After years of media coverage, including an article in Utne Reader, scientists have finally grown meat in a laboratory. Animal rights advocates are cautiously optimistic, because the proposed food source wouldn’t involve killing animals. According to the British Times, the concoction currently resembles “a soggy form of pork,” and the scientists are working to improve the texture. The taste, however, remains in question, since rules currently bar scientists from tasting the In-Vitro meat.
Leaving the scientific and ethical questions behind, Hank Hyena, writing for h+ magazine, envisions a world where In-Vitro meat is already wildly popular. According to Hyena, “In-Vitro Meat will be socially transformative, like automobiles, cinema, vaccines.” Ranches will disappear, urbanization will accelerate, and the price of rural land will plummet. Economies that rely heavily on animal meat for trade, like Argentina and New Zealand, will have to figure out a new source of income or risk collapse. The world will get healthier and more environmentally friendly, according to Hyena, but the meat itself will be a lot more strange.
Source: h+
