Jeffrey Quick's Blog

Meat without animals

Scientists are working on growing meat in the laboratory, feeding muscle cells in Petri dishes. The advantage will be that:

scientists can control levels and types of fats (such as omega 3 fatty acids), protein and other substances and produce a product less likely to be contaminated with such food-poisoning culprits as E. coli.

"Suddenly a McDonald's breakfast sausage patty could protect you from heart disease instead of giving you heart disease," says Robert Lawrence, director of the Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

Taste may be a factor in acceptability. But nobody really knows:

Collaborator James Gilchriest, also a researcher at Touro, marinated a batch of the cultured fish — which the researchers said "resembled fresh fish fillets" — in olive oil, lemon and garlic before breading and deep-frying them.

"It smelled good," said Benjaminson, but neither researcher subjected the results to a taste-test. They didn't want to run afoul of Food and Drug Administration food safety regulations.

What a bunch of wimps! The researchers of the late 19th-century were willing to experiment on themselves. Some paid a price (e.g.,the Curies) but science was advanced. If they're afraid to eat this stuff, why should we?

I'm skeptical of this whole idea. Even if it is economically feasable and produces as good or better a product than the best current agricultural practices, it centralizes food production too much. If we're down to one breed of cow, raised only to produce cells for meat labs, what happens when (not if) society collapses? When this meat can get up off the dish, boink another dishful of meat and produce more meat all on its own, then maybe I'll feel safe about it.

And what does PETA say? If there is no consciousness to the growing protein, do they have any moral objections to eating the meat, esp. if the cells can be extracted humanely from living or naturally-dead donors?