It's time to stop killing meat and start growing it

[bascule]

http://www.slate.com/id/2142547/

 

I think everyone can admit that mechanized production of meat, milk, and eggs has resulted in factory farms with deplorable conditions, and we should all at least feel bad for the way in which our food is produced (however it hasn't stopped me from eating eggs, milk, cheese, etc.)

 

Is this the solution? Can we have our meat and eat it too?

[ecoli]

it's a problem because people don't want to know aobut the horrible conditions these animals must face.

 

The info is out there, available to the public, but ignorance is bliss, and people like being blissfully ignorant.

 

If you really want to make a difference, you should know where your animal products are coming from. Only buy eggs from free-range chickens, for example.

 

I happen to have my own chickens, but that's basically what I do.

[Phi for All]

I like it. As long as we can trust the way it's "grown" and what goes into it (no more hormones and antibiotics, please) I think this could be extremely economical once it becomes widely used.

[ecoli]

...McDonald's didn't invent the appendix.

 

The appendix doesn't have anything to do with digesting meat.

 

and I'm wary at the way the author claims that humans need meat so badly. I'm not denying that humans have evolved to eat meat. But, we, especially in america, eat a lot more meat then nature probably intended.

 

I'm a vegetarian, and I get plenty of necesary nutrients from plant sources (I eat eggs and dairy) and get away with taking very few suppliments.

 

I don't think humans 'need' meat as much as we think we do.

[reor]

Wait... you mean, like, planting a fingertip and having a clone growing in my backyard? That would be awesome!

[Martin]

...I think this could be extremely economical once it becomes widely used.

 

I agree, the market (instead of moral considerations) may eventually force it

 

we already eat TOFU and Yoghurt and cheese which are partly fermentation solids, I think. Anyway someone told me that cheese is largely the bodies of the bacteria that ate the milk.

 

so if those bacteria were cousins of a pig, and tasted like pig, it wouldnt be cheese anymore

 

I'm fine with this. how soon can we have some!

 

sample quote:

 

...to satisfy it.

 

How? By growing meat in labs, the way we grow tissue from stem cells. That's the great thing about cells: They're programmed to multiply. You just have to figure out what chemical and structural environment they need to do their thing. Researchers in Holland and the United States are working on the problem. They've grown and sautéed fish that smelled like dinner, though FDA rules didn't allow them to taste it. Now they're working on pork. The short-term goal is sausage, ground beef, and chicken nuggets. Steaks will be more difficult. Three Dutch universities and a nonprofit consortium called New Harvest are involved. They need money. A fraction of what we spend on cattle subsidies would help.

 

Growing meat like this will be good for us in lots of ways. We'll be able to make beef with no fat, or with good fat transplanted from fish. We'll avoid bird flu, mad-cow disease, and salmonella. We'll scale back the land consumption and pollution involved in cattle farming....

[padren]

I think it makes sense, I would like to be sure its very safe before it becomes standard use.

I wonder if it would be embraced or rejected by the current meat industries, given that slaughterhouses would have a ton to loose, and that their skills, equipment and proceedures would not give them any advantage in converting to growing meat. The pharma companies would be in a better position to get into the meat market than the traditional slaughterhouses.

 

That means most likely, a major "scare everyone" campaign would kick up when it becomes economically viable to grow meat.

[JohnB]

The idea of "Carniculture" has been around in SciFi for decades (standard in H. Beam Piper's books) and would be of tremendous importance in space exploration as well as going a long way to alleviating famine on Earth.

 

For the downside, read Arthur C. Clarke's "Food of the Gods".

[ecoli]

I think yeast was the favored microculture in Asimov's foward to foundation. The downside was that it didn't taste very good.

 

 

Also, you have to think that the cattle and livestock farmers wouldn't like that very much.

[Genecks]

Spirutein and many other health food products are an example of a meat-free world.

 

There is truth that something must be killed or something's potential to live must be destroyed or altered in able to create a food product from it. Synthetic foods are a great advancement, but such things will cost more money than most people will pay.

 

Food items from health food stores and gyms are a great example of products that weren't necessarily killed. A few items are synthetic. However, many people will continue to add egg products to their meal in order to increase protein intake. Protein intake worries weightlifters, body builders, fitness trainers, and even vegetarians.

 

The hard part is finding a way to create protein-rich foods without destroying taste and not creating a high price index.

 

Many people worry about being out of a job due to food changes within the economy; however, these changes are simply moving with the times and called progress. It's like the idea of McDonald's replacing its workers with machines: people will have to become engineers to fix the machines. Instead of cashier, you will have engineer.

 

Chemical and biological engineer instead of farmer.

[In My Memory]

Bascule,

 

I think everyone can admit that mechanized production of meat, milk, and eggs has resulted in factory farms with deplorable conditions, and we should all at least feel bad for the way in which our food is produced (however it hasn't stopped me from eating eggs, milk, cheese, etc.)

No one is going to switch from animal slaughter to cultured meat because its a more ethical choice, only if it turns out to be more profitable. If for some reason, the cultured meat didnt taste as good (probably because cultured meat doesnt contain blood or hormones), no one would buy it and manufacturers wouldnt make as much money, so they would still continue to slaughter (as proof of this, just look at how popular factory farmed milk is compared to its infinitely more ethical soy milk competitor).

 

The fact cultured meat exists doesnt say anything at all about manufacturers making an ethical choice about meat production, and it doesnt say anything at all about manufacturers having the slightest respect for animals as feeling beings entitled to the same rights as their mentally similar human counterparts. So the move to cultured meat isnt a moral move at all, and factory farms will continue to exist, and hunting, and vivisection, and fur trapping, and leather, and so on. It would be nice if the move to cultured meat could be accompanied by, ideally, a total and categorical abolition of all animal products.

 

Is this the solution? Can we have our meat and eat it too?

Depends on how the starter cells are obtained, but I dont have a problem with growing meat in a bucket. I would just never eat it because its not healthy, and over the past 7 years of being strictly vegan I just wouldnt find it palatable anymore.

[ecoli]

Depends on how the starter cells are obtained, but I dont have a problem with growing meat in a bucket. I would just never eat it because its not healthy, and over the past 7 years of being strictly vegan I just wouldnt find it palatable anymore.

 

 

Same here. I've been a vegetarian for 18 years, and I wouldn't start eating meat even if was artificially produced.

 

I'm sure if I ever ate meat (say a steak) I'd probably throw it right back up.

[The Peon]

Same here. I've been a vegetarian for 18 years' date=' and I wouldn't start eating meat even if was artificially produced.

 

I'm sure if I ever ate meat (say a steak) I'd probably throw it right back up.[/quote']

 

For every animal you don't eat I will eat three.

[1veedo]

Heh, We were camping with a vegetarian once who made a big show of himself about it. Thought he was like better than everyone else.

 

One night we made silver turtles: chicken and vegetable's cooked in aluminum. You wrap up what you want to eat and stick it in the fire. There was a big deal about salt and stuff so me and a friend were designated season adders.

 

The vegetarian put his vegetables on aluminum and gave it to us, saying "Keep mine away from everybody elses." Like it'd get contaminated or something. So we pored chicken broth in and set it on the opposite side of the fire, specially for him.

 

When we were doen he was like "that's the best cooked vegetable's I've ever had! What kind of seasoning did you guys put in?" I didn't want to tell him the truth, and my friend looked horrified, so I was like "It's not the seasoning, camp fires always make food taste better. It's more natural."

[ecoli]

For every animal you don't eat I will eat three.

 

For every 3 animals you eat I will eat -3 animals.

 

When we were doen he was like "that's the best cooked vegetable's I've ever had! What kind of seasoning did you guys put in?" I didn't want to tell him the truth' date=' and my friend looked horrified, so I was like "It's not the seasoning, camp fires always make food taste better. It's more natural."[/quote']

 

haha... serves him right for being such a pompous jerk. I'm sure I've eaten meat in broths or things like that by accident before. Perhaps there was a Chinese resturant somewhere along the line that misread an order (though does that count as actualy meat?) To me, it's not a big deal... you do the best you can, and that's got to be good enough.

[Mokele]

For every 3 animals you eat I will eat -3 animals.

 

I don't even want to know how that's going to work....

[Severian]

I don't see the point in this. Our meat is already grown.... in green fields wlaking on four legs. The traditional method of growing meat seems much more efficient to me.

[herme3]

Why do some people think eating meat is so bad? Animals kill other animals in slow and painful ways in nature. Meat processing companies just electrocute them. It might sound violent, but it's much less painful than how most animals kill their prey.

 

The only animals that I would feel bad eating are cats, dolphins, and apes. Dolphins and apes are intelligent creatures, and they appear to be more than wild beasts. I'm not sure why I like cats because I don't have a cat. There's just something "cute" about them.

Edited December 9, 2010 by herme3

[ecoli]

I know it wasn't on your list herme, but studies show that pigs are just as intelligent as dogs... perhaps more so. But, people eat pigs, and justify ot by calling them stupid, dirty animals, while they wouldn't touch a dog. Perhaps the meat of a pig tastes better then dog... but I wouldn't know. Perhaps you should ask a Korean...or someone for whom it is socially acceptable to eat dog.

[In My Memory]

Herme3,

Why do some people think eating meat is so bad? Animals kill other animals in slow and painful ways in nature. Meat processing companies just electrocute them. It might sound violent, but it's much less painful than how most animals kill their prey.

Then again, most human beings, unlike animals, are rational creatures who are capable of making moral decisions about their diet, so they are obligated to do so. Animals have an experiential welfare that is fundamentally no different from a human's experiential welfare, and the same reasons that form the basis for protecting a humans experiential welfare logically extend to non-human animals. If we can minimize the harm that we cause, we're obligated to do so, and we really dont need to take our moral inspiration from non-rational creatures like animals.

 

Keep in mind that the principles of animal rights are nothing more than a logical extension of humanism, so animal rights and human rights are two sides of the same coin. Killing animals is wrong for exactly the same reasons as killing mentally similar humans, because they have an experiential welfare that makes them inherently valuable.

 

Not to sound insensitive, but they are just animals! Some people act like animals are just like people, and I can assure you they are not. Most of them are stupid and ugly little monsters, and the only good thing about most of them is the way they taste. A lot of animals aren't even good for eating. My parents have a dog, and I hate it. It can't talk to me, it doesn't help me with my problems, and it doesn't even understand me. All it does is eat, sleep, and stink. It annoys me so much when my parents talk to it. Why don't they just talk to the wall? That dog is useless, and we should just eat it for dinner one night. Having a dog or another pet will never be able to replace having human friends. I want to actually socialize when I talk, not talk to a stupid thing without a decent brain.

Then again, there is no moral difference between taking the lives of animals and taking the lives of mentally similar humans, like infants. After all, if you think its ok to destroy animal lives because they dont do anything except eat, sleep, and stink, what do you say about the value of human infants, the severely mentally handicapped, or the senile? Should they be cut up and fed to mentally superior people too?

 

I dislike most animals. The only animals that I would feel bad eating are cats, dolphins, and apes. Dolphins and apes are intelligent creatures, and they appear to be more than wild beasts. I'm not sure why I like cats because I don't have a cat. There's just something "cute" about them.

So its ok to kill things so long as they arent cute? Would you be willing to extend that ethic to humans?

[herme3]

Then again, there is no moral difference between taking the lives of animals and taking the lives of mentally similar humans, like infants. After all, if you think its ok to destroy the lives because they dont do anything except eat, sleep, and stink, what do you say about the value of human infants, the severely mentally handicapped, or the senile? Should they be cut up and fed to mentally superior?

 

No, they are humans. I don't usually spend time socializing with infants, but I understand they are human and will become adults one day.

Edited December 9, 2010 by herme3

[Severian]

Keep in mind that the principles of animal rights are nothing more than a logical extension of humanism' date=' so animal rights and human rights are two sides of the same coin. Killing animals is wrong for exactly the same reasons as killing mentally similar humans, because they have an experiential welfare that makes them inherently valuable.

[/quote']

 

This is only true if we are willing to adopt your rationalization of your morality. If I instead say it is wrong to kill one's own species, but OK to kill other species, then there is no problem. In fact, my alternate rationalization here is much more in keeping with an emergence of 'morality' from evolutionary pressures, since eating something you (or your offsrping) could breed with is reducing your chances of passing on your genes. Since I can't breed with a cow, I gain an advantage by eating it instead.

[Klaynos]

There's been quite alot of research into pig intelignece in recent years, and I've seen them play basic pong like computer games...

 

Herme3, a question for you, when does an animal become "inteligent" enough to not be eaten? There is one parret I read about being studied that had a vocalulary of several hundred words, could form sentences and had a developed sence of humour... That's better than some humans I know...

[YT2095]

I`de eat ANY animal as long as it wasn`t toxic and I was hungry enough, even Human.

 

Survival of the fittest and all that!

[In My Memory]

Herme3,

Not to sound insensitive' date=' but they are just animals! Some people act like animals are just like people, and I can assure you they are not. Most of them are stupid and ugly little monsters, and the only good thing about most of them is the way they taste. A lot of animals aren't even good for eating. My parents have a dog, and I hate it. It can't talk to me, it doesn't help me with my problems, and it doesn't even understand me. All it does is eat, sleep, and stink. It annoys me so much when my parents talk to it. Why don't they just talk to the wall? That dog is useless, and we should just eat it for dinner one night. Having a dog or another pet will never be able to replace having human friends. I want to actually socialize when I talk, not talk to a stupid thing without a decent brain.[/quote']

Then again, there is no moral difference between taking the lives of animals and taking the lives of mentally similar humans, like infants. After all, if you think its ok to destroy animal lives because they dont do anything except eat, sleep, and stink, what do you say about the value of human infants, the severely mentally handicapped, or the senile? Should they be cut up and fed to mentally superior people too?

No, they are humans. I don't usually spend time socializing with infants, but I understand they are human and will become adults one day.

The fact something is a human doesnt has nothing to do with anything, because species membership is not a moral characteristic. Species membership is as morally irrelevant as race and sex membership, and cannot form the basis for our moral decisions.

 

So then, the only thing that really makes a moral difference is the fact that infants are potential adults... but then again, what if they werent? Sometimes infants are born terminally ill, and no matter what, they will never become a rational adult one day. And sometimes infants are born with mental handicaps, so they might be an adult, but they'd still be the mental equals to eating, sleeping, stinking, language-less animals. And sometimes humans lose lose the capacity for rationality altogether, due to trauma or illness. If you think its wrong to kill any of those humans, then its evident that potential personhood isnt actually a factor in your moral decision making, so that the fact an infant is a potential person or not doesnt make a difference in the wrongfulness of killing it.

 

In that case, potential personhood doesnt form the basis for a moral distinction between animals and mentally similar humans at all, and your reasons for valuing the experiential welfare of terminally ill infants, the mentally retarded, the senile, comatose, and other "marginal persons" should logically extend to animals. The wrongfulness of taking any animal life should then be just as severe as taking the lives of the aforementioned persons.