At what price point, relative to the cost of farmed meat, would you switch to an otherwise identical cultured alternative (i.e. this was grown from cell culture or some other mechanism that doesn’t involve raising an animal and killing it)?

(To be clear, >2x means “I’d pay at least $10 for cultured steak that would cost $5 if it came from a cow.”)

#food #biotech #meat

If you wouldn’t eat lab-grown meat at any price point (even free), then I guess answer <1x, or don’t answer.

If you are a vegan or vegetarian but would eat lab-grown meat, then answer >2x, since you wouldn’t accept farmed meat even if it were free.

@pganssle The word 'identical' carries a *lot* of water in all of these discussions.

I'm highly skeptical of our ability to achieve something lab-cultured that is *actually* identical across all nutritionally-relevant axes. (Further--I'm skeptical of our ability to identify, much less *measure*, all nutritionally-relevant axes.)

@btskinn I mean, it doesn’t carry any water in this case, since I’m asking about how meat being cultured affects people’s willingness to eat it at all.

If you are in the “I’d pay 10x for identical” group, you’re probably in a group that would pay 2x for a “close enough” simulacrum. If you’re in the <1x group, you might be convinced with extra enticements (e.g. “it’s not exactly the same, but you can get a close simulacrum of this ultra-rare and expensive delicacy for the same price as beef”).

@pganssle Oh, sorry - that was meant to be an explanation for why I voted "<1", not to poke at anything deeper or make a broader argument about how people *should* feel about it.

@btskinn If you voted <1 because you aren’t convinced that it would be identical, you are answering a different question than the one I asked, but like I said, people are terrible at decoupling these things, so I assumed the data would be noisy in this regard.

It’s actually good to have some confirmation that at least some of the “only if it’s cheaper” folks are just answering a different question.