I first heard about “cultivated or cultured meat” a couple years ago, even though it has been in the research stage for many years. My first thought was that mankind had finally lost its mind completely. In fact, I wrote a column about it back then, and ended that column with the notion that lab-grown meat would never catch-on. Since then, lab-grown meat has in fact more than caught-on, and is being marketed successfully.
Cultured or cultivated meat is made from small amounts of muscle cells taken from living animals, much like a blood sample. Lab technicians add the samples to a bath of nutrients in bioreactors, where they grow actual muscle tissue which the technicians shape into what they call edible “scaffoldings.” Using these “scaffoldings” they can transform those lab-grown cells into steaks, chops, hamburger patties, or chicken nuggets. The industry claims their lab-grown meat cooks and tastes just like actual meat, but with no animal slaughter required. Now I have to admit, burying myself elbow-deep in innards to field dress a deer is not the highlight of my hunt, and I never particularly looked forward to sending a steer to the processing plant. But with the first bite of grilled venison tenderloin or juicy T-bone steak, any and all twinges of apprehension dissolve like my deodorant on a Kansas August afternoon.
I barely understand people wanting to be vegetarian and not eat meat, but I simply cannot wrap my head around someone wanting to enjoy the taste of a grilled rib-eye or chicken breast, but only if it has been grown in a lab. I worked with a guy years ago who was a vegetarian and brought sandwiches in his lunch made from “wham,” a vegetarian ham made from wheat. If you want the taste of ham or other meat, why not eat the real thing?
When I wrote that first article, here was my humorous take on what shopping for lab-grown meat might look like. Maybe I’ll walk into the lobby of a storefront that looks for all-the-world like an out-of-business dry cleaners and announce to the clerk “Hi, I’m here to pick up the 3 pounds of Kansas City strip I ordered 17 years ago.” The clerk will press a button, the racks that used to hold the dry-cleaned clothing will revolve until out pop my steaks, hanging from the rack like a couple old welding gloves. Or maybe I’ll have to don a hospital gown and hairnet and stroll through what looks like the maternity ward at a hospital, where row-after-row of large covered Petri dishes contain growing steaks and chops, all labeled with “birth dates” going back 15 years. I’ll direct the “lab doctor’s” attention to a couple robust looking pork chops and a giant sirloin and head home with my “slaughter-free” meat.
God has programmed genetic information into seeds telling them what they will become. How else do you explain that a soybean seed grows another soybean plant and not an oak tree, etc? But how are muscle tissue samples from a steer coerced into becoming different cuts of beef in a lab? Seems like the rib-eye I order could just as easily grow into rocky mountain oysters.
Look, I get that some folks don’t want to eat meat, but for those of us that do, God never meant for our meat to be grown in a lab. I find it interesting that large swaths of our society today either deny God completely or want nothing to do with Him in their lives, yet are more than happy for someone to play God for them in a lab. Also interesting is how some people vehemently oppose harvesting animals for food, yet have no problem ending the life of an unborn human child …
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Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].