The Real "Fake" Meat

There's been all sorts of meat substitutes over the years for the vegetarians who can't seem to let go- quorn, tempeh, veggie burgers, veggie hot dogs, etc. But there's nothing like the "real" thing, right?

Apparently, soon there will be. In an extremely controversial move, the animal rights organization PETA has decided that it will pay $1 million to anyone who develops a commercially viable form of vitro meat- meat grown out of a tube.

These "tissue cultures" are suppose to be safer, more nutritious, more humane, and cause less pollution. Obviously, though, one can see where they would cause uneasiness.

No one really likes the idea of eating something that was grown artificially in a lab- not just chemically produced, like aspartame and food additives, but actually grown. Vegetarians, vegans, and others who advocate eating "whole" and "natural" foods surely will be turned off by this humane meat. Additionally, the thought of eating any kind of animal flesh at all may disgust those who have abstained from meat for a long period of time.

Sure, vitro meat may be a more sustainable way to continue Americans' insatiable appetite for slabs of steaks and meatloaf. Crops won't have to be used to feed animals, and the pollution from agriculture will decrease. Manufacturers may truly label the vitro meat with "no animals were harmed in the making of this product."

Personally though, I definitely feel queasy at the prospect of living tissue being grown artificially, but who knows? Maybe this is the trend of the future. Maybe one day down the road we will all be sitting down to a nice steaming dinner of vitro meat and scoff at the days when sustenance had to come from the killing of an animal.

To read more, go to this New York Times article.

The image above is from Science Blogs.