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Re:Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’ by CamperBob2 on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @01:17AM (#10008130)
Have you looked at how much food, water, energy, equipment, and space it takes to raise livestock? It's insane.
Re:Federal Judge Strikes Down Idaho ‘Ag-Gag Law’ by Jweb_Guru on Wednesday August 05, 2015 @02:13AM (#10008249)
I'm well aware of how insane livestock costs are. Unfortunately, synthetic food costs are even more insane (and last time I checked, most depend on existing animal products anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat#Challenges--take a look at the existing culture medium candidates, keeping in mind that fetal bovine serum is made from cattle blood): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat#Economic. Note that the person saying that it will be cost-competitive in ten years has a pretty vested interest in that being the case.

I'd be particularly wary of anyone citing vertical farms as being a cost saver: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vertical_farming#Problems.

To be clear, it's possible that these problems are surmountable. But frankly, it would be a hell of a lot cheaper (both economically and from an environmental standpoint) to change our dietary habits; meat with every meal is going to be costly no matter what.