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Tastes Like Chicken
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Apr 28, 2008 09:46am |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Tuesday, April 22, 2008 03:45:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, April 22, 2008, at 8:41 AM ET
Two years ago, I proposed a compromise between carnivores and vegetarians: We couldn't change our craving for meat, but we could change the way we sated it. The solution was to grow meat in labs, the way we grow therapeutic tissue from stem cells.
Looks like I might get my wish.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has just offered a $1 million prize to anyone who develops a commercially viable "in vitro chicken-meat product." The catch is that the product can't contain or entail the use of "animal-derived products, except for starter cells obtained in the initial development stages."
The idea is simple: Instead of growing a chicken embryo into a bird and cutting meat from it, you skip the bird part and grow the meat directly from the embryo.
If you don't believe this can be done, read up on the blood vessels, livers, bladders, and hearts we've already grown in labs. Check out this month's International In Vitro Meat Symposium. Scan the latest updates on "cultured meat" R&D.
It's no freakier or more far-fetched than what you've been hearing from politicians about stem cells and what they can do for people. Scientists aren't even allowed to try a stem-cell experiment in people till it works in animals. That's all PETA is asking for: "animal stem cells that would be placed in a medium to grow and reproduce."
To put it crudely, if you can grow a hunk of flesh for transplant, you can grow it for food. |
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