Where's the Beef?

(Repost of July 8, 2005 personal blog post, slightly edited)

A brand new development in food science is bound to change the vegetarian world forever:
Synthetic meat.

I'm not talking tofu, here. I'm talking actual meat cells grown in vitro. Taking a single animal cell and reproducing it over and over to produce meat. It's already been proven possible. Engineers at NASA have already managed to grow small amounts of meat to be used as food for space-travel. The question of how to mass produce this lab meat is what is being worked on now. The meat not only needs to be grown, but needs to be stretched like a live animal would to develop the same texture. Using in vitro meat alleviates such problems as the health, environmental, and animal suffering issues currently associated with the meat industry and eating meat.

The brings a whole new issue to light for vegetarians. Will we eat this test-tube cow? I'd imagine that strict vegans certainly wouldn't, as this is obviously a by-product of a real animal. However, for those vegetarians among us who aren't so hardcore, will we eat it? I can only speak for myself on this issue, but here's how it would roll for me. If it got down to the point where meat can be made using very few cells from the actual animal, and the extraction did not kill the animal or cause it large amounts of pain; I would eat it. Happily. I miss meat and this process doesn't conflict with the reasons why I practice vegetarianism.
(For those, unaware, my main reason for vegetarianism is the fact that we have enough advances in food development and soy processing that we no longer need to eat natural meat. With the advances of soy product, it is no longer worth the ecological, environmental, and animal rights damage that comes with eating natural meat.)

The traditional meat eaters out there are bound to ask, "Why should I switch over?" The advantages of in vitro meat are numerous. For instance, because it's lab grown, the nutrients in the meat can be controlled. Example? The fatty acid Omega 3, known to cause high cholesterol and other health problems, can be replaced with Omega 6, a healthy fat. Another plus is the fact that growth hormones and other drugs used in the development in natural meat would not be needed in in vitro meat. Not to mention all those "hippy" reasons about animal cruelty and all that noise.

So, in conclusion?

Chef Z is in favor of beaker beef and lab lamb.