In Vitro Meat
Posted on April 18, 2008 - Filed Under Animals, Environment/Conservation, Science, Stuff I Want |
No to blow my own trumpet, but I saw this coming about 5 years ago. Apart from the obvious ethical advantages inherent in not killing nice, peaceful cows, there are other benefits:
Rapidly evolving technology and increasing concern about the environmental impact of meat production are signs that vat-grown meat is moving from scientific curiosity to consumer option. In vitro meat production is a specialized form of tissue engineering, a biomedical practice in which scientists try to grow animal tissues like bone, skin, kidneys and hearts. Proponents say it will ultimately be a more efficient way to make animal meat, which would reduce the carbon footprint of meat products.
“To produce the meat we eat now, 75 to 95 percent of what we feed an animal is lost because of metabolism and inedible structures like skeleton or neurological tissue,” Jason Matheny, a researcher at Johns Hopkins and co-founder of New Harvest, a nonprofit that promotes research on in vitro meat, told Wired.com. “With cultured meat, there’s no body to support; you’re only building the meat that eventually gets eaten.”
I can’t wait. Maybe my recent commitment to refrain from eating mammals won’t spell the end of my red-meat-eating days after all.
Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan
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4 Responses to “In Vitro Meat”
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They’ve been talking about that for decades now in Science-fiction novels and if you ever read any of those ‘future science’ articles in something like the New Scientist,its always on the top of those ‘technologies of the future that we could actually create’ lists
It’s playing God!
Does Andrew sullivan get commission for all the shit you steal and co-blog about?
Well if you click on the link he gets more traffic, which I’m sure he appreciates.