This is the first thing that came to my mind, too. I’m a omnivore myself and admittedly love my meat, but it’s very bad for the environment and I can’t deny the ethical concerns are there. At the very least, I can see low key vegetarianism being the norm in 20 years, where the norm would simply be to not have meat products, and meat might instead be a more niche diet or simply not the norm.
If lab grown meat manages to become scalable enough, I can also see that nearly completely replacing “real” meat. Once it’s at least as affordable, I think “real” meat’s days would be numbered. It’d become a thing only for purists/elitists/exotic diners. I would even expect that lab grown meat would eventually become cheaper than “real” meat simply because it would be far faster to grow and take fewer resources than to grow an entire animal to adulthood.
As an aside, would labe grown meat be considered vegan? I think it would be since no animal is harmed in the making of it. I imagine many existing vegans wouldn’t want to eat something that tastes like meat, but it would be the thing that converts practically everyone else. I sure don’t see why I’d ever want to eat “real” meat again if I could get a comparable lab grown meat that doesn’t harm animals and is better for the environment. That’s just a win win.
I think in the grand scheme of things, if you have to ask if something is vegan, it’s probably not worth worrying about too much. Perfect not being the enemy of good and all that.
Lab grown meat is grown from cell cultures that were taken from animals that were not capable of consenting to donate these cells.
Hardcore vegans will likely still despise it, but for a lot of less hardcore vegan people it might become an option, especially if marketing hides the origin.
IMHO it’s more important that the carbon footprint of growing cell cultures is bigger than that of growing animals. Unless this changes, lab grown meat is not an option to fight global warming.
This is the first thing that came to my mind, too. I’m a omnivore myself and admittedly love my meat, but it’s very bad for the environment and I can’t deny the ethical concerns are there. At the very least, I can see low key vegetarianism being the norm in 20 years, where the norm would simply be to not have meat products, and meat might instead be a more niche diet or simply not the norm.
If lab grown meat manages to become scalable enough, I can also see that nearly completely replacing “real” meat. Once it’s at least as affordable, I think “real” meat’s days would be numbered. It’d become a thing only for purists/elitists/exotic diners. I would even expect that lab grown meat would eventually become cheaper than “real” meat simply because it would be far faster to grow and take fewer resources than to grow an entire animal to adulthood.
As an aside, would labe grown meat be considered vegan? I think it would be since no animal is harmed in the making of it. I imagine many existing vegans wouldn’t want to eat something that tastes like meat, but it would be the thing that converts practically everyone else. I sure don’t see why I’d ever want to eat “real” meat again if I could get a comparable lab grown meat that doesn’t harm animals and is better for the environment. That’s just a win win.
I think in the grand scheme of things, if you have to ask if something is vegan, it’s probably not worth worrying about too much. Perfect not being the enemy of good and all that.
Lab grown meat is grown from cell cultures that were taken from animals that were not capable of consenting to donate these cells.
Hardcore vegans will likely still despise it, but for a lot of less hardcore vegan people it might become an option, especially if marketing hides the origin.
IMHO it’s more important that the carbon footprint of growing cell cultures is bigger than that of growing animals. Unless this changes, lab grown meat is not an option to fight global warming.