As a thinking experiment, let us consider that on the 1st of January of 2025 it is announced that an advance making possible growing any kind of animal tissue in laboratory conditions as been achieved and that it is possible to scale it in order to achieve industrial grade production level.
There is no limit on which animal tissues can be grown, so, any species is achieveable, only being needed a small cell sample from an animal to start production, and the cultivated tissues are safe for consumption.
There won’t be any perceiveable price change to the end consummer, as the growing is a complex and labour intensive process, requiring specialized equipments and personnel.
Would you change to this new diet option?
Without hesitation. If the taste, consistency, nutrition, and price are all the same, then the only differences would be whether an animal was bred to suffer until slaughter and the likelihood of illness from consumption. I’m assuming that stuff like e coli would be nearly impossible through this. Plus less demand on farm meat means less chance of coronavirus mutations like the 2009 swine flu outbreak. And less of a need for the real estate, feed, and potable water to grow those animals. I must be missing something because I’m struggling to see a downside here.
I’m sure that, in the same way that there’s still a market for objectively inferior exploitatively mined diamonds as a status symbol instead of lab created diamonds, there would still be a market for rEaL meat where “you can really taste the suffering” or whatever.
Now here’s the more interesting question that actually has me on the fence: if “growing any kind of animal tissue” is what has been achieved, where would you stand on consuming lab-grown human meat? Is it immoral? Are there risks? Should such a thing be restricted in some way like alcohol or handguns? What would be the proper etiquette and presentation and everything if it became socially accepted? What wine would pair best with it? Or would it be more of a beer pairing? If this weren’t socially acceptable, would no-suffering chimpanzee meat be okay?
If it only takes a small cell sample, would it be unethical to dig up extinct animals like mammoths or dodo specifically to enjoy their meat? If that’s okay, and it chimps are okay, would neanderthals be okay to eat? Where would we draw the line?
I don’t think the value is sadism in itself, but the supposed natural purity; it’s the sense of authenticity. They’d be more likely to market it like “As nature intended”, “no nasty chemicals, organic”, “no added dihydrogen monoxide”, like that. You can play on the silly fear of scary chemical names.
I suppose animal furs is a relevant case study. Synthetic alternatives exist, but the real thing is considered a status icon by idiots.
That all said, fuck those cruel idealistic pieces of shit and the suffering they enable.
Human meat, the inevitable question!
I see literally no ethical problem with eating non-sentient lab-grown meat, and I don’t see why it being human flesh should be treated specially. I’m not even trying to equivocate humans and other animals, I don’t consider human meat to be a human being, so there’s no farming torture I’m concerned about, and I care about the meat’s death as much as I care about a jellyfish or grass being squished. It’s not like they’re farming an entire conscious human like The Matrix, that would be uneconomical. (that said, what if humans were lab-grown for scientific research like lab animals? That’s a more confronting question to me!)
I’m no expert, but I suspect human diseases are more transferable than other animal meat diseases, so that’s a consideration. Contamination is always a concern, I’d assume.
I don’t care. I can buy chicken nuggets and eat them with my elbows, if I want. I’ll do that with human meat too. I already side with Frank Reynolds’ perspective on the whole ‘respect for the dead’ tradition, put me up on a mountain for vultures and flowers like the Zoroastrianists, but this isn’t even a sentient, let alone social, being. The only real etiquette I would consider is to make sure people aren’t unknowingly served it, same with pork and other meats, because that could be unreasonably cruel to someone who is alive.
You’re looking for an answer or just going rethorical?
Asking seriously.
Yeah, asking for real. We might see such a scenario come to pass in my lifetime. If there’s no human suffering and nobody has to die for it to occur, is there anything other than “seems icky” that would stop most people from at least trying human meat at some point in their life? Would it be illegal, legal but restricted, or as legal as beef? If not illegal, would you try it, and if so, how?
Sit down. Grab a drink, if you’re a drinker. Relax.
Story time.
My country was involved in a somewhat civil war between 1961 and 1974. Grisly thing, fought overseas, in many different scenario. For some, it was a holiday season, as the terrain they were deployed to was essentially peaceful or very low combat prone but others saw very harsh conditions, with even lack of combat rations.
On one particular front, things got so ugly, so dire, that at some point people did resort to cannibalism. Well, a mix of cannibalism and necrophagia, as the fresh corpses of the deceased would be dug up during the night, pieces of the flesh harvested and the corpse returned to its grave. Heads were treated as a delicacy.
According to a man that spent three years on that hell and came back alive to tell the story, and now I quote: “tasted like pork, a little sweeter and a bit more oily but it was better than slowly starving to death”. Soldiers and locals alike were reduced to such last resort solutions.
That’s for the taste part.
For the dangers of eating it, there are prion diseases like Kuru. It is always a concern lifted against the consumption of human flesh. Then there are the autoimmune diseases, pathogens and virus we all carry.
Since the theoretical at hand is based on the premise of all meat being lab cultivated, I risk most of those risks would be diminished.
Personally, I wouldn’t eat it. Religious authorities would jump off their rails just on the simple mention of the idea.
Cannibalism was a last resort solution in extreme desperation. Have some nightmare fuel on me.
I appreciate the response. I’d heard that it’s similar to pork, and I’ve heard of prion diseases like kuru being a problem (which might be a non-issue if lab-grown maybe?)
It makes sense for religions to have a problem with it, possibly all meat made this way and not just human as it’s “unnatural” or whatever. I’m no expert on religions of the world, but I’m not aware of any explicit directive to not eat human meat, but it wouldn’t surprise me either way really.
So I guess assuming it were safe to eat which was my assumption, only secular people would really consider it. But maybe a lot of religious people wouldn’t bother with any of the lab grown meat in the first place, so it’s possible that lab grown human meat would be tried by as many people as any of the other options.