22 thoughts on “Steak”

    1. Can you have a kosher 3D-printed pepperoni and cheese pizza?

      Still, it’s merits for space far outweigh its earthly ones. There is a lot of grasslands out there that can’t be otherwise farmed.

  2. No functional animals were harmed in the making of this steak. But if this caught on, between this and soy milk how long before the poor domestic bovine becomes extinct? It would be good to stop and think before we moooove on. OTOH it would be great for exo-planetary dining I agree. OTOOH if we’re 3D printing living tissues how about human organs for transplant?

      1. A friend of mine who was born in India has a strict dietary rule: he will eat no food with a face. Since he actually is a friend, I’ve always resisted the temptation to give him a Mr. Potato Head for Christmas…but man, would that be funny!

  4. Bill Gates: “I do think all rich countries should move to 100 percent synthetic beef… You can get used to the taste difference.”

    Krusty the Clown: “I don’t mind the taste!”

      1. For $15 million I’ll sell Bill Gates an amazing device that can turn common grass into top quality steak. If he buys two, they can even self-replicate.

        1. I wish I had gotten to Gates immediately after he published that book saying that one of the breakthroughs needed was a way of factoring large prime numbers. I would have gotten several prominent mathematicians under non-disclosure agreement to just (truthfully) say to him that I had definitely found a very simple way to do so, but they were not permitted to say more until he paid me $100 million. Once I got the bux, the yux would have flowed big time (except from Gates).

    2. Then “why not” just get used to patties made from pureed meal worms or other invertebrates if you are just “used to the difference” ?
      (Bugs Bunny Voice): “Wotta maroon”

    1. Only if can be funded using derivatives of existing technology and launched only by the SLS, thereby completely fulfilling its legacy namesake.

  6. The cattle-farts-methane problem, that Bill Gates is seeking to address, can likely be alleviated by making cattle (et al.) digestion more efficient.

    The evolutionary problem has always been that no animal (from termites to cows) possesses the ability to directly digest cellulose — a long chain of glucose molecules, which happens to be the principal structural component of a great many important plants, particularly grasses and trees (wood).

    Any animal which is (evolutionarily) desirous of gaining sustenance from such common materials has been forced to evolve complex stomach(s) and digestion processes that directly culture bacteria which themselves can digest cellulose (breaking it down via the bacterial enzyme cellulase).

    While redesigning (e.g.) cattle’s stomachs in detail would no doubt be quite a complex task, simply providing animals such as cattle (or even people) with the ability to produce their own cellulase and hence directly digest grasses and wood (by genetic engineering-in the gene for cellulase) would not.

  7. This technology could be very useful on long term space missions. Unless you demand that all astronauts be vegans, it would be helpful to not only be able to raise vegetables but also to produce meat without having to use animals on site. In addition to possibly reducing the amount of mass you’d need to send on the long-term mission, it would allow for a healthier and more varied diet.

    1. Oops, through a coding error, we have to recall last year’s batch of 3D printed steak because of a sign error in the code. When it came to the mad cow protein filter somebody’s accidentally switched a – to +.

      1. It turns out people really worry about what happens if you eat a cancerous tumor, and ask questions about it on quora. The snide answer was, if you eat a tumor you will become less hungry.

Comments are closed.