I take part in surveys for advertisers and this is a question I just got asked in a mini poll - I hope it cut and pastes ok.



Using new techniques of tissue engineering, scientists in the Netherlands have succeeded in growing edible meat in the laboratory. It tastes like and has the nutrients and texture of real meat. How do you feel about eating lab-grown meat?



I like meat and would consider eating it. 18%

I like meat and may even prefer it to real meat, since I recognize positive aspects in terms of animal welfare, environment, and food safety. 13%

I like meat but do not feel comfortable with the idea of eating artificially produced meat. 61%

I am a vegetarian but could imagine eating lab-grown meat due to the above advantages. 1%

I am a vegetarian and would therefore not consider eating any type of meat. 6%



Who the heck were the 1% of veg*ns that would consider eating lab grown meat? Scary stuff huh?



Won't be long till they do away with fresh food altogether and give us all three pills a day!

The ones who just don't want animals to die, but would be fine eating meat otherwise, I expect.



It's not like we're all veg*n for the same reasons, yanno?

Hi semicharmed. I hadn't thought of that, but I did think the origin of the tissues being used means they killed something at some time? So I couldn't see how anyone would eat the meat that was a by-product of that. But I see your point.

So now I can eat my heart out? And it would be vegan

They can clone the cells, there is actually a thread about that some where on here.

Personally, I wouldn't eat lab grown meat, no way.



But if the fact that something had to die seventy-two steps back in the process of making something, we'd have to stop eating/doing a LOT of things we do. Animals die in the process of making just about anything, somewhere along the way. The creation of lab-grown meat might even have a LOWER body count than something like harvesting wheat, since it's happening in a lab, free of critters who would get stepped on or ground up in harvesting machines. (I have no idea if that's true, of course. Just an example of how IF it was that way, how some people might view it.)



It'd freak me right the heck out, though, even if I weren't vegan, though. Yikes, that's creepy!

The only purpose I'd support it for would be cat food, unless they can prove my cats could be vegetarians.

lab grown meat? pass.

Sounds almost more disgusting than meat to me.

Well, I primarily skip the meat because of health reasons (cholesterol, fat, and chemicals). Meat grown in a lab would still have the fat and cholesterol and is even more unnatural than the stuff I already refuse to eat... so, I'll pass.The thought alone just makes me ill.

I wouldn't eat lab grown meat even though I'm an ethical veg*n. To me it still supports the idea that animals are made for us to eat and that we must eat animals in order to get a balanced diet. I am fully in support of this idea for current omnivores however. I would love it to replace factory farms but I bet the average meat eater is not comfortable with this idea and wouldn't think it would taste as good.

Back in August, I probably would have eaten it. Now, The idea of eating meat is gross. There are still some things I miss from time to time, but I 'spect I'll get over that too.

Scary? No, not at all.



The thing I find scary is that of the 92% of people surveyed who eat meat, only one in three said that they would consider eating lab-grown meat that was cruelty-free and better for the environment, animal welfare, food safety as stated in the survey, but also would transfer jobs from the current low-paying and dangerous ones at slaughterhouses to high-tech science based ones. The ridiculous lure of the nature/natural logical fallacy is that strong these days.



As for the 1 in 7 (not 1% of vegans, but 14% btw) of veg*ns who would consider eating lab-grown meat, I am one of them. For several years I held the position that would never consider such, but I changed my mind for a variety of reasons.






If I was given the option I would go for the pills, although I would prefer getting my exact bodily requirements based on my genome and daily activity through a series of pills every 2 hours or so. Preparing and eating meals is a waste of my time and requires a kitchen, significant amounts of energy. Good ridance. I only do it now because I need to.

I agree.

Depending on the process, I might eat lab grown meat.



*shrug*

me i would glad eat lab grown. theres no cruelty to an animal involved so theres nothing scary to me.

might as well make an automated machine to wipe my a$$ for me

Yeah, I might eat it too. I can't remember eating meat so its not like the texture or anything grossed me out. If it was far enough removed from the animal itself, bien sur

+1 to everything but the pill part :P

Yes, I'm also excited at the prospect of non-cruel cat food, and also food for other domestic animals that require meat. But I also agree with others who hope that it might catch on with meat-eating humans.



I'm also curious about the carbon footprint of lab-grown meats. I'm assuming it will be higher than vegan foods, but hopefully lower than animal foods.

I don't think I'd care to eat it, but I'm not opposed to the idea of it being available and reducing and/or eliminating "real" meat. It might be tempting to eat lab-grown blue cheese!

I do not believe you can substitute pills and powders for fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains. We have more "health food" on the market than ever before. Are people (as a whole) healthier? No. We have more GMO, more chemicals, more additives, more science but are people healthier today than they were 100 years ago? No. People are getting fatter, cancer is on the rise, heart disease is on the rise, everything BAD is on the rise despite enormous scientific "fixing" of our food.

Ugh, more GMOs in food? Pass.



But I would totally want a couple of these guys skulking through the farmyard at night:

I believe i would eat it for the same reason I eat faux meat. The taste and texture is fairly good, good nutrient profile (despite possible artificial additives) and most importantly, animals weren't tortured and killed in order to obtain it.

Lol GFP (green flourescent protein) is what makes those kitties glow. I did a huge essay on this type of thing. Kind of cool, but incredibly unnecessary to make animals glow in the dark and god knows how they genetically modified them and how they were treated...



Haha Whoops, sorry. I didnt mean to go all serious haha <3

I agree as well... If we could obtain our macronutrients from pills the way we can get our micronutrients from multivitamins, it'd be so much more efficient. A lot of people really do fall for that nature fallacy, I think it's because of all the craze for organic and now people don't trust anything that isn't exactly the way it was found which is kind of absurd.

As for the pills, I enjoy eatting so I wouldn't bother with them. As for the lab grown meat, I wouldn't because I never really liked meat in the first place. I like fruits and veggies (not green beans though YUCK) and eating lab meat would mean less of the other foods I enjoy. So I don't think I could go for either of them.

All this seems to make it more complicated. You would think people would look for more simple things like an orange or some cherries, but instead they make lab grown meat. I guess it is better than killing off animals, but I just really like how simple a veg*n diet can be sometimes.

I wouldn't have a problem with lab meat.

Why not? Is there something magical about them? Would the cells in my body be prejudiced against an identical nutrient coming from a pill then from an apple? Look, I did not say that people should be forced to eat that way, but I would like the option as I am a bit of a workaholic and love it that way. I find eating to be a pain in the ass and often I end up spilling part of whatever I am eating onto the pages of whatever I am reading at the same time. I view it as no more than a neccessary biological process such as breathing. I manage to breath without noticing it and find no negative consequences from such, so the thought of making eating less and less noticeable and intrusive into my life is something that I look forward to. Sure on holidays and whatever getting together with family and friends for a big meal would be fine, but day to day, forget it. And lets be honest a whole pile of people due to lack of time eat a bunch of fast food, so substituting that for specially formulated pills would be a huge step forward. Those who want to spent 10 or 20% of their waking hours preparing and consuming food would still be free to do so, but I have a million things I would rather be doing with my time. In the timeline of our species we have moved towards less and less of our time going towards obtaining, preparing and consuming food, and used that newly free time for other things. I look forward to that continuing.






Exactly, and that why the life expectancy continues on a downward spiral....oh wait it continues to rise...never mind.






I guess there is no sense (edited from "since") arguing. You are right. The reason why people are living twice as long as they were 100 years ago is because they were so much healthier back then.






Perhaps due to a dramatic decrease in exercise - a choice they make for themselves. But, if you want to blame it on GMOs go right ahead.






I have two cancer biology textbooks sitting in front of me. If you remove lung and bronchus cancers (both of which are almost always caused by smoking) from the equation than age-adjusted cancer mortality rates for Americans have been falling since the mid 1940s for both men and women. Incidence of cancer is much harder to measure because we have much better methods of detection and often detect cancer that would never impact someone in their life-time. If you really want to avoid cancer than do what people did many years ago: die early of something else like say smallpox.






According to the latest stastistics I have read (from the heart and stroke foundation of Canada), heart-disease mortality rates have fallen by more than half when standardized for age over the previous 30 years for both men and women. That sucks.






You can choose to believe what ever you want, but what you state is a complete odds with reality. It is no different than when social conservatives hold the fantasy mythology that in the past the family unit was perfect, like was the Waltons, and now it is in shambles due to homosexuals and feminists, when in reality they exaggerate the problems today and don't notice the problems of the past. GMOs are your version of homosexuals and feminists.

Meat is disgusting, but only because it was torn from a slaughtered animal that once had a mind. If it could be obtained without harming an animal mind then I wouldn't find it disgusting, I'd think of it the same way I think of tofu or wheat-gluton meat. I am not a vegan because I care about animal muscle and fat cells in the abstract, I'm a vegan because I care about real living animals. Given this I wouldn't only eat lab grown meat I would strongly encourage others to; it would be the way to end the animal agriculture industry by allowing meat eaters a way to behave ethically without losing something they're addicted to.