• TootSweet@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    126
    ·
    1 year ago

    Why would I want my lab-grown carrots to be carrot shaped exactly? As someone who eats quite a lot of carrots, I’d rather have my lab-grown carrots be rectangular-prism shaped for easy stacking.

  • AdmiralShat@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    63
    ·
    1 year ago

    I feel like it would actually just be easier to make vertical growing factories for vegetables than do the same thing but worse by still growing the material, and then making them vegetable shaped.

    Like, those cells will require the same nutrients and same growing conditions, and they naturally 3D print themselves into the shape of themselves.

    • Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      32
      arrow-down
      5
      ·
      1 year ago

      Like, those cells will require the same nutrients and same growing conditions, and they naturally 3D print themselves into the shape of themselves.

      They’ll also naturally use the nutrients and energy to 3D print stuff that’s not useful to humans, like leaves, roots, flowers, etc. Basically this is how vat grown vegetables, meat, etc, can potentially be more efficient than the typical approach.

      • MysticKetchup@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        22
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        1 year ago

        Do we need to be more efficient? We have the resources to feed everyone on Earth and have leftovers we just aren’t allocating it correctly.

        We could also increase efficiency even further by reducing meat/dairy consumption. Lab grown stuff feels like an over-engineered tech bro solution to a societal problem

        • Kerfuffle@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          12
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 year ago

          Do we need to be more efficient?

          I mean, it’s usually a beneficial thing. Using less resources (including land) to produce the same amount of food is probably going to mean less environmental damage. In the case of switching to vat grown meat it also means not torturing billions of animals every year.

          We have the resources to feed everyone on Earth and have leftovers

          Sure. No one starves because the food just isn’t on this planet, they starve because the people who have it won’t give it to them. That said, we’re also not using resources very sustainably so saying we produce enough food currently isn’t the same as saying we can continue this way.

          We could also increase efficiency even further by reducing meat/dairy consumption.

          I don’t eat any animal products so you can probably guess this is something I’m strongly in favor of as well!

          Anyway, I was just responding to what I quoted not specifically arguing for 3d-printed foods. Depending on how it’s implemented, it may or may not be better environmentally than the status quo

        • frezik@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          1 year ago

          That logistical problem is something this could potentially fix. You don’t ship individual carrots/cucumbers/lettuce/whatever to stores in the city. You ship the base nutrients in giant amounts, grow what you want, and bring them over to the store down the block.

          Logistics is boring, but it rules everything.

        • SeaJ
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          8
          ·
          1 year ago

          We do not sustainably have the resources to feed everyone. Even if things were allocated more evenly, we would still be looking at water shortfalls and over usage of land.

          • stown@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 year ago

            So let’s continue to allow some people to have more than enough while others have none. No sense in trying since @SeaJ@lemm.ee said it could not happen.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Chain of production. Ask, where do the materials to “mimic the soil in the lab” are coming from? What are the required materials to manufacture the nutrients and substrate for plant cell reproduction? Contrary to our usual perception, lab materials aren’t magically put on shelves by lab faeries.

        You’ll usually find that it is fossil fuels. Since we currently don’t have a way to mass produce nutrients with sustainable sources (specially ammonia as the source of nitrogen). They’re distilled from oil. Other nutrients are taken from other agricultural produce, that still need land and maintenance to be grown then processed into the materials to make the growth mediums. They’ll say that they will recycle and use produce refuse, but usually this is thrown away by industrialists because the thing is expensive and difficult to recycle from bad materials. Another source is mining, and we all know how we are doing ethically on that front.

        At the end, the cost reduce is usually just the product of pushing costs to atmospheric pollution and human exploitation. At a large scale with mass production, the net cost surges up again to the cost of just growing the damn carrot on the ground. Everything looks cheaper on the lab. Nothing can come from nothing.

      • TurtlePower
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        But those things are useful to animals. It’s called an ecosystem.

        • sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Do you believe that when grown in a vertical farm as you’ve suggested these plants are part of an ecosystem?

          Or, separately, do you think that we could make them part of one while being more efficient than without? The answer to both is no.

          Though, I agree it’s unlikely to me that even with this waste this is more officiant. Technology will have to be maintained, training will have to be undertaken, and expertise will be lost

  • cyd@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    39
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    “Can be” is doing a lot of work in that title.

    There are sound reasons to think that growing meat in the lab will eventually be more efficient than growing animals. You don’t have to support the metabolism of the whole animal and everything it eats. Not to mention the reduction in animal suffering.

    But lab grown vegetables? What’s the point?

    • spittingimage@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      It says exactly what the point is in the article: reducing dependence on imports when there’s not enough arable land to feed a population.

      • cyd@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        1 year ago

        Urban farming is the way to go for that. Modern crop plants are really very efficient organisms. It is doubtful that lab growing cells (which is hardly free of overhead) can come anywhere close to competing with that.

        • frezik@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          Urban farming . . . in Qatar?

          But I agree that this should be compared with hydroponics systems with efficient water recycling.

    • Venat0r@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      I guess the point is to be able to grow it in a desert, but I think it should still be cheaper and easier to grow it indoors hydroponically instead… Unless maybe it uses less water? But hydroponics can recycle all the water used so I don’t think that’s a huge advantage.

      • frezik@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        1 year ago

        Some of the water in hydroponics will be lost to evaporation, and some of it is also in the plant itself. With a good setup, you can probably recover a lot of the evaporated water, at least. Basically, think like a Fremen.

  • realitista
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    32
    ·
    1 year ago

    I can’t believe that this is economically viable. Strange times.

      • ForgotAboutDre@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        1 year ago

        Carrots are 50 pence a kg right now. So it’s not very competitive. However, the current price probably relies on subsidies.

        • gmtom@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          And the 3d printing tech is not mature so would come down a lot as the process scales up.

        • Alexstarfire@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          1 year ago

          Less than double the price and somehow that’s not competitive? Guess organic isn’t viable then.

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    1 year ago

    Carrots are fucking easy to grow. You can grow them through winter. I need to repair the domes on my planters but I had them year round for like 4 years until my dad adopted the local raccoons.

  • Treczoks@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    1 year ago

    I hope it tastes better than the 2kg bag of carrots I had bough for yesterdays dinner. I peeled half of them, and each and every of it tasted like basically nothing. Except for the last I peeled, which was bitter.

  • credit crazy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    14
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    1 year ago

    Perchance this could mean we can get carrots of different shapes maybe a carrot shaped like …mm

  • NeoNachtwaechter@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    ·
    1 year ago

    United Nations report, published in July, 735 million people are currently facing hunger

    This silly way of bringing in the issue of world hunger, while it is still just a super small and super rich country where some students play with crazy technology.

  • celerate@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    1 year ago

    Someone please explain to me how 3D printing vegetables could be cheaper or more efficient than just growing them?