Chicken grown from animal cells, not from slaughtered birds, can now be sold in the U.S. The Agriculture Department issued approvals Wednesday to California firms Upside Foods and Good Meat to sell the products, known as “lab-grown” or “cultivated” meat. The meat is grown in steel tanks, using cells that come from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a special bank of stored cells. The goal is to eliminate harm to animals and drastically reduce the environmental impacts of raising them. The meat will initially be sold only at upscale restaurants.
I’m a vegetarian. Largely for animal cruelty reasons. But increasingly, and perhaps predominately, now, for ecological ones. I don’t know how I feel about cultured meat. I’ve sat in a quiet room for the express purpose of thinking about this issue and I still don’t know what I think. As a lifelong holder of very strong opinions, that’s strange for me. Part of me thinks I should be asking vegetarians about this. But part of me thinks I should be asking people at large. Does anyone have a considered opinion about this?
If this reduces animal cruelty and the amount of resources used by the food industry, it’s a net win, no?
Yeah, the Mrs. and I are vegans and we wouldn’t hesitate to try this out. At the current upscale price point it would not be a staple of our diet, though.
I could see more of a chance to reach the average consumer, once these alternatives get cheaper. Just shifting the dietary Overton window could be huge.
I don’t see anybody going vegan because of this, but it might help convince some people that you don’t need meat in every meal of the day.
I’m not vegetarian, but I have often considered the environmental impact of beef vs chicken, and therefore choose to eat chicken instead of beef as often as possible. Following that logic, I fully support this, and hope it becomes the norm.
Only at upscale restaurants? Interesting.
Makes sense, it must be significantly more expensive than regular meat right now, and definitely a novelty
Yep, one of the standard business strategies for introducing a new product. Begin in a low-volume and high-price market and hype up the product as much as possible, giving it an appearance of exclusivity and high class. Once you’ve got some of your demand established, you can start scaling up production and introduce your mid-range and lower-cost mass-produced product. Just look at the how Tesla started releasing cars to see the same tactics in action.
Thanks to you and the others for explaining! This makes sense. Hope it becomes more common soon!
In the short term and because it’s expensive for now.
I assume that just means that it is very, very expensive.
