Smash Notes
Mike Selden
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Danny in the Valley · Finless Foods’ Mike Selden: “We brew fish meat”
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How Will We View Industrial Agriculture in 100 Years
Selden thinks that we’ll look back at industrial animal agriculture and think about how we’re barbarians. We’ll be shocked and appalled that we did it because it’s bad and inefficient for the environment.
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What Will Finless Foods’ Products Positively Provide for the Public
They will be able to provide a minimal switch for people to still be able to get the price, taste, and nutrients that they want and are looking for.
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What Do People Think About When Considering Environmental Problems
They’re always talking about cars and power plants, but they overlook the massive impact of agriculture that environmentally affect our world. Selden hopes the public's concern will be more toward agriculture.
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What Does Selden Want Consumers to Know About the Product
He wants to be perfectly clear for consumers to know that what they’re buying is better. The level of nutrition can be changed and manipulated depending on what the customer wants. There will be no hormones, antibiotics, or animal cruelty, and much more with his products that provide a viable alternative.
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What Are the Components Needed to Create the Meat
First, taking the cells that they want from a quarter of meat. Then, the cells are feed salts and sugars. Proteins are growth factors that signal the salts and sugars to build themselves more biomass and create another cell.
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Are We Really Eating Bananas
No. According to Selden, there was a disease that wiped out all the bananas in the world in the 50s. So, the bananas that we eat now are actually from a different plant that we refer to as the banana. If you eat a banana flavored candy, you are not truly tasting the banana that we eat today.
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What Do People Want From Organic Food
They want foods that are safe, nutritious, and doesn’t have a heavy environmental impact. Finless Foods will do this in ways that organic foods don’t, and they have high confidence that this will be a highly nutritious choice that people will have available to them.
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How Will the Public View Eating a Test Tube Fish Versus the Real Thing
Selden states that his company is trying to prevent from doing all the mistakes that the GMO industry made, in terms of not talking to people about it by putting things on the market without being transparent. Selden's company is approaching this as being environmental activists.
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How Is Cellular Biology Simpler to Do Compared to Raising Fish for Slaughter
Fish cells are easy in many ways. Although you need to research and be aware of what the cells do, Selden and scientists can measure cells' input and output easier, keep conditions more stable, and can run tests with better statistics.
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What Problems Are Being Solved by Growing Fish
Selden started this concept because he has always been considerate of animal welfare, and fish are what we kill in massive numbers. Fishing is an environmental and ecological disaster because it’s destroying ocean ecosystems and food chains.
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Are the Finless Foods Products Meat
Yes. It’s not that they aren’t meat, but they’re only one component of meat. They can produce personalized diets for people with the product ranging from the fatty content to the lean meat content to have the full experience and will allow people to be excited about the product.
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How Is Fish Meat Grown
The company takes a small sample of the meat around the size of a quarter from a real fish. Scientists will isolate the cells that meet the criteria. These will then be put into a bioreactor to give them the proper nutrients to grow. They will eventually become the cells that people want to eat with the same qualities of slaughtered meat.
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Why Would Brewed Fish Be More Appealing Than Commercial Fish
According to Selden, his company can drop the price and give customers the choice if they would eat cheap tuna filled with mercury and plastic or their clean, slaughter-free bluefin tuna with no contaminants for the same price.
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When Did Mike Selden Say the Public Could Try Finless Foods' Fish?
Danny Fortson asks Mike Selden, founder of Finless Foods, when people could try the fish the company was growing. Selden says the plan was restaurants by the end of 2019, starting with a limited release. The fish he wanted to grow was bluefin tuna. He calls that a conservation choice. Bluefin moves on and off the threatened list and sells at a high price, but price is not the reason. A bluefin cell costs the same to culture as a tilapia cell, so he would rather grow the fish people value most. The first sales target he names is price parity: the grown tuna at the same price as caught bluefin.