“Can be” is doing a lot of work in that title.
There are sound reasons to think that growing meat in the lab will eventually be more efficient than growing animals. You don’t have to support the metabolism of the whole animal and everything it eats. Not to mention the reduction in animal suffering.
But lab grown vegetables? What’s the point?
It says exactly what the point is in the article: reducing dependence on imports when there’s not enough arable land to feed a population.
Urban farming is the way to go for that. Modern crop plants are really very efficient organisms. It is doubtful that lab growing cells (which is hardly free of overhead) can come anywhere close to competing with that.
Urban farming . . . in Qatar?
But I agree that this should be compared with hydroponics systems with efficient water recycling.
I guess the point is to be able to grow it in a desert, but I think it should still be cheaper and easier to grow it indoors hydroponically instead… Unless maybe it uses less water? But hydroponics can recycle all the water used so I don’t think that’s a huge advantage.
Some of the water in hydroponics will be lost to evaporation, and some of it is also in the plant itself. With a good setup, you can probably recover a lot of the evaporated water, at least. Basically, think like a Fremen.
In this case, growing them in Qutar, where agricultural land is at a premium.
Nuclear fusion “can be” possible
I can’t believe that this is economically viable. Strange times.
Less than a dollar per kg! I think that’s honestly the most impressive part.
Carrots are 50 pence a kg right now. So it’s not very competitive. However, the current price probably relies on subsidies.
And the 3d printing tech is not mature so would come down a lot as the process scales up.
Less than double the price and somehow that’s not competitive? Guess organic isn’t viable then.
I hope it tastes better than the 2kg bag of carrots I had bough for yesterdays dinner. I peeled half of them, and each and every of it tasted like basically nothing. Except for the last I peeled, which was bitter.
At least they weren’t all bitter
if your carrot tastes bitter, I got bad news for you buddy
it’s been… places
Don’t know where you got your carrots from. Here the reason that a carrot tastes bitter is that it defended itself against getting eaten by worms.
You mean it’s a fun carrot? 😏
Carrots are fucking easy to grow. You can grow them through winter. I need to repair the domes on my planters but I had them year round for like 4 years until my dad adopted the local raccoons.
Perchance this could mean we can get carrots of different shapes maybe a carrot shaped like …mm
Carrots with a proper flared base?
Carrots are going to be shaped adverts. It’s the invariable enshitfication, coming to your Sunday roast soon.
You’ve been able to shape fruit for basically it’s entire existence. Put a watermelon in a box while it’s growing and it comes out square. Put it in a Halloween skull and you’ll get a skull shaped melon
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Nobody is asking the important question: does it crunch when you eat it?
People trying to make a better carrot are very confused.
Today, carrots tomorrow, aubergines. Its a slippery slope
slippery slope
No, that was the prototype strawberry patch
United Nations report, published in July, 735 million people are currently facing hunger
This silly way of bringing in the issue of world hunger, while it is still just a super small and super rich country where some students play with crazy technology.
Someone please explain to me how 3D printing vegetables could be cheaper or more efficient than just growing them?
You can stack printers, you can’t stack farms. Efficient for space, power is gonna be a stretch though.
Farms can be stacked. Ever heard of vertical farming?
Mmm giant cheeto
But does it cover your fingers in carrot dust? I need to know.
I was hoping for a turnip. I have a cunning plan…
Well, I know I am going to regret this but, Do go on, Baldric.
I thought this was a joke about plastic carrots being cheaper to make than real ones.
Anyone else craving Cheetos for some reason?
But how are the carrot cells grown? Either using light or some kind of agricultural product I’m sure. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Literally in this case.
But how are the carrot cells grown?
Hint: the article tells it (to those who read it)…
Did you read it? It doesn’t explicitly answer my question.
I have the same question. They said other veggie printers (which are a thing, I guess) use pre-grown fruit or veggie matter that has been turned into some kind of slurry, but it doesn’t specifically state what kind of “ink” this printer uses except to say that it is an “edible material” subjected to UV light. I have concerns as to what that edible material may be. Also, if it’s already edible, is there any point in rendering it into the shape of a carrot?
They say the carrot cells are already grown for laboratory uses. Food scientists get up to weird stuff and they need standardized materials as basic building blocks. So there are already facilities that make this stuff and they bought it.
In my experience with undergrads, they probably heard “Oh wow, lab grown carrots are a thing and you can buy them!” and they bought them from a food science lab supply company that made them from pureed whole carrots, but they told the reporter it was lab grown.
My question is what uv polymer did they use in that carrot printer goop that is “food safe”? When I used MSLA printers, those resins were noxious and toxic AF. I used a full face ventilator with an organic carbon filter because I didn’t want to get poisoned by it.
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Square carrots would be much more efficient. They’d be easier to cut, too.
