they're delicious. I feel like lab grown meat will be there for people who psychologically just have to have 'real' meat for some reason, but ideologically don't want to support factory farming.

Idk honestly. I was kinda excited, but after being vegan for some time, i stopped missing meat as a whole and don't see the point anymore.

I mean, I've never been much of a meat fan to begin with, but to me, it feels like rather much effort for relatively little payoff. Like, we've got easily produceable alternatives out of seitan, soy etc. for basically all meat forms, except steak.

And even for steak, I still feel like you can achieve the essence of it (chewiness, taste, use in dishes) with soy medallions. It won't be exactly the same, but still close enough to satiate most cravings for steak, I feel.

The advantage of creating an exact replica is for people who don't want to try anything new or are not willing to make any concessions at all.
Like, I'm not sure my dad would actively try lab-grown meat, because of that whole not-trying-anything-new thing, but maybe some folks will have a slightly more open mind, and therefore be cool with lab-grown meat, but not the plant-based alternatives.
So, yeah, maybe lab-grown meat or 3D-printed meat needs to exist for the next few generations. But I feel like we'll phase it out eventually.

My bets are on meat alternatives like soy protein based foods etc. That's what I eat often as well. But if people started eating lab grown meat I would totally love that and I bet the animals would love that too

There's less animal harm involved (but with the current methods still some). And it will always inefficient to do the extra conversion step in order to get consumeable proteins.

Well, the last time I checked in they were still relying on fetal bovine serum and cancer cell growth to make lab meat production work (look it up yourself tho). I mean on paper it seems like good option if animal suffering is your concern, but (long term) health impacts of cancer meat are still a mild concern ig. And also it's exorbitantly expensive (citation needed) if you can even buy it and still requires loads of resources to produce. I'd much prefer a cheap alternative, not imitation, for cheap meat. It may be hard to replace a grilled stake (in flavor, texture and most of all people's preference) but looking at cheap pink slices of processed goo I half way expect them to already be vegan, but like in a really bad way. I feel like meat alternatives should start where it's easy and tackle 'authentic' meat a later time. In the meantime I'm way more concerned with ending special meat subsidies in favor of supporting resource efficient vegan alternatives. Make vegan food cheap and people will follow, no need for perfection. For the record I'm not (quite) a vegan and price and convince are like the only things holding me back so far.

I'm just afraid that it will be impossible to distinguish between real meat and lab meat. You'll start seeing "lab meat" for sale that is advertised as ethical and ecological, but might actually contain mostly actual animals. Also, I fear that the fake meats we have today get totally replaced my lab meat, the same way fake meats like beyond and impossible mostly replaced the shelf space of the more tradicional veggie burgers.

In general I think it will be a net positive for veganism, but capitalism always has a way to screw us over.

I'm not completely opposed to it, but I think it would need to do better than plant-based meat alternatives in terms of water, energy and land use for me to actually be considerable. But even then, I have started to not like the taste of very meaty meat (I ate ham some time ago on accident and it was ok-ish from a taste point, but I can't imagine eating a steak or something similar, even lab-grown).

I feel if you're doing lab grown meat for consumption you're hilariously missing the point. Once you get off it for awhile you realize how absolutely disgusting it really is. Like, it's so covered in fecal bacteria you're practically eating the animal's poop and the chemicals they use to clean it aren't pleasant either.

Lab grown meat is an excuse for people that aren't capable of empathy to tell themselves its all gonna be okay oNcE LaB MeAt iS AffOrDAble