Lab-Grown Meat

[gfish]

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?

Comments

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

I've been a vegetarian for... I think it's six years now. I think I'd probably eat the grown meat. My reasons for being vegetarian are... well, weird... but primarily involve consciousness and death and the desire not to be ingesting death. Since nobody's consciousness would get ended and no death would be involved, I'd consider it.

The other reason I'm veggie, though, is that meat gradually just started to gross me out, and vat meat might still do that. I dunno, I'd have to see. That part wouldn't necessarily be rational, though, but then most foods that gross people out aren't, really.