Thursday, July 03, 2014

I was saying this from the start...

In-vitro meat unlikely to become reliable food source

Yes, you could feed the world with microbial protein grown in vast factory vats and processed into something vaguely resembling soft meat (see "Quorn").  But growing actual muscle cells into something with the texture, taste and appearance of meat is always going to rely on much, much more complicated and energy intensive techniques, and putting an animal in the field to eat grass is always going to be more reliable and cheaper.

Come back in 50 years and tell me I'm wrong.

[It occurs to me that this is the same stupid use of technology that you see in fertility treatments.   If you have ethical doubts about eating meat, there is already a huge range of other tasty protein options to avoid doing so, or doing it less often than you currently do.   In fertility treatment, we see the desire to experiment with the life of children with "3 parent" embryos so that the incredibly tiny number of mothers with mitochondrial disease can have "their own" baby instead of adopting one.   These are both rich persons' vanity projects.]

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