Test Tube Meat? April 21, 2008
Posted by Pulin Modi at April 21, 2008 4:31 PM | Permalink | Comments ( 26 ) | TrackBack
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Vegan vegetarian in vitro meat
There's a story that's all over the place from The New York Times to your local television news about PETA offering up a $1 million reward to the first scientist to produce and bring to market "in-vitro" meat. Here's the deal with it...
Scientists around the world are figuring out how to produce meat in a laboratory without killing animals. Do we want animals to suffer? No, so then why not at least consider it as an option for those who seem to crave flesh? "In-vitro" meat production would use cells from an animal (they can be taken once an animal has died of natural causes, obviously we don't want animals to be killed in the process). The cells are harvested and grown on sheets to try to achieve a texture similar to the "normal" taste of flesh.
Some promising steps have been made, but "in-vitro" meat is still years away from being available to the general public and, although some governments and the meat industry are looking at this process with great interest, we would like to see the process sped up. That's why PETA is now stepping in, offering $1 million ($1 for every chicken killed each hour in the US) to the first scientist to produce and bring to market commercially-successful in-vitro meat.
Ok so, we're not idiots. We still want everyone to go vegan, but we also realize that despite all the amazing fake meat products out there some people are just so addicted to flesh that they may need this step in their path towards an actual vegetarian or vegan diet.
We could sit here and pretend that your obese uncle is going to grill up some Boca Chik'n this summer, but chances are that he will more likely eat some gross breast or leg of a poor chicken. Why not support having an option that will at least spare animals the suffering and reduce environmental destruction while satisfying that sick desire for eating flesh?
Anyway, what do you think? Do you think the die-hard meat-eater in your family would eat meat grown in a lab?
