Your Steak — Medium, Rare or Cloned?

[GotGarlic]

I have one questions: The article says that a cloned cow costs between $10,000 and $20,000 while a standard cow costs about $50. The article also says that cloned cows will never amount to more than a minuscule part of the market.
So what are the benefits if cloning costs so much more and will never account for a majority of the meat sold?

My understanding is that the cloned animals will be used as breeding stock and their offspring is what will become meat.

From NPR: Cloned Beef: It's What's for Dinner? :
Cloning creates a genetic copy of an animal, so making clones of a cow that produces an amazing amount of milk, for example, could be quite lucrative. Several companies are trying to make a business out of cloning; those animals could then be used for breeding.

btw, I like my steak medium rare.

 

[VaporTrail]

Tank beef (meat grown essentially in vitro) would probably wind up being very similar to Kobe or Weygu. The muscle would (unless the engineering is done for it) get no exercise and would probably cut like butter. But beef-flavored flan doesn't really sound appatizing to me as a constant. I prefer to have some variety in my steaks and the occasional shoe sole makes you appreciate those nice porterhouses.

And even if you could get tank beef to be a perfect replica of any cut of meat simply by varying the stimulus and nutrients etc, I think that until we face massive space restrictions (such as those that would hold on any forseeable permanent lunar or arean colony) that letting the beef raise itself (be it cloned or naturally bred) would likely be cheaper than having a tank farm that would require a lot more (and a lot higher tech) maintanece than simple beef on the hoof.

Though I do hope someone does do the research on it. I'd hate to take a trip to the moon (probably somewhere in my twilight years) and discover there is no steak to be had...

 

[Andy M.]

Tank beef (meat grown essentially in vitro) would probably wind up being very similar to Kobe or Weygu. The muscle would (unless the engineering is done for it) get no exercise and would probably cut like butter. But beef-flavored flan doesn't really sound appatizing to me as a constant. I prefer to have some variety in my steaks and the occasional shoe sole makes you appreciate those nice porterhouses.

And even if you could get tank beef to be a perfect replica of any cut of meat simply by varying the stimulus and nutrients etc, I think that until we face massive space restrictions (such as those that would hold on any forseeable permanent lunar or arean colony) that letting the beef raise itself (be it cloned or naturally bred) would likely be cheaper than having a tank farm that would require a lot more (and a lot higher tech) maintanece than simple beef on the hoof.

Though I do hope someone does do the research on it. I'd hate to take a trip to the moon (probably somewhere in my twilight years) and discover there is no steak to be had...

Where did you get the idea that a cloned steer would be grown to maturity in a tank? That's not what happens.

 

[Ask-A-Butcher]

A million years ago I helped my daughter with a science project, which consisted of building a self contained space station. It had separate modules for crops, live stock, fish farming, etc. This past year my grand daughter did a similar project (I didn't help!!) by making a farm utilizing one acre of land! She built two 10 story buildings that housed hydroponic crops & fish and various live stock on the different levels.

I can see the cloned cattle being raised this way in the not too distant future when we don't have any land left.

 

[VaporTrail]

Where did you get the idea that a cloned steer would be grown to maturity in a tank? That's not what happens.

/me points: http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/showpost.php?p=552425&postcount=17 (Goodweed's post)

Well aware that the way cloning would be used is essentially: pick a cow past sexual maturity, implant it with a embryo (which could be a carbon copy of the cow getting implanted...) and let the cow give birth and raise the cloned critter "naturally".

Which is why I think straight up cloned beef will always be cheaper than tank beef, at least here on Earth until we start having living space problems.

 

[Andy M.]

Goodweed of the North...This is pure speculation, folks, born from reading and writing too much science fiction...

I guess you missed this part of his post...

 

[CharlieD]

As long it is not human they cloning i do not care.

And the stake, rare please.