Another controversial way to raise chicken: Matrix-style

[cthulhu_waves]

A technological solution to the removal of suffering during the production of meat, or proof of our symptomatic arrogance of our place in our ecosystem?

Architecture student André Ford has proposed a new system for the mass production of chicken that removes the birds' cerebral cortex so that they don't experience the horrors of being packed together tightly in vertical farms.

Each year, the UK raises and kills around 800 million broiler chickens for their meat. These creatures are grown in vast sheds with no natural light over the course of six to seven weeks. They are bred to grow particularly quickly and often die because their hearts and lungs cannot keep up with their body's rapid growth.

Philosopher Paul Thompson from Purdue University has suggested " The Blind Chicken Solution". He argues that chickens blinded by "accident" have been developed into a strain of laboratory chickens that don't mind being crowded together as much as normal chickens do. As a result, he argues, we should consider using blind chickens in food production as a solution to the problem of overcrowding in the poultry industry. He argues that it would be more humane to have blind chickens than ones that can see.

Ford goes a step further and proposes a "Headless Chicken Solution". This would involve removing the cerebral cortex of the chicken to inhibit its sensory perceptions so that it could be produced in more densely-packed conditions without the associated distress. The brain stem for the chicken would be kept intact so that the homeostatic functions continue to operate, allowing it to grow.

Ford proposes this solution for two reasons: to meet the rising demand for meat, particularly poultry, and to improve the welfare of the chickens by desensitising them to the unpleasant reality of their existence.

After this "desensitisation", the chickens could then be stacked into huge urban farms with around 1,000 chickens hooked up to each large vertical frames -- a little like the network of pods the humans are connected to in The Matrix. The feet of the chickens would also be removed in order to pack more in. There could be dozens of these frames in the vertical farming system, which Ford refers to as the Centre for Unconscious Farming. Food, water and air would be delivered via a network of tubes and excrement would be removed in the same way. This technique could achieve a density of around 11.7 chickens per cubic metre instead of the current 3.2 chickens achieved in broiler houses.

A challenge for Ford's system would be the lack of muscular stimulation. However, Ford proposes using electric shocks similar to that used in other lab meat experiments.

Read the whole article here.

[AllAboutCams]

Looks yummy

[Emil]

And some people wonder why so many get cancer and other diseases.

[Hentaikid]

Like vat grown meat, much more ethical.

[bronco67]

For the first time in my life, I felt bad for a chicken. Dumb bird's only crime was being so damn delicious.

[iSpyCams]

Originally Posted by bronco67

For the first time in my life, I felt bad for a chicken. Dumb bird's only crime was being so damn delicious.

It is also the only reason it still exists. If we stopped raising them they would quickly be wiped out by predators.

[Choopa Phil]

I love those little birds, so delicious.

[Choopa_Pardo]

I will never eat Lab chicken.

[Tom_PM]

Or just raise the humans that way instead. Either way could work.

[DatingFactory]

Jesus Christ it took me 10 minutes to understand what i was looking at!

[2MuchMark]

There's a better way.

http://content.usatoday.com/communit...1#.T6F1Ge2QkyA

Meat grown in lab may yield first 'test-tube burger' by fall



Scientists in the Netherlands say they hope to produce the first laboratory-grown hamburger by fall, according to news reports out of a conference in Canada.

Using cow stem cells grown in a petri dish, the researchers have created small strips of muscle that will be mixed with blood and artificially grown fat to make a hamburger, the BBC writes. Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is being courted to cook "a golf ball-size of this stuff," physiologist Mark Post of Maastricht University said at a news conference Sunday in Vancouver, British Columbia, at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Proof of the concept isn't cheap: about $330,000, provided by an anonymous investor. As with all inventions, the costs would drop dramatically once commercialized.

So-called test-tube meat is being developed to slash the environmental impacts of factory farming, improve consumer health and lessen the suffering of animals. Last June, an Oxford University study concluded that compared with conventionally grown and produced meat, "in vitro" or "cultured" meat would generate 96% lower greenhouse gas emissions, use 45% less energy, reduce land use by 99% and cut water use by 96%.

"Animal farming is by far the biggest ongoing global catastrophe," Patrick Brown of the Stanford University School of Medicine told reporters, AFP says. "More to the point, it's incredibly ready to topple ... it's inefficient technology that hasn't changed fundamentally for millennia."

Worldwide, meat demand is projected to rise by 60% by 2050, said Nicholas Genovese, the U.S. scientist who organized the symposium.

In 2009, scientists grew the first pork in a lab.

The year before, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals announced it was offering $1 million -- $1 for every chicken slaughtered every hour in the United States -- to the first scientist to bring in vitro meat to market. More on that here.

Last May, The New Yorker carried an in-depth look at the promise, the challenges and the ethical issues of making cultured meat and making it acceptable to the public.

And now the philosophical taste test: Would you eat meat made in a lab?


More Pics of lab meat:






Om nom nom

[DAMNMAN]

The human species has become fucking monsters.

[JFK]

Originally Posted by Choopa_Pardo

I will never eat Lab chicken.

You get hungry enough, you will eat the asshole out of a skunk

[kal86]

just great another reason to fear meat

[V_RocKs]

This is why we shouldn't ever meat... oops... meet up with alien races far more advanced than ourselves.

[Hentaikid]

Originally Posted by DAMNMAN

The human species has become fucking monsters.

Growing food animals with a brain versus growing a body without a brain, it seems monstruous to you to eat the latter but not the former? Think about it, it's really much more ethical to grow meat without a mind, simple as a chicken's may be.

[Brujah]

Millions of little Cypher chickens: "Ignorance is bliss."

[ottopottomouse]

Originally Posted by JFK

You get hungry enough, you will eat the asshole out of a skunk

mostly you'd eat anything as long as it looked ok and you weren't told what it was until afterwards

[beerptrol]

take the blue pellet or red pellet

[DAMNMAN]

Originally Posted by V_RocKs

This is why we shouldn't ever meat... oops... meet up with alien races far more advanced than ourselves.

Exactly!!!!

[DAMNMAN]

Originally Posted by Hentaikid

Growing food animals with a brain versus growing a body without a brain, it seems monstruous to you to eat the latter but not the former? Think about it, it's really much more ethical to grow meat without a mind, simple as a chicken's may be.

It's the proceedure.... people have been eating animals since we were crawling around catching them by hand and eating them raw. Somehow this seems just plain sinister.

Also, I thinbk birth control and negative population growth is the only answer. An answer that if started right now is not soon enough to save us.