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"It’s people! Soylent green is made out of people", to quote from the classic 1973 science fiction film and Charlton Heston’s memorable line. (1970s era spoiler alert!): In Soylent Green, due to global collapse, a desperate and dying humanity is unknowingly being fed human remains as a food source. But due to biological and scientific advances we can apparently eat humans now, willingly, and with a side of mustard. Why wait for catastrophe?
Once more life imitates art, and a startup called BiteLabs is looking for support to create meat products from celebrity body parts, aiming to take cells from willing celebs and using them to grow protein into test-tube meat.
LATimes.com spoke with a representative of the organization: "At the moment, our primary goal is to provoke discussion and debate around topics of bioethics and celebrity culture."
Provocative indeed, but not necessarily a new idea. In recent years the idea of food made out of evidently tasty humans has been put forward, only to repulse the public and get pulled from shelves. Human breast milk ice cream had its moment in the sun, Princess Diana’s hair was involved in the production of occult jam, and two Dutch TV presenters ate slices of each others’ flesh for a television program.
Even ’human cheese’ has been made with belly-button bacteria. Certainly an acquired taste.
Los Angeles Times’ "Daily Dish" reports on the newest and ’coolest’ way to devour ourselves:
[...]Here’s how it will work, according to the BiteLabs website. A sample of tissue containing myosatellite cells (the type of cells that help repair and regrow damaged muscle) will be taken from a person during a biopsy. Those cells are multiplied in a lab using a medium that acts as an artificial blood to grow muscle.
Once the cells are mature enough, they will be ground and mixed with different kinds of meat, spices, fats and oils for flavor using one of the company’s "time-honored recipes for the creation of fine cured meats." It will then be stuffed into casings, seasoned again then dry aged and cured before packaging for distribution.
The company outlines how this type of test-tube meat would eliminate environmental and ethical concerns associated with livestock production, claiming its celebrity meat production would require less than 1% of the land used in traditional farming. The site also notes, the lab meats will not be affected by growth hormones or come into contact with any pesticides or chemicals.
And as far as the celebrity angle, BiteLabs is hoping they can use celebrities to warm people up to the idea of consuming the meat.
I've seen a few actresses described as "tasty" or "scrumptious" from time to time but ...
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
feth bio sample test-tube meat noise! Let's do some real fething science and put Kim Kardashian's ass on a body with Anna Nicole's breasts and Emily Blunt's face.
And make her 8 feet tall!
For the story!
Edit: Yes, I said Kim Kardashian. No, I don't like her. Yes, I want her off my TV. But she has a nice rear end...
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2014/03/14 13:40:36
The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all
We love our superheroes because they refuse to give up on us. We can analyze them out of existence, kill them, ban them, mock them, and still they return, patiently reminding us of who we are and what we wish we could be.
"the play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king,
kronk wrote: feth bio sample test-tube meat noise! Let's do some real fething science and put Kim Kardashian's ass on a body with Anna Nicole's breasts and Emily Blunt's face.
And make her 8 feet tall!
For the story!
Edit: Yes, I said Kim Kardashian. No, I don't like her. Yes, I want her off my TV. But she has a nice rear end...
gorgon wrote: *yawn* And finally the rest of the world catches up to the Catholic church. We've been eating the body of Jesus Christ for almost 2000 years...
Yes they have. And I can tell you from experience, he's gone a bit stale. Son of Man or Son of God, nobody lasts two millenia without proper refrigeration.
Emperor's Eagles (undergoing Chapter reorganization)
Caledonian 95th (undergoing regimental reorganization)
Thousands Sons (undergoing Warband re--- wait, are any of my 40K armies playable?)
I would pay good money for artificially grown loli feet. Cook 'em up and serve them with mashed yukon potatoes and asparagus and you'd have a nice clean-conscious delicacy.
Have we learned nothing from the House of Atreus? Woe befalls the cannibal, their children, and their childrens' children!
Usually the curse has killed all branches of the line by this point; theoretically it would continue to doom subsequent branches of the line.
Klawz-Ramming is a subset of citrus fruit?
Gwar- "And everyone wants a bigger Spleen!"
Mercurial wrote:
I admire your aplomb and instate you as Baron of the Seas and Lord Marshall of Privateers.
Orkeosaurus wrote:Star Trek also said we'd have X-Wings by now. We all see how that prediction turned out.
Orkeosaurus, on homophobia, the nature of homosexuality, and the greatness of George Takei.
English doesn't borrow from other languages. It follows them down dark alleyways and mugs them for loose grammar.
The company outlines how this type of test-tube meat would eliminate environmental and ethical concerns associated with livestock production, claiming its celebrity meat production would require less than 1% of the land used in traditional farming. The site also notes, the lab meats will not be affected by growth hormones or come into contact with any pesticides or chemicals.
While the idea of using celebrity cells is bizarre and morbid, it's apparently just a publicity stunt for a very real step that needs to happen at some point. Vat grown meat pretty much solves everyone's problems. You get healthier meat with less environmental impact and fewer ethical concerns. And despite what we might see in Crichton films or SyFy Original Movies, I don't think we're all going to turn into giant mutant hybrids of George Clooney or Kim Kardashian. And even if Michael Crichton's worst fears DO come true, there's always some white knight ultra-liberal hippy scientist with "real" respect for the science to ride in and SAVE the day. (Not like his stories are predictable or anything...not at all. )
Iron_Captain wrote: Even thinking about eating people makes me want to puke, but it is (or was) considered normal in some cultures.
Shrug. If I was visiting a cannibalistic locale for whatever reason (believe me, I don't ever expect this), and I was offered up human flesh, I'd pile on the dinosaur BBQ sauce and give it a go. I don't crave the taste of human (unless we're talking hot females in the rated-X way), but I would politely try it in BBQ sauce in the appropriate environment. A Clooney-burger sounds awful though.
Reality is a nice place to visit, but I'd hate to live there.
Manchu wrote:I'm a Catholic. We eat our God.
Due to work, I can usually only ship any sales or trades out on Saturday morning. Please trade/purchase with this in mind.
kronk wrote: feth bio sample test-tube meat noise! Let's do some real fething science and put Kim Kardashian's ass on a body with Anna Nicole's breasts and Emily Blunt's face.
And make her 8 feet tall!
For the story!
Edit: Yes, I said Kim Kardashian. No, I don't like her. Yes, I want her off my TV. But she has a nice rear end...
Is this not the greatest first reply in a thread about science ever conceived?
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2014/03/16 16:51:41
Emperor's Eagles (undergoing Chapter reorganization)
Caledonian 95th (undergoing regimental reorganization)
Thousands Sons (undergoing Warband re--- wait, are any of my 40K armies playable?) 
5000pts 
6000pts 
)
