If you have any doubts about genetically altered livestock, you probably don't want to continue reading. Scientists in Holland have successfully grown meat in a laboratory using cells from a live pig.
The Times reports that this could be a potential solution to the dual issue of pollution and soaring global demand for meat, assuming the kinks get worked out:
So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years' time.
If this sounds slightly familiar, you might be thinking of cow-less meat -- a prominent plot point on the sitcom Better Off Ted (season two debuts on December 8) about a research and development company. Here life is imitating sitcoms.
My initial reaction is a combination of fascination and repulsion, similar to when I first saw the picture of a human ear on the back of a mouse. The concept of eventually not needing a pig to make pork doesn't feel right.
To date, nobody has actually tasted the "meat" produced because it is not allowed by law. In addition, the texture has not been perfected. It's been compared to a "soggy form of pork."
But let's assume the problems of taste and texture can be overcome as the process of cell replication and exercise is perfected. We already eat a lot of processed meats (a sausage maker is one of the key investors in the experiment) so what if it is a petri dish instead of a pig at the beginning of the food chain? Is that too big a leap, or just the next step towards a food pill in the continued engineering of our diet?
[Image via Flickr: sashafatcat]
Showing 1-1 of 1
Probably not much different than the pork from Big Pig now. Minus the hydrogen sulfide taste.
Uber processing only creates agribusiness big profits on poor quality products.
Buy local, support sustainable agriculture. Know your chop/steak/cutlet and how it was raised.
Soylent green is near...
like
dislike
