Ready or not, here comes Artificial Meat...Yum, YUM!

[Philosoraptor]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0621-03.htm

[greyl]

1. It's not exactly artificial.

Think of all the cows who will be saved.

[Philosoraptor]

4. Apparently it's real meat, pork can be grown too.

I'll have hippo meat thanks.

[Warpy]

2. Hey, if they can do something to make factory farming

of animals obsolete, I'm all for it. Until then, I'll be happy with my Boca Burgers and Quorn fillets.

[dusty64]

37. I agree! The first time

I ate Quorn products I almost spit it out, it tastes so much like real chicken and the texture is authentic I thought I might have made a mistake and bought actual poultry. The Morningstar prime burgers and hotdogs are great too. Meat alternative products are getting better all the time, I even got my partner and friends to eat some textured soy protein "pork" alternative and they really were impressed.

[Igel]

3. Beef vats!

Raised in a vat, boiled in a bag.

So, is pork grown in the absence of the possibility of 'cud chewing' kosher?

Is beef, in the absence of cloven hoofs?

And if so, would it be parve?

[MallRat]

5. SOYLENT GREEN IS MADE OF PEOPLE!!!!

/heston

-MR

[helderheid]

6. beat me to it!

:thumbsup:

[Philosoraptor]

7. You could grow human meat and no one would be cannibalized.

[MallRat]

16. Yeah, but once people acquire the taste for artificial human...

...then you'll have a race to see which posh restaurant will be the first to serve real human.

After that, it gets really out of control... some guy in Oregon starts marketing organic human, and then free-range human. The real gourmet outfits start touting where they get their humans from, and what variety they are.

"I'll have 2 pounds of the North Carolina claims adjuster, a pound of Des Moines carpet salesman, and a half-a-pound of Boston graduate student, sliced thin, please."

And don't get me started on white meat vs. dark meat.

-MR

[JHB]

8. Vatjob munchies! A staple of cyberpunk cuisine becomes real!

Well pack me in ICE and call me Rache Bartmoss!

[demnan]

9. Actually the most interesting remark was this:

"Cultured meat isn't natural, but neither is yogurt," says Matheny. "And neither, for that matter, is most of the meat we eat. Cramming 10,000 chickens in a metal shed and dosing them full of antibiotics isn't natural. I view cultured meat like hydroponic vegetables. The end product is the same, but the process used to make it is different. Consumers accept hydroponic vegetables. Would they accept hydroponic meat?"

I think I see the point in this. At least I wouldn't be adverse to try it. Think how gross the meat industry is.

[Philosoraptor]

13. No more slaughter houses, no more mass murder of catfish & crabs.

Meat for all humanity!

[Philosoraptor]

10. I want meat chewing gum, pork and dolphin flavored.

[Codeine]

11. Heck, I'm vegan and I'd try it. nt

[MoonRiver]

12. I've been meat free so long I doubt I could eat it.

But it would be wonderful if no more animals had to be slaughtered! :woohoo:

[Brazenly Liberal]

14. Intriguing idea. Hot topic among vegetarians

This would, I assume, address many of the environmental problems caused by meat production. It would also address the issue of compassion, which motivates some vegetarians. The big question still unanswered is the health factor.

I haven't eaten meat in so long (over a decade) that I have no desire to try it, but I imagine a lot of people will.

[AngryAmish]

19. If it is only the health factor then there are no moral problems

Only if you think that allowing people to eat what they choose is wrong could you disagree with cultured meat (assuming it comes from plant products). If you don't think people should eat what they want for health reasons then one is a totalitarian (no accusation against you, I'm speaking in generalities). If one choose not to eat cultured meat for health reasons then one is well within one's rights.

If one just doesn't like the taste of meat then one does not come at vegetarianism from a moral position but rather an aesthetic one.

[Brazenly Liberal]

30. Not necessarily

First, to clarify something. I knew very few vegetarians who approach it from the angle you describe - not allowing people to eat what they want. Many vegetarians, including me, think it would be a lovely thing if the entire world went veggie, but consider it a matter for individual decision. I am convinced it is better in every way to be vegan, but I'm not your mama and the only person for whom I make the decision to be vegan is myself. :)

There can still be moral issues for some people, even if it's "only" a matter of health. It's the same interesting gray area in which we ask questions like "How many times should society pay to rebuild the same homes in a flood plain? Once, sure. Twice, maybe. After that, you should really think about moving."

Now, mind you, I'm not advancing that argument. I see how it can be made, though, and how it takes us into other issues. The fact is that poor health habits affect much more than the person who one day keels over from a heart attack. My bad health habits affect society as a whole. Insurance rates, hospital costs, costs of doing business when employees are ill, cost/quality of products made by businesses where half the production line has a hangover. That much is fact. Where it gets gray is what, if anything, is it acceptable to do about it? Some things are pretty clearly acceptable: put warning labels on cigs, don't sell booze to children, take soda machines out of elementary schools, that kind of thing. After that, though it gets into debatable territory.

For the most part, I come down on the side of giving people all the information they need to make a wise decision about their health habits and then leaving them alone to make that decision for themselves.

[AngryAmish]

32. I think your argument is a slippery slope

Reasonable people can be reasonable. To lay my cards on the table I am quite a carnivore and in fact the whole whream of animal rights bothers me. It seems not to be intellectually honest. In fact I enjoy cock fights. But these are my petty prejudices and I have to live with them.

I think the "You are being unhealthy!" argument runs down that slope.

[MorningGlow]

15. Margaret Atwood sure is prescient

First Handmaid's Tale, now this. Anybody remember in her 2003 book, Oryx and Crake, the "chicken nubbins" that were made from all-white meat "chicken"--no heads, no feet, no wings--just lumps of propped-up living white meat with a hole in the top for food to go in and a hole in the bottom for waste to come out? Damn near made me become a vegetarian. This sort of thing might tip the scales for me!

:scared:

[conflictgirl]

33. I know! And that story freaked me out.

Oryx and Crake really haunted me, because so much of it seemed plausible. :scared:

[Ariana Celeste]

17. I'd be willing to try it.

:thumbsup:

[byronius]

18. I've been thinking about this for years.

An old Sci-Fi story had a crew in space being fed by a constantly-renewed turkey-mass in a vat. They called it Turkey-Lurky.

I've always thought that someone who could mass-produced cheap vat-grown meat that tasted better and was healthier could both make a mint and serve the cause of ethics.

I'm investing.

Next up -- Vat-grown lumber.

PS: Robert Silverberg -- Towers of Glass -- vat-grown sex slaves -- ? My parents caught me reading this at 13. We had a long talk. They didn't understand.

[negativenihil]

20. cool stuff!

i saw a bit about this on Nova some time ago. The first thing i did was asked some vegan friends what they though, and well - they still wouldn't eat this stuff.

Ah well, i'd love to have a taste!

[charlie]

21. I'd be happy to eat it

I'd miss tossing a rack of ribs on the brazier, though. Maybe they can figure a way to grow bones in the meat.

Y'know, if we'd just get over our aversion to eating bugs and insects, we'd have all the cheap tasty high-quality protein we could stand tomorrow. And ultra-fresh, too. Grown onsite, right in your kitchen and in restaurant storerooms.

[Philosoraptor]

22. Bugs? I'm still trying to keep the test tube meat down.

Or if we'd see our pet population as a nutrition source.

[charlie]

23. Fortunately

I'm one of those fools who'll try anything once. And if it tastes good I won't upchuck, I'll go for seconds. Let's join the other half of the world and bust out those crawly critter recipes!

[Philosoraptor]

24. what is a lobster if not a giant juicy bug?

Or escargo? or crab?

[charlie]

25. Hah!

Eggs Zackley. My missus gets skeeved by whole lobsters and crabs for that very reason. Amazing what a wayward imagination can do to some people's appetites. S'alright, more for me!

[lpbk2713]

26. Is this supposed to be something new?

McDonald's has been selling "make-believe meat" for years.

[SmokingJacket]

27. IMHO, too much trouble for a food you could easily do without.

I'd rather eat a potato, thanks.

[ThsMchneKilsFascists]

28. thought McDonald's already cornered the market n/t

[katty]

29. no thanks-i barely eat so called 'organically' raised now

[Skidmore]

31. I thought that those bocas they put in those burgers filled

that bill. You know how hard it is to catch and kill those bocas. They run around and squeal and kick somethin' fierce.

[Vidar]

34. Interesting idea, but nowhere near practical yet.

[RebelOne]

35. I am a vegetarian, but I definitely would try it.

It would be nice to eat a pork chop or steak without guilt.

[MadHound]

36. And mankind throws the natural balance of our world even futher out

Of kilter.

So, we will grow start growing animalless meat. And meat without animals means less natural fertilizers that animals produce. Which means more chemicals will be poured onto the land. And we will further poison the earth until it all collapses under our feet.

It isn't a smart move to fuck with Mother Nature.