{"items": [{"author": "Kevin", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/113992967683199577976", "anchor": "gp-1403464775924", "service": "gp", "text": " great thoughts! ", "timestamp": 1403464775}, {"author": "Phillip", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665086928342", "anchor": "fb-665086928342", "service": "fb", "text": "There will always be absolutists, only the causes will change.", "timestamp": "1403466352"}, {"author": "Vivian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665094183802", "anchor": "fb-665094183802", "service": "fb", "text": "As a vegetarian for mostly non-animal-rights reasons, I'm not sure whether I would call in-vitro meat \"vegetarian\". Would I be able to digest it easily with a digestive system that is not used to digesting animal flesh? Would uncooked in-vitro meat have just as risky bacteria in the kitchen as uncooked animals do?

Also, thankfully: Wikipedia says farmland per calorie will probably be much lower for in-vitro meat than live animal meat.", "timestamp": "1403468380"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665129009012", "anchor": "fb-665129009012", "service": "fb", "text": "@Isaac: In-vitro meat is mostly an attempt to reduce animal suffering, and improve efficiency a somewhat. Depending on one's reasons for being vegetarian it may or may not be an improvement.

For me, animal suffering is the main issue, so I think figuring out whether it would be an improvement along those lines is important.", "timestamp": "1403475266"}, {"author": "Vivian", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665129263502", "anchor": "fb-665129263502", "service": "fb", "text": "Jeff: and I'm pretty happy about your analyses of animal suffering! They make it easier for me to tell which things actually lead to less suffering. Is one of your posts a summary of which foods/products/activities you think are the most important to avoid?", "timestamp": "1403475439"}, {"author": "Pablo", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665130555912", "anchor": "fb-665130555912", "service": "fb", "text": "I think the views expressed in sentences such as \"I am not interested in 'less' suffering, but in 'zero' suffering\" are vulnerable to a debunking argument. Such views seem to be the result of a heuristic analogous to the \"zero risk\" bias, which inclines people to prefer the complete elimination of smaller risks over the partial elimination of larger risks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-risk_bias). Since this bias is clearly irrational, it's plausible to conclude that so is the \"zero suffering\" bias.", "timestamp": "1403476031"}, {"author": "Peter", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665130565892", "anchor": "fb-665130565892", "service": "fb", "text": "You should post this on some of the vegan groups", "timestamp": "1403476054"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665138155682", "anchor": "fb-665138155682", "service": "fb", "text": "I do \"reject wheat because of field mouse deaths\" or more precisely I don't consider animal rights activists credible if they eat factory farmed vegetables.", "timestamp": "1403478660"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665140645692", "anchor": "fb-665140645692", "service": "fb", "text": "@Kiran: \"I don't consider animal rights activists credible if they eat factory farmed vegetables.\"

That's unfair: it's very hard for individual animal rights activists to get information on how much suffering is entailed by various vegetable choices.", "timestamp": "1403479950"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665141104772", "anchor": "fb-665141104772", "service": "fb", "text": "I guess it's true that most of them are simply and literally ignorant of the cost in small animal lives caused by mechanized plant farming. But many of them spend a fair amount if time telling meat eaters about the cost in suffering; it seems to me they have an obligation to figure this out. If an animal-rights vegan or vegetarian wants any credibility with me, they shouldn't be eating salads at restaurants or buying food from farms that use machines.", "timestamp": "1403480336"}, {"author": "Mad", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/100533872344198336746", "anchor": "gp-1403483728973", "service": "gp", "text": "I see later that you mentioned \"animal-derived growth medium\". I think you may be vastly underestimating the amount of \"animal\" that is required to produce the medium, which is regularly replaced as the cells are cultured (i.e. the volume of medium used for a given volume of cells will be orders of magnitude larger).\u00a0\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fetal_bovine_serum", "timestamp": 1403483728}, {"author": "Jan-Willem", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/100580955183019057735", "anchor": "gp-1403487448264", "service": "gp", "text": "You seem to spend a disproportionate amount of your time arguing with vegans about in-vitro meat...", "timestamp": 1403487448}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665221922812", "anchor": "fb-665221922812", "service": "fb", "text": "@Kiran: I talked to Wayne, a smart and dedicated animal rights activist, about this question: why focus on veganism when even vegan food entails some amount of animal suffering. My memory of his response is (a) that the suffering of animals on farms is so much greater than the suffering caused by mechanized plant farming that we should prioritize the former, and (b) veganism is a nice bright line to focus on, and we should work on getting everyone past this point before we try to go further. This makes sense to me, so I don't share your frustration over their lack of focus on the suffering involved in vegan food production.

I just think using this logic to write off in-vitro meat takes it too far.", "timestamp": "1403527547"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665222830992", "anchor": "fb-665222830992", "service": "fb", "text": "It's very likely that the animals ground under the wheels of tractors and combines don't suffer very much or very long. But I haven't seen what animals experience on so-called factory farms, but I'm considering going out to tour the Peterson Farm (which got into a row with Chipotle a while back) to see for myself how the cows are doing--not because there's any chance of that affecting my views, just to satisfy my curiosity.

And no matter how smart or dedicated Wayne is, if he wants me to consider his views at all, instead of dismissing them without bothering to listen, he needs to provably insure his food isn't being grown on the corpses of small animals.", "timestamp": "1403528285"}, {"author": "opted out", "source_link": "#", "anchor": "unknown", "service": "unknown", "text": "this user has requested that their comments not be shown here", "timestamp": "1403531217"}, {"author": "Francisco", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665233464682", "anchor": "fb-665233464682", "service": "fb", "text": "Some ground animals don't get crushed by machines, some have only parts of their limbs crushed and thus some of the suffering may be prolonged. Maybe machines designed to detect and avoid (prolonged) suffering would help.", "timestamp": "1403532717"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1403533364387", "service": "gp", "text": "@Madeleine\n\u00a0You're right: growing in-vitro meat in fetal bovine serum isn't an improvement along these lines. \u00a0But as we figure out what aspects of this serum are required, we should be able to move away from it.\u00a0See for example comment \nhttps://www.facebook.com/groups/EffectiveAnimalActivism/permalink/292701087567436/?comment_id=293696534134558\n by Matt Sharp which links to\u00a0\nhttp://www.sigmaaldrich.com/life-science/cell-culture/classical-media-salts/animal-component-free.html\n\u00a0\u00a0 If in-vitro meat is going to become cheap enough to be widely consumed it definitely can't depend on cow fetuses.\n
\n
\nYou know much more about this than me, though, so perhaps my optimism is misplaced? \u00a0Is creating an animal-free growth medium a hard problem on the scale of creating in-vitro meat in the first place?", "timestamp": 1403533364}, {"author": "Mad", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/100533872344198336746", "anchor": "gp-1403534670655", "service": "gp", "text": "It's hard because there's really not any market pressure to develop it, especially not at the low costs needed for bulk fake meat production. Getting from here to there is never \"impossible\", but seems highly improbable given the lack of selective pressures in the market to make technological improvements in media.\n
\n
\nSee the current FBS costs: \nhttp://www.usascientific.com/fetal-bovine-serum.aspx\n
\n
\nIn light of the current market's media cost and origin, in vitro strikes me as a technological straw man that distracts from discussion of more realistic solutions.", "timestamp": 1403534670}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1403535644471", "service": "gp", "text": "$400/L for FBS is really expensive, no? \u00a0So I would think market pressure to develop a cheaper substitute would already exist? \u00a0So the lack of a cheaper substitute is at least a little evidence that one is difficult?\n
\n
\nOr are the quantities people use FBS for generally small enough that $400/L is not a problem?\n
\n
\nLooking at random products on\u00a0\nhttp://www.sigmaaldrich.com/life-science/cell-culture/classical-media-salts/animal-component-free.html\n (the first 10) they seem to average about $60/L. \u00a0But I don't know enough about these to tell whether they're comparable. \u00a0And $60/L is still very far from giving us in-vitro meat at a reasonable cost, right?\n
\n
\n\"In light of the current market's media cost and origin, in vitro strikes me as a technological straw man that distracts from discussion of more realistic solutions.\"\n
\n
\nMaybe. \u00a0I'm still trying to understand how realistic in-vitro meat is.", "timestamp": 1403535644}, {"author": "Mad", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/100533872344198336746", "anchor": "gp-1403537738599", "service": "gp", "text": "Right, I consider the lack of a cheaper substitute as evidence that one is difficult. Quantities aren't small, especially not relative to the volume of cells. The lower costs in the Sigma Aldrich list is better, but yeah - to me it looks very unrealistic (not impossible, just unlikely) so I get cranky about the topic. ;-)", "timestamp": 1403537738}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://plus.google.com/103013777355236494008", "anchor": "gp-1403538576404", "service": "gp", "text": "@Madeleine\n\u00a0\"I consider the lack of a cheaper substitute as evidence that one is difficult. Quantities aren't small, especially not relative to the volume of cells.\"\n
\n
\nFor large scale production of meat for human consumption, I agree the quantities aren't small at all. \u00a0That's only a minuscule slice of current growth media use right now, though, so for understanding the current economic incentives the question is how much cost pressure there is on media users now. \u00a0If expensive experiments only require a few mL then there may only be minimal pressure now?", "timestamp": 1403538576}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665314946392", "anchor": "fb-665314946392", "service": "fb", "text": "So it's better to just grind up animals in pursuit of your dinner but not okay to kill a single animal to make it your dinner. I just don't get this kind of thinking. (I also don't get utilitarianism because I do think it leads to some pretty scary conclusions.)

(And If Wayne truly wants to reduce animal \"suffering\" he should trap and hunt his own dinner and work toward legalizing the sale of wild game.)", "timestamp": "1403563133"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665316927422", "anchor": "fb-665316927422", "service": "fb", "text": "@Kiran: Why do you think animals in the wild don't suffer?", "timestamp": "1403564085"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665318703862", "anchor": "fb-665318703862", "service": "fb", "text": "I think they have difficult lives on account of living in the wild. (For the record, I think the concept of \"suffering\" doesn't apply to most animals and certainly not to the common food ones, which might not be clear merely from the fact I don't use the word without scare quotes.) But if one's goal is to minimize animal discomfort, I think killing only the animals you actually eat it is less wasteful of life than killing huge numbers of animals and using them for fertilizer so you can eat vegetables.

In other words, when my friend raises a goat and I kill it and turn it into hamburger, one animal dies. How is that not better than dozens of animals dying in obscurity and likely willful ignorance on the part of their killers? Goat burgers, BTW, are extremely delicious.", "timestamp": "1403564444"}, {"author": "Jeff Kaufman", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665319312642", "anchor": "fb-665319312642", "service": "fb", "text": "@Kiran: \"killing huge numbers of animals and using them for fertilizer so you can eat vegetables\"

Huh? How many animals do you think are harmed per pound of random veggies? Very roughly? My post is based on that number not being zero, but I still think it's far less than one.", "timestamp": "1403564803"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665320355552", "anchor": "fb-665320355552", "service": "fb", "text": "Per pound? That's not a fair number, since a single grass-fed cow is about a year's worth of food, and most non-starchy vegetables provide scant calories--you have to grow starches and those tend to be grown on farms, not in gardens.

This article tries to answer that question. But the key word is \"tries\" because not enough people *ask* that question.

http://theconversation.com/ordering-the-vegetarian-meal...", "timestamp": "1403565207"}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665339337512", "anchor": "fb-665339337512", "service": "fb", "text": "Would animal agriculture produce \"direct\" animal suffering PLUS all of the suffering from the plant agricultural products we feed them? (\"Grass fed\" is very rare, a and I believe usually includes only a small portion of the cow's life.)", "timestamp": "1403570848"}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665339601982", "anchor": "fb-665339601982", "service": "fb", "text": "(... And it takes a lot more plants to feed an animal to feed a human than just plants to feed a human. I didn't think I cared much about this \"inefficiency\", but maybe here's an argument I should. )", "timestamp": "1403570986"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665344312542", "anchor": "fb-665344312542", "service": "fb", "text": "It does take more \"plants\" to make meat, but that includes things like grass, weeds, and silage, that we can't eat, as well as things like out of date Twinkies that we shouldn't.

But the rabbits and squirrels in your back yard are also edible, and who knows what they're eating, never mind the goat that keeps eating your grass so you don't have to run the lawn mower.

The reason we eat animals is that they're very efficient at producing food from anything, concentrating nutrition to the point that humans can live on them exclusively if necessary.", "timestamp": "1403573541"}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665345654852", "anchor": "fb-665345654852", "service": "fb", "text": "Sure, they concentrate nutrition, but they're really not very efficient at doing so. I'm not counting all of those plant types, just the ones that lead to the plant-agriculture-induced animal deaths that you're talking about.

I don't think there's any point in talking about squirrels. I do think that it's wrong to kill and eat them, but they're a tiny (essentially zero) proportion of the animal flesh that humans eat anyway.", "timestamp": "1403574418"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665347351452", "anchor": "fb-665347351452", "service": "fb", "text": "They're much more efficient at extracting nutrition than humans are, especially from ones we can't. And the only reason squirrel isn't a large part of the diet is because you're squeamish. That's easily fixed: turn them into delicious multimammal burgers to go with multigrain buns.

(It's also worth saying that excess carbohydrate consumption, but not meat or fat consumption, is being shown to be seemingly responsible for a host of modern diseases. In the future, I expect a strong argument in favor of eating animals to be that they don't make you sick. But the science to support that isn't there yet.)", "timestamp": "1403575476"}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665352690752", "anchor": "fb-665352690752", "service": "fb", "text": "1. You really think wild squirrels could be a significant portion of people's diet, even if they didn't mind eating them? (Note that my own squeamishness isn't an issue, since eating any mammal flesh is about equally disgusting to me.)", "timestamp": "1403576617"}, {"author": "David Chudzicki", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665352855422", "anchor": "fb-665352855422", "service": "fb", "text": "2. It's not hard to have a high protein plant diet. Also, modern Americans eat much more a animal than we used to.", "timestamp": "1403576723"}, {"author": "Kiran", "source_link": "https://www.facebook.com/jefftk/posts/665075920402?comment_id=665372451152", "anchor": "fb-665372451152", "service": "fb", "text": "Well, not literally just squirrels, but all sorts of wild game, including African species introduced to the Southwest, and giant herds of caribou in the North (we had reindeer a few years ago for Xmas eve dinner and it was the best red meat I've ever tasted.)

The claim that Americans ate fewer animal products in the past is unsupported by data, as reported in the recent articles about fat consumption and health. We just don't know what people ate before we all started eating at supermarkets.

Meat is 25% protein by weight, and the highest protein vegetables I know of (lentils) are at best about 12% and contain significant carbs. I'm told it's possible to be a low-carb vegan, but it can't be easy to get even the RDA for protein (which I believe to be too low) without a significant carb intake.

That said, I prefer a moderate-protein, high-fat diet, (70% of calories from fat) and it's pretty hard to do that without either animal products or heavily processed plant products, unless you eat avocados, coconuts, and olives. The energy used in processing and transport also has a cost in animal lives.", "timestamp": "1403584159"}]}