As an imvbemwifflitarian (I’m mostly vegetarian but eat meat when I fucking feel like it), I’m not sure how I feel about test-tube meat. But however you feel about it, it’s coming to a plate near you - probably within the next 5-10 years. Test tube, or in vitro, meat is grown in labs from “starter cells” provided by chickens, cattle, hogs and ducks, much like scientists (especially ones who don’t live in theocracies) can now create human hearts, kidneys, and other organs from stem cells.

Advantages: it is expected to have a taste and texture like animal meat, could end the suffering of tens of billions of animals per year, and could provide a way to bring protein to the potential 20 billion people living on earth in the next century.

But is it meat? PETA is on board with a $1 million prize to the first poindexter who can produce a viable product, potentially pissing off its purest anti-meat members. Creepy corporations
hoping to be the next Microsoft-slash-Monsanto are popping up, eager to get in on what could be a huge cash non-cow. If it is meat, will it cause the same levels of obesity, cancer, and heart disease that beef and pork cause now? Or perhaps some new designer malady the world hasn’t see yet?

With the Michael Pollans and Barbara Kingsolvers of the world crying out for locally grown, organic, heirloom foods, is test-tube meat a step in the wrong direction? Or do the potential environmental benefits – No grazing! No methane-flatulence! No erosion! No mad-cow! No E.coli! No waste! No irradiation! No water degradation! No carbon hoofprint! – outweigh the concerns?

And perhaps most important of all, what does this portend for the Kentucky State Fair? Will there be racing stem cells? Pork chop sandwiches at the Kentucky In Vitro Pork Producers’ booth? An auction of the Grand Champion In Vitro Ham?

To learn more, check:

Scientists Flesh Out Plans to Grow (and Sell) Test Tube Meat (Wired)
Tastes Like Chicken - Growing meat without growing animals (Slate)

(JW)