Test-tube steak?
By now you may have heard about PETA’s offer of a $1 million prize to the first scientist able to successfully grow and market lab-grown chicken.
“In-vitro” meat is grown in a laboratory rather than in an animal. The idea has been around a long time. Winston Churchill predicted in 1932 that in the future “we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium,” according to an article in Satya magazine. But it has been getting more attention lately as the technology becomes closer to reality, and with PETA’s announcement.
Response has been all over the spectrum, ranging from enthusiasm about the possibility for in-vitro meat to substantially reduce the suffering of farmed animals, to disgust at the thought of eating flesh even if no animals were killed. Even within PETA, the idea sparked a “near civil war,” according to a New York Times article.
There’s not a lot new that I can add to the discussion, except for one small angle that I haven’t seen mentioned anywhere else. That is the possibility of using lab-grown meat in pet foods. Because cats are carnivorous by nature, the possibility of feeding them a vegetarian or vegan diet is quite controversial. I would love to feed my three cats a cruelty-free diet, but am not willing to risk their health. So I continue to feed them animal-based pet foods despite my qualms. I would welcome the day that lab-grown meat could solve that problem.
Readers, do you see any way that lab-grown meat might improve your future?
