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This article was linked from Slashdot today. It talks about various efforts to artificially grow meat in a lab. Hydroponic beef!
I'm a confirmed omnivore, but I recognize that there are several problems with eating meat. Most pragmatically, meat is enormously inefficient. For every pound of beef you have to feed the cow 40 pounds of grain. Pretty silly on a planet quickly approaching its carrying capacity. There are also some vaguely uncomfortable ethical issues. Not enough to make me go veggie, but I certainly wouldn't mind them going away. What surprised me, though, was the reaction in the Slashdot comments. A very high percentage of posters were disgusted by the concept. Even factoring in the slashdot-twerp effect it seems like an unusual response.
So, what does the audience at home think? Which is worse: a slab of meat growing in a harshly lit laboratory, pulsing slowly to the rythm of electrical impulses, or carving a steak out of a big dumb dirty cow, with all its parasites and bacteria and waste products?
I'm a confirmed omnivore, but I recognize that there are several problems with eating meat. Most pragmatically, meat is enormously inefficient. For every pound of beef you have to feed the cow 40 pounds of grain. Pretty silly on a planet quickly approaching its carrying capacity. There are also some vaguely uncomfortable ethical issues. Not enough to make me go veggie, but I certainly wouldn't mind them going away. What surprised me, though, was the reaction in the Slashdot comments. A very high percentage of posters were disgusted by the concept. Even factoring in the slashdot-twerp effect it seems like an unusual response.
So, what does the audience at home think? Which is worse: a slab of meat growing in a harshly lit laboratory, pulsing slowly to the rythm of electrical impulses, or carving a steak out of a big dumb dirty cow, with all its parasites and bacteria and waste products?
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In a more serious response, though, I guess it would depend on how well they pulled it off. I mean, if it actually tasted like meat and had the texture of meat, as well as the Good Things nutritionally (i.e. it didn't have the nutritional value of, say, ramen or the other artificially created substances out there for consumption), I'd be all in favor of it.
And yeah, it's a nice resolution to the dilemma of eating-meat-versus-ethics. Until someone decides that lab meat is alive dammit and we're all evil for eating it and blah blah blah, anyway.