Is enough dificult yet by traditional methods.<p>There is a limit to the tick of a meat piece if oxigen and food must rely in simple difussion. Fishes need omega3 fatty acids to survive. They are unable to synthesize it. How do you effectively feed with omega-3 the cells of an animal without stomach? I wonder also how cell excrection would be solved without a few tubes and filters to collect it. Would you eat fish fillets growing soaked in "fish urine"?<p>The list of challenges to solve is really long.<p>The more interesting goal here is changing the perception of public about what is food. There are lots of problems with fish breeding. Bad husbandry practices will produce easily a lot percentage of deformed fishes in the pool (lacking one or two eyes, lack of opercles is also common and skeletal sclerosis can produce "Z" plied fishes easily also). Those are unmarketable today. If you just say that it was cultivated in a laboratory then abismal quality products could suddently enter in a market chain and turn into acceptable or even top quality. Even better than the real thing.<p>But a good comforting lie is still a lie.
I have a sinking feeling this kind of synthetic food production is just a bait for health-wary consumers. After reeling in enough customers, lab-grown fish produced for profit will inevitably have to deteriorate in quality to maintain/increase revenue. Can this kind of endeavor scale? Can it be introduced to schools, for example? I'm sure some consumers will swallow the idea hook, line and sinker but I see it as just another cool concept in an ocean filled with bottom-feeders.
> BlueNalu is not looking to replace wild-caught or farm-raised seafood, but is aiming to become a third alternative for seafood eaters.<p>Since they are targeting “fish that cannot be easily farmed”, the whiff I get from this idea is akin to synthetic diamonds. This lab grown fish is an alternative to the rare and high-end fish that is harder (and more expensive) to get.<p>This is not a cheap replacement for standard consumers buying filets at the grocery store for weeknight dinners, but a niche offer for chefs and clientele wanting the experience of eating particular fish cuisine.<p>It would be disingenuous to say this is going to save the oceans. Fish are useful to the environment and it would be better if their populations rose, as overfishing is causing massive oceanic destruction.<p>Comparing this kind of lab grown fish to lab grown beef is actually an inverse comparison because a central point of lab grown beef is addressing the issue (and environmental impact) of humans farming too many cows for beef, whereas with fish we have the opposite problem where humans have decimated the populations so much we actually need to lift fish populations.
Indoor fish farming seems like a much more practical approach to solve the problems inherent in catching wild fish to eat (and the pollution that outdoor fish farms cause), and a much more logical next step for seafood than lab-grown muscle tissue.<p>Lab-meat makes most sense for beef, which is an incredibly inefficient and habitat-destroying food source, and is also often served in a processed form anyway, ie as minced-beef in burgers, bolognese, sausages, etc, etc.
The Marine Conservation Society (MSC) has an excellent Good Fish Guide if you want to find out which fish are overfished:<p><i>"Use the Good Fish Guide to find out which fish are the most sustainable (Green rated), and which are the least sustainable (Red rated)."</i><p><a href="https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search" rel="nofollow">https://www.mcsuk.org/goodfishguide/search</a><p>In the UK, supermarkets display the MSC logo on frozen fish products to indicate the fish is sustainably sourced. They did a recent Good Fish Fingers guide for 2018 (UK only):<p><a href="https://www.mcsuk.org/responsible-seafood/fish-finger-guide" rel="nofollow">https://www.mcsuk.org/responsible-seafood/fish-finger-guide</a>
What is never brought up in the lab grown meat discussion is the potential to mitigate human suffering. Working a fishing boat is hard. Working a poultry plant is hard and psychologically stressful. Lab grown meat could eliminate that for thousands of people.
I am seriously excited for this to become available to chefs. There is a rampant issue in sushi with fish fraud and this would be a clean and ethical solution.
I'm skeptical. This article makes huge claims about what they've done, but looking at BlueNalu's website, there are no pictures of the lab or actual fish that they've made. This seems like a submarine article (<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html</a>) no pun intended.