# There Meat Come A Scandal...

#### Archived version [here](https://web.archive.org/web/20211107204618/https://www.thinkingmuchbetter.com/main/there-meat-come-a-scandal/).

There are multiple companies working on the problem of [lab-grown meat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat) (aka "cultured meat"). Supermeat is trying to [grow synthetic chicken meat](https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/dec/04/no-kill-lab-grown-chicken-burger-restaurant-israel) in an Israeli restaurant. The makers of Just Egg [have sold cultured chicken meat](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/25/plant-based-food-company-eat-just-nabs-200-million-investment.html) to a restaurant in Singapore. Wild Type is even [making lab-grown salmon](https://thespoon.tech/wild-type-debuts-new-cultured-salmon-in-largest-tasting-of-lab-grown-meat/), which I'm personally excited about[^1].

The goal is good: end the need for [factory farming](https://80000hours.org/problem-profiles/factory-farming/), while still giving humans something meat-styled to eat [^2].

And yet, a scandal may be brewing right under our noses.

Someday soon, as the cultured-meat industry ramps up and new firms enter the market, we could witness this scenario: A restaurant or company finds it cheaper to secretly produce real meat, and more lucrative to label it as lab-grown.

If this happened, the headlines would be irresistible. Real meat being sold to bougie vegans like [a counterfeit](https://handbags.lovetoknow.com/designer-handbags/how-authenticate-gucci-handbags) Gucci bag... it's hilarious! It's also unethical, unsafe, and will likely lead to the end of that company (unless they're already a huge diversified producer).

## My Prediction

A private cultured-meat-focused company (anywhere in the world) will become embroiled in a scandal, wherein they'll be *correctly* accused of having *intentionally* sold non-cultured meat[^3] as cultured meat, for longer than 1 contiguous month, in secret.

### What counts:

- A [Theranos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theranos)-style years-long con.
- A 1-month-long "desperate measure" directed by high-level executives. The CEO doesn't need a paper trail showing it, but at least like the VP Of Food or something.
- "It was a [temporary solution](https://www.forbes.com/sites/nealtaparia/2020/06/17/5-compelling-reasons-to-fake-it-till-you-make/), we just 'accidentally' used it for a long time".
- It still counts even if the company calls it a "beta", as long as they're selling it for money to end-users and/or restaurants.

### What doesn't count:

- Some guy at a MacBonald's accidentally (or "accidentally") giving someone a normal burger when they ordered a MacCulteredBurger.
- Chefs serving non-cultured meat, at a restaurant that serves lab-grown meat, as part of an internal sabotage or [slowdown](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slowdown).
- [This April Fools' Day joke](https://plantbasednews.org/lifestyle/food/plant-based-brand-this-secretly-using-lab-grown-meat/) (which was my first result for googling "fake meat real meat scandal lab grown").
- The company tries to do this, but they blow their cover in one month or quicker.
- The company does this for a *total* of one month, but on a split/on-and-off basis. (However, it *does* count if any "on" chunk of time this happens in, is longer than 1 month.w)
- This happens with some guy's food truck. It has to be a Real Company With Meaningful Legal Existence And (preferably) Accredited Investors. A semi-obscure Chinese corporation *would* count, but a sole proprietor's food truck *wouldn't*.

## My Reasoning:

- Lab-grown meat will be mostly indistinguishable from "normal" meat
- Most, or all, consumers will not be able to tell lab-grown from farmed meat.
- Lab-grown meat will attain a "bougie" status/price-point, similar to some vegan/"ethnic" foods.
- Lab-grown meat will initially be more expensive to produce and/or prepare, compared to farmed meat.

## Timeline

This will happen before midnight UTC on December 1, 2030. If the prediction is right but happens a small amount of time later than this deadline, I'll count it partly-wrong but still feel about as good as if I were fully right. If it happens in like 2032, I'll count it wrong and just feel bad.

### Confidence

Uhhhhhhh let's say [65%](https://forecast.elicit.org/binary/questions/KVg86lOAO). This was calibrated through discussion with [Devin](https://www.thinkingmuchbetter.com/authors/devin-kalish).

[^1]: Some claim the manufacturing processes involved may not scale to feed lots of people. See [here](https://thecounter.org/lab-grown-cultivated-meat-cost-at-scale/) for that case.

[^2]: It's not just about taste; many nutritional benefits accrue to eating some animal products. Unfortunately, the healthiest ([eggs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_as_food#Nutrition) and [fish](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PhXENjdXiHhsWGfQo/lifestyle-interventions-to-increase-longevity#Nutrition)) may also cause the most animal suffering [per kilogram demanded](https://reducing-suffering.org/how-much-direct-suffering-is-caused-by-various-animal-foods/) (see [here](https://applieddivinitystudies.com/60bchickens) for even more on this topic). There are also various reasons to think that these animal products can be *unusually* good for your health. [Whole](https://mealsquares.com/pages/nutrition-facts) [foods](https://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating) and [less-processed foods](https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/10/for-then-against-high-saturated-fat-diets/) are generally pretty good, while [case-by-case vitamin supplements](https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/0003-4819-159-12-201312170-00011?articleid=1789253&) are not so good. If you're a [paleo dieter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleolithic_diet) or [Nassim-Taleb-style conservative](https://www.econtalk.org/nassim-nicholas-taleb-on-the-precautionary-principle-and-genetically-modified-organisms/) or just [a rationalist who's looked at the data for a while](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PhXENjdXiHhsWGfQo/lifestyle-interventions-to-increase-longevity), you likely think unprocessed animal products are complicated enough that we can't use substitutes. For instance, if you see that eggs are healthy, and make the object-level choice "I'll just eat beans to get my [protein](https://www.google.com/search?q=eggs+protein) needs", you'd end up going blind because you forgot the incredibly important vitamin B12 (which appears in the complicated accrued nutritional makeup of [an egg](https://www.google.com/search?q=eggs+b12)).

    But as long as you grow the whole animal *and leave out the pain cells* (aka "[nociceptors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nociceptor)"), you should get, in aggregate, the same benefits of the meat *without* causing any animal suffering[^4]. So the only theoretical problem would be if the taste, texture, or nutrition content of meat depended more than a trivial amount on the chemistry of nociceptors. Unless those turn out to be the main sources of [vitamin B12](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12#Sources), I'm not holding my breath.

    Of course, lab-grown meat *will* be [different from normal meat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat#Differences_from_conventional_meat) in other ways, but they seem generally beneficial (e.g., avoiding spooky growth hormones and pesticides). A Taleb-style critique could still make theoretical sense (well, on his terms) if the gene modifications are large, untested, and/or poorly-understood. (If you [disagree](https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/dxybak/taleb_is_wrong_killing_millions_actually_is_risky/) with such Taleb-style critiques on principle, you can skip all that and just eat the egg).

[^3]: i.e., produced by killing animals

[^4]: If the nociceptors are not the only component, leaving out the entire nervous system and related components is also doable. Devin points me to [Chalmers' Vulcan trolley problem](https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/david-chalmers-nature-ethics-consciousness/#the-zombie-and-vulcan-trolley-problems-23843), though I'm not really sold on Chalmers' intuition. Also kinda confused about the nature/relevance/existence of valence for other reasons.