Molecular farming company Moolec has inserted pig genes into soy beans to generate meaty-tasting proteins that can be grown in plants.

I’m naturally quite cautious about things like this, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts.

  • CoreOffset@lemm.eeOPEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    I absolutely agree with that statement. I guess I had assumed, maybe wrongly, that you wouldn’t have to do any of that. Do you know of a source that goes into the specifics?

    • dat_math [they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      9 months ago

      you wouldn’t have to do any of that.

      I would think the animal exploitation is only absolutely necessary early in R&D where they’re still figuring out stuff like which sequences code for production of what proteins, how those are expressed and how these interact with other instructions in the plant dna.

      However, I also expect there’s much more profit to be made in continued testing, more animal-based R&D in the form of trying to translate desirable phenotypes in animal meat to the plant-produced analog, and in selling the protein back to the meat industry who can mix it with similarly graded animal protein and sell it to omnivores as a greenwashed meat product. All I’m trying to say is that I think they should do the R&D without exploiting more animals.

      • davel [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
        1·
        9 months ago

        and in selling the protein back to the meat industry who can mix it with similarly graded animal protein

        I can absolutely see this happening. I can also see them slowly replacing the actual meat with more and more nonmeat fillers over time, as fewer and fewer people can even afford meat.