Slashdot Mirror
Space Meat Coming to your Kitchen
jdray writes "Australia's GizMag is running an article about the industrialization of a NASA-tested concept for artificially creating meat. The article mentions meat makers as home appliances. Carne-Matic aside, this sounds like a mixed blessing, and brings about visions of some sterile, Spandex-jumpsuit future where food production is controlled by some central authority, and real, hoof-grown meat is a rare delicacy. Remember, Soylent Green is people!" You can read a curiously familiar Slashdot story from a month ago too.
You might say this in jest, but I'd be interested in hearing what ethical vegetarians think about eating cruelty-free meat.
Carne-Matic aside, this sounds like a mixed blessing, and brings about visions of some sterile, Spandex-jumpsuit future where food production is controlled by some central authority, and real, hoof-grown meat is a rare delicacy.
It's truly sickening to me the lengths that people go these days to ruin their eating experiences. Too many restaurants refuse to cook meat anything under "medium" - hell I'll sign a waiver to eat a burger medium rare! Too many people crinkle their nose unless you cook their meat to shoe leather and someone even asked me if I should be rushed to the hospital because my steak was "too pink".
All the fears in the world about animal borne disease (avian flu, mad cow disease, etc) have spawned even more "illness psychos" who are obsessed with the latest in 99.9% bacteria free soaps, hand lotions, and air filters. We are breeding a population of individuals that are more susceptible to illness than ever before!
Eat that fucking natural meat and cook it rare. When you are making some hamburger, wad up a ball, add some pepper and salt and eat it. I've done it since I was a kid and never had any ill effects.
I am beginning to enjoy food less and less (especially out here in the Midwest where they have no tastebuds) and bullshit like this will only make it worse. Sadly, people will love it... See, no bacteria - especially when I cook it till it's charcoal.
Blah.
"The article mentions meat makers as home appliances. Carne-Matic aside, this sounds like a mixed blessing, and brings about visions of some sterile, Spandex-jumpsuit future where food production is controlled by some central authority, and real, hoof-grown meat is a rare delicacy."
Yeah, because I know all my home appliances are controlled by the government. I get a Toaster Use Coupon every Tuesday in the mail so I can use the toaster 3 times a week between the hours of 4-6 PM. Thank god for the central authority.
I don't see what the problem is. If the meat tastes like meat and has roughly the same protein and calorie content but costs much less then this can only be a good thing, right? Maybe we won't need to raise millions of cows just for meat production and we can change some of the food crop over to something more useful like grains.
I just don't understand how being able to synthesize food in every home in America means there would suddenly be a shortage of non-synthesized food, strictly controlled by the government.
Stop the Slashdot Effect! Don't read the articles!
Opposed to what, a sterile, buisness-suited present where food production is controlled by large corporations who are more concerned about the bottom line than the welfare of either the customers or the animals used to make the food?
/. that every submitter comment try and pass off a technological innovation as being Orwellian/reckless/sinister with some sort of boneheaded Luddite comment?
Decentralized 'meat' production where there's no suffering involved, the risk of dangerous bacterial contamination from slaughterhouse processing is gone, the consumer has moer direct control over what antibiotics and hormones, if any, go into their meat is such an Orwellian idea.
Since when did it become required in
A Muslim co-worker and I (I'm an Orthodox Jew, for reference) had a brief discussion of whether you could actually eat artificial pork. I'm _reasonably sure_ that under halakha, you could - meat is really defined as something that comes off an animal, and whatever this stuff is, if it doesn't come off an animal, it wouldn't have the halakhic status of meat. He also agreed that Shaaria would _probably_ not have an issue with it, either.
/., methinks.
I think the ideological implications are more interesting (fake bacon is one thing, but this...), but those aren't really of any concern on
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I for one would not eat this. It skeeves me out like you wouldn't believe. Tank-grown, faux-critter isn't on the list of things I'm likely to try.
And, for many of us vegetarians, it's a combination of the ethics of meat combined with the fact that meat-heavy diets are held up as unhealthy overall.
I think you'll find that for vegetarians, this stuff is a non-starter -- it's still meat. The fact that it's a lab experiment is even creepier.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Excellent. Maybe now we can use some of those stem cells to create man meat. It wouldn't even be cannabalism because stem cells aren't people. Yummy.
--Kevin
Most vegans (including myself) aren't against eating animal-derived products simply because they're derived from animals (though as a coping mechanism, you do eventually see things like a plain glass of milk or a block of cheese as pretty gross..which, if you think about it, they really are), but because of how they're derived. Good for instances include milk and eggs; in both cases, when you're mass-producing either product, it's practically inefficient to keep around very many males around, as only a few are necessary for the continuation of product, and extra animals hanging around consume a large amount of resources. I mean, milking a cow isn't intrinsically wrong, though it is weird when you think about it, but continually inseminating in animal in order to continually retrieve a product (or in this case, a raw good..either way, though) from it is pretty messed up from my POV.
Back to those male cows though: you've got a lot of them, but you can't just kill them, that would be resource consuming in and of itself, so what do you do? You sell them off for veal. They, more often than not, have their hooves nailed to the tiny cages they'll spend the rest of their lives in, before being slaughtered for a delicacy. If I chose not to eat meat, but consumed a lot of dairy, I'd be directly funding one of the most inhumane (again, POV) parts of the industry I was personally boycotting. Male egg chicks are at least disposed of quickly, but usually not disposed of, generally just discarded, i.e. in a dumpster or elsewhere.
So yeah, those are my main reasons for not partaking in animal products. It'd require some deep thought, but initially I'd say that yes, it is possible that I'd consume products that were derived from an animal, so long as it was humane, sterile, and non-harmful to the animal. This seems, again initally, like a pretty non-invasive procedure, and there will probably always be host animals around, hopefully ones living happy lives.
*Note: I'm not in anyway trying to proselytize here; I'm not telling you what to do, think, eat, or say. The above information is accurate, as far as I'm concerned.
--- What
I haven't seen anyone talk about this yet, but this will open up a much bigger can of worms then most people think. Examples:
* Monkey Meat - People will no longer have the taboo associated with eat Chimm Chimm.
* Cannibals - Someone with phrack one of these units and take a human muscle sample (your own, a friend, a famous person, ect.) so they can indulge in eating human flesh.
* Faked Identities - take someone's DNA, grow it, and use it in an examine.
* Faked Deaths - take your own DNA, grow it, and put it into a house fire.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?