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Scientists Work To Grow Meat In a Lab
codeman07 writes "In a small laboratory on an upper floor of the basic science building at the Medical University of South Carolina, Vladimir Mironov, M.D., Ph.D., has been working for a decade to grow meat. A developmental biologist and tissue engineer, Dr. Mironov, 56, is one of only a few scientists worldwide involved in bioengineering 'cultured' meat. It's a product he believes could help solve future global food crises resulting from shrinking amounts of land available for growing meat the old-fashioned way... on the hoof. Growth of 'in-vitro' or cultured meat is also underway in the Netherlands, Mironov told Reuters in an interview, but in the United States, it is science in search of funding and demand."
Nice to see that Mironov is still getting some attention, but this story is at least five years old. I wrote a feature story about lab-grown meat almost six years ago for the Village Voice, which goes into much more detail than the Reuters piece: http://www.villagevoice.com/2005-07-26/art/brave-new-hamburger/
Please, then, stick with your steroid-injected, BSE-ridden, hormone-packed, coloured, flavoured, seasoned, salted, vitamin-fortified, water-engorged joints of meat that are currently on the shelf.
The problem with people who *won't* buy "genetically modified", non-organic etc. foods is that they have no idea what they are *currently* eating anyway.
Growing "clean" meat in a lab sounds a good way to produce cheap meat for actually *feeding* people, e.g. developing countries, without needing to have acres of perfectly-good farmland dedicated to producing enough feed to sustain a whole herd of animals for years in order to slaughter one at a later date.
It would also work well for "essentials" meat, such as superstore value ranges for people who can only just afford it. I think I'd rather eat a generic, clean meat than the cheap offcuts of the cheapest animal, packaged in the cheapest possible way - especially if there are no possible BSE, etc. problems with it.
And meat production currently causes 18% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, and for various meats we push somewhere between 4 and 54 times the amount of energy into producing meat than we get in useful protein from the meat.
I don't give a shit what it says on the packet - and a bit of honesty would go a long way with me, in fact, rather than misleading and inaccurate statements like "organic" or "diet" or "reduced sugar" etc. - as long as it's edible. That doesn't mean I'd eat it for every meal but as a cheap way to get the energy I need to survive when I don't have much money? Bring it on.
People in the world are starving not because of a lack of world food production, but political situations most of the time.
If you look at anti-GM arguments more closely, you'll find that many (most?) people are opposed to them because there are environmental risks, because one of the most common uses of GM is to allow vastly stronger herbicides / pesticides, because it enables patenting of the food supply, because terminator crops reduce farmer's negotiating power with the companies that make them, because it is unlikely that the modifications can be prevented from entering the general biosphere meaning companies are taking it upon themselves to alter plantlife for everyone without consent and because there are few if any compelling arguments in their favour. At best, they tend to be a patch on a symptom, rather than an actual solution. For example the superbly marketed "golden rice" which contains additonal vitamin A, touted as a great benefit to people in India where deficiency is not uncommon. The thing is, it didn't used to be uncommon when farmers grew a variety of crops. But now due to the pressures of the international market, famers tend to focus on a few money crops (i.e. rice) and thus people don't get the balanced diet that they used to. Slapping some vitamin A into the rice (in exchange for selling your new pesticides and crop licences) is not redress for the damage done to world farming.
You'll notice that none of this has anything to do with whether or not people eat at McDonalds (which I don't).
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.