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If it was really indistinguishable from normal meat then I would feel a little disappointed that they hadn't taken the opportunity to make it more consistently tender, remove gristly bits, not have inconvenient bones, and so on. If it was like meat but with the annoying misfeatures fixed then I'd pay a premium for that.
If they could produce it at a lower resource cost than ordinary meat but then charged more for it than ordinary meat, I would probably feel that was excessive profiteering! (And no doubt they'd use their patents to go after anyone who tried to set up in competition and actually pass the savings on to the customer.)
If they could produce it at a lower resource cost than ordinary meat but then charged more for it than ordinary meat, I would probably feel that was excessive profiteering! (And no doubt they'd use their patents to go after anyone who tried to set up in competition and actually pass the savings on to the customer.)
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If this takes off successfully, I think we're more likely to reach a situation where people pay a premium for meat that has required the killing of animals.
Surely resource cost and financial cost are not the same thing. I think the cost we're talking about here is, in specific, the cost to the ecosystem which meat-eating causes (though people disagree hugely about the magnitude of this). It's wholly possible there will be a point where the artificial meat is much better in terms of resource usage but must worse in terms of financial cost.
Oh, 20 years after it's taken off people will be shocked that anyone kills animals for food at all. Right now most people justify it to themselves with "But I grew up eating beef, and it tastes good, so killing cows is ok." Once that justification goes, I suspect people will flock to artificial food, and it will suddenly be very weird to _choose_ to kill animals when you have a choice not to.
I've read Oryx and Crake - and after reading that novel no fucking way would I eat meat made that way.
If they could make meat from my own cells then they really could say you are what you eat.
I disagree. I find the idea of meat grown in a lab to be completely and totally horrifying.
Beyond that we'd end up having to kill animals pointlessly if we didn't eat them. If not for the love of venison and deer season certain parts of America would be so overrun with deer that you'd have to just kill them randomly so they wouldn't eat every single green thing around and/or constantly be jumping in front of cars and killing people.
Plus, how long do you think chickens would last in this day and age if they were not raised by farmers. (Yes, I know that factory chicken farms suck, but I do have an uncle who is a normal farmer and have seen how chickens act and they are so dumb and domesticated at this point that they would be eaten out of existence really fucking quickly outside of a farm environment.)
Plus, people like "organic" stuff. Meat from animals would just be marketed as "organic" and people would flock to it.
And, then there are the hard core carnivores. When I was living in New Brunswick there was a wild game restaurant in town and it was constantly packed. I ate some of the weirdest shit in the world there. Hell their Christmas Eve special one year was reindeer and even though I had a 9 p.m. reservation (fairly early in New Jersey) it was sold out by the time I got seated.
And I don't think most people justify it by "But I grew up eating beef" I think they justify it by saying "animals with our sets of teeth and digestive system were designed to kill and eat other animals. This is why I don't get mad if my cat eats a mouse."
Beyond that we'd end up having to kill animals pointlessly if we didn't eat them. If not for the love of venison and deer season certain parts of America would be so overrun with deer that you'd have to just kill them randomly so they wouldn't eat every single green thing around and/or constantly be jumping in front of cars and killing people.
Plus, how long do you think chickens would last in this day and age if they were not raised by farmers. (Yes, I know that factory chicken farms suck, but I do have an uncle who is a normal farmer and have seen how chickens act and they are so dumb and domesticated at this point that they would be eaten out of existence really fucking quickly outside of a farm environment.)
Plus, people like "organic" stuff. Meat from animals would just be marketed as "organic" and people would flock to it.
And, then there are the hard core carnivores. When I was living in New Brunswick there was a wild game restaurant in town and it was constantly packed. I ate some of the weirdest shit in the world there. Hell their Christmas Eve special one year was reindeer and even though I had a 9 p.m. reservation (fairly early in New Jersey) it was sold out by the time I got seated.
And I don't think most people justify it by "But I grew up eating beef" I think they justify it by saying "animals with our sets of teeth and digestive system were designed to kill and eat other animals. This is why I don't get mad if my cat eats a mouse."
Gah, this is nightmare poll for me, my answers would depend so much on what resources lab grown meat would require, what waste products it would produce etc and how that balances out with normal meat production in terms of energy and resource use and environmental impact of these things.
I genuinely have no moral objection to killing animals for food as long as it is done as humanely as possible and they have had a good life beforehand. I'd like to raise and eat my own animals if I ever have the opportunity to do so. As it is I only buy high welfare standard, outdoor reared British meat, and eat quite a lot of veggy food to balance the cost. As an ecologist, I'm also very aware that if we got rid of all livestock, our landscape would look very different.
I genuinely have no moral objection to killing animals for food as long as it is done as humanely as possible and they have had a good life beforehand. I'd like to raise and eat my own animals if I ever have the opportunity to do so. As it is I only buy high welfare standard, outdoor reared British meat, and eat quite a lot of veggy food to balance the cost. As an ecologist, I'm also very aware that if we got rid of all livestock, our landscape would look very different.
I don't think most people even bother with any justification for eating meat, because they don't much care whether animals get killed or not.
As this technology progresses, it will first become viable as a substitute for cheap processed meat. It'll be much longer before it is able to compete with fine cuts of proper meat. During that time, real meat will be increasingly prized by foodies as a mark of genuine quality - and even if we get to a stage where the artificial stuff is indistinguishable from even the best real meat, sheer snobbery will maintain the premium for real meat for a long time.
As this technology progresses, it will first become viable as a substitute for cheap processed meat. It'll be much longer before it is able to compete with fine cuts of proper meat. During that time, real meat will be increasingly prized by foodies as a mark of genuine quality - and even if we get to a stage where the artificial stuff is indistinguishable from even the best real meat, sheer snobbery will maintain the premium for real meat for a long time.
I've eaten reindeer when I was in Norway learning to ski cross-country. You weren't missing much.
I was missing the transgressive thrill of imagining I was eating Rudolf.
Carnivores in general don't care about the source of the meat they eat.
If we did, we'd be herbivores.
If we did, we'd be herbivores.
I agree. A lot of crazy vegans* seem to assume all farm animals can just magically disappear with no consequences or be kept as pets when the whole world turns vegan with them.
*No offence intended to any sane vegans round here, I'm sure there are some.
*No offence intended to any sane vegans round here, I'm sure there are some.
I'd compare the resources and environmental impact with my current diet - veggie and try-to-be local; I don't eat e.g. tofu due to the impact of its production. If it was a *lot* better I'd consider artificial meat, but I also really hate the taste of most meat (as far as I recall at more than 20 years' remove).
There's also the issue of all the byproducts of meat production that we currently make use of - leather for example.
I disagree, because that didn't work with Quorn, which is pretty much indistinguishable from third rate battery farmed chicken.
I disagree. I find the idea of meat grown in a lab to be completely and totally horrifying.
That's just really temporary "future shock" though surely? I mean inherently, you surely don't have anything against other "manufactured" food. You may not particularly like "non malt" vinegar (insert your own choice of "chemically manufactured food stuff" here) but it's hardly "horrifying".
As for your point on chickens, that really would depend on the chickens... battery chickens are not a separate species after all. We used to have bantams and they're feistly little buggers, woe betide anyone who tried to collect their eggs. I've enough similar stories from people who grew up collecting eggs from chickens to think that regular chickens can be quite as characterful. I can imagine if some chickens had been raised as battery chickens they might be a bit listless for a while afterwards.
As Andrew says, reindeer isn't much to miss... If you're desparate though you can buy it online pretty easily.
http://www.americanpridefoods.com/reindeer-burger-patties/
That's just really temporary "future shock" though surely? I mean inherently, you surely don't have anything against other "manufactured" food. You may not particularly like "non malt" vinegar (insert your own choice of "chemically manufactured food stuff" here) but it's hardly "horrifying".
As for your point on chickens, that really would depend on the chickens... battery chickens are not a separate species after all. We used to have bantams and they're feistly little buggers, woe betide anyone who tried to collect their eggs. I've enough similar stories from people who grew up collecting eggs from chickens to think that regular chickens can be quite as characterful. I can imagine if some chickens had been raised as battery chickens they might be a bit listless for a while afterwards.
As Andrew says, reindeer isn't much to miss... If you're desparate though you can buy it online pretty easily.
http://www.americanpridefoods.com/reindeer-burger-patties/
I don't think the problem is the amount of energy eetc required for humans to eat meat; I think the problem is too many humans in the first place. CULL THE HUMANS!
Yeah, soya products are dreadful for the environment - I'd eat grass-fed meat over soya products any day in terms of environmental impact.
Most people that are willing to pay a premium of any kind for anything don't eat third-rate battery chickens though. In order to persuade people to move in the first place you'd need to make something that tasted as good as nice chicken.
(My problem with Quorn chicken is the texture, which is altogether too soft.)
(My problem with Quorn chicken is the texture, which is altogether too soft.)
I've had reindeer since. I just wish that I could actually say I ate reindeer on Christmas Eve.
I would rather not go near a burger made from cells taken from me, actually - to put cells into culture they'll have to be immortalized and probably have chromosomal abnormalities and other ways of getting round the natural blocks on cell division, and I would like to avoid eating my own pre-cancerous cells just in case.
Plus people have been brainwashed into fearing FRANKENSTEIN FOODS by the anti-GM lobby, soI suspect the people who pay for organic free-range food harvested by fiar-trade virgins listening to Brain Eno aren't going to buy something made in lab.
Hey, some of us listen to Nick Lowe instead.
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