Wouldn't sausage be a better place to start?  Who know what goes into a sausage anyway?

Feb 20, 2012 -- 10:48AM, Ebon wrote:

"Dutch scientists have used stem cells to create strips of muscle tissue with the aim of producing the first lab-grown hamburger later this year.

The aim of the research is to develop a more efficient way of producing meat than rearing animals.

Well, I'm also glad to hear about the benefits to animals because as it has been widely publicized, conditions are deplorable for many, if not most animals that are used to mass produce meat for human beings. ...I mean, really deplorable.

Plus, in many third world countries, the rain forest is being stripped for cattle pasture:

Forests, particularly the rain forests of Central America and the Amazon, are being burned and cleared to make way for cattle pasture. Since 1960, more than 25 percent of the Central American forests have been lost to beef production -- most of it for export to the United States and Europe. It has been estimated that for every quarter-pound fast-food hamburger made from Central American beef, 55 square feet of tropical forest -- including 165 pounds of unique species of plants and animals -- is destroyed. Today, the world's 1.3 billion cattle are stripping vegetation and compacting and eroding soil, thus creating deserts out of grasslands. More than 60 percent of the world's rangelands have been damaged by overgrazing during the past half century.

www.animalliberationfront.com/Practical/...

Ariel makes an excellent point, with which I agree. 

One of the most commonly heard questions that vegetarians hear is 'Where do you get your protein?'  This implies that the general public assumes that protein can only be obtained from flesh, which is simply not true.

The fact that people who do not eat flesh somehow manage to not just survive, but to be in general healthier than the general population shows that, obviously, protein can be easily obtained from other sources.

www.happycow.net/vegetarian_protein.html

However, this sort of thinking will not be accepted by the general public, who remain convinced that they must have meat to survive, so the idea of making meat in a lab is the next best thing.

And, since it is true that our fellow 'food' animals are treated abominably, it would be to their benefit if lab meat became popular.

Who knows?  If people really do become seriously concerned about the terrible cost to the environment by the animal agriculture industry, maybe lab meat will become more popular.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 1:43PM, arielg wrote:

This is dumb.  The main  argument for eating meat is the need for proteins. They could just develop some way of making protein and forget about the meat.

Feb 20, 2012 -- 2:46PM, solfeggio wrote:

Ariel makes an excellent point, with which I agree. 

One of the most commonly heard questions that vegetarians hear is 'Where do you get your protein?'  This implies that the general public assumes that protein can only be obtained from flesh, which is simply not true.

The fact that people who do not eat flesh somehow manage to not just survive, but to be in general healthier than the general population shows that, obviously, protein can be easily obtained from other sources.

www.happycow.net/vegetarian_protein.html

However, this sort of thinking will not be accepted by the general public, who remain convinced that they must have meat to survive, so the idea of making meat in a lab is the next best thing.

And, since it is true that our fellow 'food' animals are treated abominably, it would be to their benefit if lab meat became popular.

Who knows?  If people really do become seriously concerned about the terrible cost to the environment by the animal agriculture industry, maybe lab meat will become more popular.

So then, I guess this idea really isn't dumb after all.

Good news for cows...