'Cause you said, said he was the one
Baby yes you said, said you were in love
Back to basics: Step 1
Arthur
JJC
Outgrowing 17
Dreamer
Poet
Lover
Atheist
Left-Handed Saggitarian
My passions: Step 2
Food
Company
Writing
Movies
Music
Debates
What i am: Step 3
Strengths:
Confident
Sensitive
Eloquent
Weaknesses:
Paranoid
Unorganized
Careless
Dreams of a globetrotter wannabe: Step 4
Paris
Shanghai
London
Gold Coast
Japan(Tokyo)
Rome
Taiwan
Hong Kong
New York
San Francisco
South Korea
Wishlist
My own domain
Scholarship
To publish a book
Want to know more about me?
Read my blog and you would start discovering fragments of me
P.S. All the works here posted belong to me unless stated otherwise. If you want to post them elsewhere, please seek prior permission from me before doing so. Thanks.
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Tube-meat
Tuesday, August 26, 2008, 5:15 PM
Fresh meat from the butcher? Frozen meat from the supermarket? How about Tube-meat from the laboratory? Test-tube grown meat seems like it would become a reality in the future to come. But would anyone want to eat it?I was browsing through the blogs that I provide links to as usual, keeping myself updated with my friends and one of them talked about growing meat in the laboratory. It isn't a very new breakthrough but still relatively recent, given that the first report on it was released in 2005.
Apparently, meat can be grown in the test tube just like how we culture stem cells. Cells are extracted from the meat of animals and grown in test tube to allow them to divide and eventually grown into meat. It all started when NASA researched into growing fish meat in test tubes to save space since storage has always been a problem in spaceships. It subsequently led researcher Matheny and a team of scientists to propose several techniques for growing meat in test tubes. This would however require different tissues such as muscles and fat so that it really is the meat that we are familair with. One huge challenge faced has been trying to get the texture right since research in this area is geared towards mass production for human consumption. Nobody would want to eat it if it tastes awfully different from the conventional meat we know.
Nonetheless, this still yields substantial benefits because we would be able to reduce our impact on animals. We wouldn't be eating poultry filled with so much growth hormones. I don't know if they can even be called poultry or animals, as a matter of fact. Sounds more like a hormone tank. This would probably put an end to the pressure we have been putting on the animals in order to sustain food production. With the world population growing still, the pressure we put on animals could pose a problem if we don't adopt a solution, i.e. growing meat in test tubes.
Just this year, the animal rights group Peta is putting up a million dollar reward for anyone who by 2012 can grow in-vitro meat that looks and tastes like the real thing. Money does wonders. This provides impetus for researchers to research into this area more extensively and more intensively than ever because not only would they be able to get the reward but would most likely be able to secure patent rights for such production and produce these meat for commercial purposes, reaping in millions and probably billions of dollars.
Most importantly, a team of 10 Peta jurors will taste the entries to make sure they match the texture and flavour of chicken, and they must score at least 80 out of 100 points to win the prize. There goes the worries about the texture and flavour of the chicken. However, even with this in place, can we convince ourselves to eat it? If we were to look at Sinapore's NEWater, it seems to have yet to achieve this. We have created an alternative source of water but it isn't accepted by everybody. I know of friends and relatives who refuse to drink NEWater. The thought of it being recycled from sewage water is repulsive enough to keep one from opening the cap and taking a gulp out of the treated water. Not to forget, the difference in the taste of NEWater as compared to the water we usually drink due to a lack of minerals is also one of the factors contributing to why people don't want to consume NEWater. The same might just happen to meat grown in test tube. Rejection from the public, that is.(Edited)
The meat produced from test tubes might have the same texture and taste, but would we eat it? Can we, creatures of habit, switch to consuming meat produced in the test tube? Will the thought of the meat being produced in a laboratory pose as a psychological barrier to the commercial success of such meat? All these, we don't know. But I'm sure we would find out soon enough.
Perhaps, we need to look at how morally wrong it is for us to OVERCONSUME meat. It has turned from a need for growth, development and survival to an addiction. A habit. A consumption pattern. We need to rethink the pressure we put on other animals. But, the question remains, how many people would truly switch to meat which do not put such pressure on animals for the sake of animals? My guess would be that very few would do so. Draw a parallel to global warming. It's been rightly described as a moral imperative by Al Gore and we are facing the problems of global warming. How much effort have we really put into solving global warming? Seriously. Would reducing plastic bags help to SOLVE the problem of global warming? No doubt, it reduces the impact but it's foolish to think global warming would go away one day just because we all decided to turn to using recyclable plastic bags. Would we really turn to consuming meat in test tube for the sake of animals? Cognitive dissonance, I say. Our voracious appetite for worldly possessions seems to suggest so too.
We would switch to such forms of meat. Yes. In the future. When animals are in the face of extinction, that is. Just like how we are turning to alternative sources of fuels when fossil fuels run low and oil prices jump. I can envision in the many light years to come, that is if we still thrive, how people would reflect on our consumption habits in disgust just like how we condemn slavery and authoritarianism.
Meat in the slaughterhouse and butchery. Frozen and packaged meat in the supermarket. Tubed-meat(as i would like to call it) in the laboratory. The question, "What nutrients would you like in your meat?", dosen't seem very far fetched now. Does it?
Labels: Extinction, Food, Global Warming, Meat, NASA, NEWater, Peta, Science, Stem Cells