Lab-made cow's milk - would you drink it?

Would you drink lab-made cow's milk?

  • Yes

    Votes: 2 7.4%
  • No

    Votes: 23 85.2%
  • Not sure

    Votes: 2 7.4%

  • Total voters
    27

Second Summer

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 26, 2012
Reaction score
8,598
Location
Oxfordshire, UK
Lifestyle
  1. Vegan
Three vegan bioengineers have started Muufri, a company that’s working to create cow-free milk in the lab. The founders say that test-tube milk will avoid many of the problems associated with factory farming, including animal cruelty and the production of greenhouse gas. Modern Farmer reports that the company had received backing from tech incubators SynBio Axlr8r and Horizon Ventures.
In the works: lab-made vegan milk : TreeHugger (December 9, 2014)

Would you consider this product vegan?

Do we need another word to distinguish between vegans who consume traditional vegan food and those who will include artificially produced animal products? (And by "artificially produced animal products" I mean products that involve the use of animal DNA to make products that are nutritionally more or less indistinguishable from traditionally produced animal products.)
 
I would rather not drink or eat stuff that involved cows or their DNA, if I could avoid it.

Almond milk is weird enough, in its similarity to cow milk.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Angela barrell
I gotta admit I would eat some cruelty-free non-animal baked brie if they could make that...
Yup. I prefer almond milk to cows' milk, so drinking it is not an issue for me. However, if they would make good artisanal cheeses from the lab produced milk, I would be all over that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SuicideBlonde
I wouldn't drink milk from a cow or any other animal in any form - lab created or otherwise. There are way too many better tasting options. Had I not been brainwashed and tried soy milk sooner I would have been off the milk bandwagon years before I even went vegan. And for that matter, personally I am over cheese too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RascalsMom
I'm scepitic to artificial made food. Food shall com from a plant, not be made on a plant. And not in a lab.

But if it would mean that animals could be taken out of the industry, I think all the omnis could have this lab food atleast.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Andy_T and KLS52
I don't even have to think about it: no. As I've said before, I'd rather eat something from a grown plant, not a power plant.

That said though, even if I didn't avoid artificial and (most) processed/refined foods I still wouldn't be terribly interested, because I actually genuinely like almond, soy and coconut milk better than cow's milk. I used to just force myself through glasses of milk, but now I can hardly leave my 'milk' alone in the fridge, because I just want to keep drinking it. (which in a way is almost a shame since it costs so much more... but I'm not vegan for prices, so that's irrelevant)

Also, since it actually involves cow DNA, I gotta say ... it's not even vegan. Even if you can't call DNA flesh, it's definitely gotta be considered a by-product at least.
 
I'm very happy with almond and soy milks, and Daiya and cashews cheeses. I wouldn't touch that stuff, especially with cow DNA in it.
 
Don't care whether this product would be considered vegan or not.....but its an interesting idea. It would seem that isolating the milk producing machinery of an animal would be easier than trying to grow flesh.
 
That said though, even if I didn't avoid artificial and (most) processed/refined foods I still wouldn't be terribly interested, because I actually genuinely like almond, soy and coconut milk better than cow's milk. I used to just force myself through glasses of milk, but now I can hardly leave my 'milk' alone in the fridge, because I just want to keep drinking it.
That is how I feel as well. Plant milks have a pleasant taste, much more so than cow's milk. So tastewise I don't see any reason why I would be drinking it.

If the artificial cow's milk is cheaper than regular cow's milk and have an identical nutritional content, then I guess it can be advertised as cow's milk (assuming they have enough lawyers) and will be able to compete with it, maybe eventually replacing it completely. That would be a major step forward.
 
Article says this stuff is being, or will be, made from "chemicaly synthesised cow DNA".

So far as I can see, past the point of swiping some cow DNA to copy, that makes this an animal exploitation free product.

Ethical arguments against the product are likely to be weak in the extreme and it could do incredible damage to the dairy industry.

Personaly I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole simply because I like being totaly 'plant powered'.

I can't, on info available at this time, see any reason to object to it though.
 
  • Like
Reactions: emmaline and Tom L.
A thought occurred to me: if they can do this with cow's milk, then surely they can do it with human milk as well. That will be great for those who can't breast feed. And then another thought occurred to me: This sort of removes the yuck factor associated with adults drinking human milk. And surely human milk is more nutritionally appropriate for humans? Well, this should be interesting. :)
 
I prefer soy milk...but I'm excited about the potential for yeast fermented sheep casein and vegan "dairy" curd manchego.

(Yuppie 1st-world vegan problems.)
 
Oh pulhleeze, with people as scared as they are of GMO foods, I highly doubt there will be a booming market for lab-grown cow's milk.
It will take time, but if the price is right, and with enough lawyers and investors, I think it can win in the long term.
 
I still like cheese, but vegan cheese is quite good, some of it. I would like a plant based brie though, and cottage cheese, and a few others.
Okay- maybe I'm wierd, but good-quality firm tofu in its plain state, before it's cooked in any way, reminds me a lot of how cottage cheese used to taste. Please don't go and buy some firm tofu to experiment with it if you weren't going to anyway, but if you get a chance, you might want to try it and see how close it comes. But if you liked cottage cheese creamy-style, it might not be close to that.

A thought occurred to me: if they can do this with cow's milk, then surely they can do it with human milk as well. That will be great for those who can't breast feed. And then another thought occurred to me: This sort of removes the yuck factor associated with adults drinking human milk. And surely human milk is more nutritionally appropriate for humans? Well, this should be interesting. :)
It IS interesting. And if the thought of drinking simulated animals' milk doesn't gross someone out... why should this?