"immortalized cells" for "grown" fish

[everything]

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... 180980549/

Berlin-based Bluu Seafood revealed fish sticks and fish balls made from cells cultured in a lab, without killing any real fish

Sarah Kuta

Daily Correspondent

August 9, 2022
Lab-grown fish sticks
Bluu Seafood is preparing for regulatory approval processes for its cell-cultured fish products in Asia, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union. Bluu GmbH / Wim Jansen
Lab-grown fish products are one step closer to arriving on grocery store shelves. This week, Berlin-based Bluu Seafood revealed what the company says are the first market-ready products made from cultivated fish cells: fish fingers and fish balls.

Bluu Seafood is now preparing to enter the complex web of regulatory approval processes in Asia, the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union, meaning the cell-cultured products could be heading for dinner plates around the world within the next few years. The company hopes to be able to sell its products by 2025.

Since 2020, Bluu Seafood has been perfecting the art of making seafood without actually killing any fish. It’s one of several companies working to develop lab-grown fish foods that may help address seafood production issues like overfishing, cruelty and contamination from heavy metals and plastics.

Fish balls
Bluu's lab-grown fish balls Bluu GmbH / Wim Jansen
To make its products without harvesting any fish, the company collects tissue from a live fish, then uses stem cell technology to create duplicate cells by feeding them a “nutrient-rich medium” in a bioreactor, per the company website. The cells then begin growing up scaffolding structures to help give them the right fishy flesh texture.

Once the company has developed an initial biomass of cells, the system is self-sustaining and does not require any more real fish from that point forward.

“That is the amazing thing about ‘immortalized’ cells—while ‘normal’ cells double for, let’s say, 20 times and then stop, the immortalized cells keep on doubling—theoretically forever,” Simon Fabich, the company’s co-founder, tells TechCrunch’s Paul Sawers.

These cultivated fish cells are the main ingredient in Bluu Seafood’s fish fingers and balls, but the company also adds plant proteins to “optimize cooking behavior and mouthfeel,” per a statement.

At the moment, Bluu Seafood is developing lab-grown cells from Atlantic salmon, rainbow trout and carp. The company is also working on more complicated fish products, including sashimi and fillets.

[Dmitri]

Their (very annoying to navigate) site says "high in Omega 3" but doesn't say anything else on that subject. Farmed salmon is notoriously low on that nutrient, compared to wild-caught, and this looks like it would be far worse. Along the same lines,
"Wild salmon is more nutritionally dense than farm-raised salmon and can contain up to three times less fat, fewer calories, and more vitamins and minerals like iron, potassium, and b-12" (from the internets)
Diversity of environment and nutrients matters a lot, and I can't imagine that whatever they "feed" these cells as they grow is even remotely complex enough to be considered high-quality nutrition for human consumption. I hope they figure it out eventually somehow, but I have a strong feeling this product ain't it...

[wayne hansen]

Get your Omega 3 from home grown Pulsane sun jewel like I do
If you want it from fish mullet is a great source especially winter mullet
So many things wrong with fish farms
Wild catch isn’t much better

[everything]

oof, really good points. long way to go to be able to say to the star trek replicator: "one grilled piece of wild pacific salmon with lots of omega-3".

never heard of the sun jewel or the mullet .... will have to look into it more, thanks. not really close to getting to totally plant-based diet.

getting omega-3 mainly from krill oil at the moment, but find it's too expensive. i remember dmitri you said you eat a can of sardines. sounds like a much better way for me. real food. more affordable. relatively lower pollutant concerns.

[origami_itto]

Y'all just need to get used to algae and insects. They ain't making new ocean and we've been beating the hell out of this one for centuries.

Won't be too much longer we'll be fishing in the deepest reaches desperately searching for a vanishing supply, only to awaken C'thulu who will rain destruction upon all mankind.

[everything]

yeah humans are pretty pathetic.... but while i'm alive, I gotta stay healthy! sorry krill and sardines. avocados got ALA but not EPA/DHA

[Dmitri]

Get your Omega 3 from home grown Pulsane sun jewel like I do

Looked up purslane - very cool, I had no idea! Good to know; I'll be looking for it now as an opportunistic snack on hikes

i remember dmitri you said you eat a can of sardines. sounds like a much better way for me. real food. more affordable. relatively lower pollutant concerns.

...plus a ton of other great nutrients in it, plus no need for any preparation... It really is one of the world's perfect foods IMO -- if you have the taste for it. I get mine as Costco, FWIW https://www.costco.com/wild-planet-wild ... 49405.html

[BruceP]

There are dozens of rivers and lakes with many different fish species where I live so it's a once-a-week thing to get one or two.

I love sardines, though

Some sweet relish and a bit of pickle juice with finely chopped onion mixed together with broken up sardines into a coarse spread on toast...

[wayne hansen]

Has anyone been watching the shark that has been in a tank with only stingrays for 8 years
It is now pregnant
So playing around with DNA is interesting in the least

[origami_itto]

Has anyone been watching the shark that has been in a tank with only stingrays for 8 years
It is now pregnant
So playing around with DNA is interesting in the least

Yes, and you've got every detail of the story wrong.

A female stingray is pregnant, she has shared a tank with two male sharks and hasn't been in contact with a male stingray for 8 years.

[ThomasK]

But will it taste good and not make people sick?

[origami_itto]

But will it taste good and not make people sick?

That's really the ultimate measure, palatability and nutrition.

We can fortify pretty much anything to get what we need in a meal. If we can get the calories and protein with less waste product, less wasted energy, and less cruelty, there's really no ethical excuse to not invest in exploring the potential.

[ThomasK]

Yup. And taste and texture. Even if it has all the nutrients in all the amounts, people have to want to eat it. That way we could relax on the overfishing and give the oceans some much needed recognition.

[ThomasK]

Darn autocorrect. Relaxation not recognition. I guess both wouldn't hurt.