Coming Soon: Synthetic Meat?

Generally, speaking eating meat freaks me out.  That doesn’t mean I don’t eat meat. In fact, bacon is one of my favorite foods.  But if I stop too long to think about how the meat I’m consuming got to my plate, it grosses me out big time. 

Even freakier for me is genetically modified foods (derived from organisms which have specific changes in their DNA) which are readily sold in our supermarkets (there is no requirement for these foods to be labeled in the United States or Canada).  The FDA does not require any type of safety testing for engineered foods and to date there haven’t been any studies to determine if these foods are harmful to the public.  So I always, always, always try to buy food that is labeled as 100% organic and try to shop locally (most GMO foods are produced on big industrial farms and have to travel to get to our supermarkets).

Today while listening to NPR’s program, Fresh Air, I heard about how scientists are working to create meat in labs without any animal parts and got the heebie jeebies.  The scientists claim their motivation is one part preventing animal cruelty and one part environmentalism.  The idea is to take animal stem cells and place them into broth filled petri dishes and then turn the growth into muscle tissue.  To date, the biggest growth of stem cells has been the size of a contact lens.

I don’t know about you but I’m not buying man made meat as economical or earth friendly.  I think it’s scary and I certainly will not feed it to my family should it become available for purchase.  I’m curious as to what you think.

Is it no harm, no fowl?