What's Next? Fake Meat!
"Fake meat" isn't new. For years it's been made from soy products, other legumes, grains, and veggies, with additional colors and flavorings. Many people prefer not to partake, and I'm one of them. If I want soy, I'll take some edamame steamed in the pod, thank you. It doesn't need to look like a hot dog. But that's just an aesthetic preference; if you want to eat tofurkey for Thanksgiving, more power to you.
Some researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina are cooking up something entirely different in their lab: engineered or "cultured" meat. I'm too ignorant in matter scientific to give you a cogent explanation of how it all works, but suffice it to say, it starts with some cells from a biopsy of a live animal, sits around in a petri dish, and eventually becomes a hamburger. (Flavors and colors are added along the way.) The research is being funded by PETA - you know, the animal rights people who typically employ tactics like releasing test animals from labs, demonstrating at fur-laden celebrity events, and putting egg-selling monks out of business. Apparently they've decided that convincing people, one or two at a time, to go vegan isn't working well enough. Quietly, they've made peace with the fact that most people enjoy meat and aren't willing to give it up.
From where I sit now, there's no way I'm putting any lab-cultured meat in my mouth. Although a large-scale switch to engineered meat would save countless animals from the horrors of life on a factory farm, not to mention freeing up land once used for livestock farming to be used for growing food or replanting forests, there's just something viscerally repulsive to me about the idea of meat that's actually meat but was (except for the first few original cells) never part of an actual animal. But I'm open to changing my mind someday. Since I'm only 28, if I enjoy an average life expectancy, I can bet on seeing all kinds of unbelievable technologies and cultural shifts become reality during my lifetime. Get back to me in 20 or 30 years; I may be using "Charlem" (they really are going to have to come up with a more appetizing name for their product) in my lasagna.
Obviously, there are many hurdles to be jumped before cultured meat can go on the market. A taste test is scheduled for August - in Sweden (insert whatever joke you like about Swedish cuisine) - but the FDA approval process has not yet begun and could take up to ten years, even if all goes well. As a potential consumer, I have so many questions: is "Charlem" nutritionally identical to meat from an animal? Are there health risks? The researchers claim it's "spiked with vitamins and other nutrients." Why? Is it nutritionally deficient? Or did they just figure they'd improve on meat while they were at it? And what about the flavorings they add? Are they artificial? How safe are they? What about the long-term effects of cultured meat consumption?
It's not as though "real meat" is always safe or nutritious, of course, as I'm sure PETA would be happy to point out. Savvy consumers are well aware that "factory farmed" livestock are often fed antibiotics, animal by-products, and other things diners prefer not to think about. Meat you buy in the store can contain fillers and excess salt and water. And hey, maybe these researchers can make red meat less dangerous to your arteries, while they're fooling around with it anyway. (They claim they can already adjust the fat content of the meat.) So there's no point in waxing nostalgic about "real meat," unless the golden time you're remembering involves going out back to slaughter an animal that's grazing in your pasture.
Ultimately, what bothers me about this cultured meat project (if it goes anywhere) is how symptomatic it is of our approach to most problems of scarce resources. Rather than cutting back on consumption, we try to develop a way to continue consuming much more of something than we need, but without the ill effects. We try to have our cake and eat it, too. That, of course, has always been the basis of Yankee ingenuity, and in many cases it has served us well. But I think we also need to ask ourselves why. Why do we leap for the far-fetched, expensive, potentially risky solution, when the solution in front of our noses is to simply eat/buy/burn/drive/make/consume/build less?
On Friday, I listened to On Point on NPR, and one of the guests was culinary historian Jessica Harris, who has just written a book, called High on the Hog, about the African origins of many American foods. Because she believes the influence of African foods and cooking methods extends far beyond the African-American community, Harris isn't fond of the term "soul food." But the conversation inevitably turned to the question, isn't soul food really, really bad for you? Ms. Harris pointed out two things in defense of the cuisine that evolved from what slaves ate in the American South. First, the people who originally ate it were slaves who did back-breaking work for twelve or more hours a day. They needed high-calorie, high-protein food, and they weren't getting fat off it. But the amount of meat used in today's soul food is also much greater than what the slaves ate, said Ms. Harris. Then, meat (which was of course hard to come by) was used as a seasoning, not as a main dish. Whereas today we might throw a whole ham hock in a pot of greens, the creators of soul food might have used a tiny piece of bacon fat to flavor the collards.
The advent of cultured meat isn't going to affect most vegetarians. Even those who have given up meat because of ethical objections to the way animals are raised and killed for their meat are probably used to going without and may be just as unappetized as I am by the thought of eating an animal product grown in a laboratory. But I think it would be a worthwhile exercise for meat-eaters to consider our consumption. Is it all necessary? Is it socially and ecologically responsible? Are we using meat as a flavoring and source of protein, or eating huge hunks of it without thought to where it came from? If lab meat becomes cheap and popular, many of us will be side-stepping these questions, once again. We can only hope that our new meat source won't turn out to have unhealthy side effects. What degree of risk are we willing to take in exchange for the right to consume at will, in virtually unlimited quantities?
- KPE
Some researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina are cooking up something entirely different in their lab: engineered or "cultured" meat. I'm too ignorant in matter scientific to give you a cogent explanation of how it all works, but suffice it to say, it starts with some cells from a biopsy of a live animal, sits around in a petri dish, and eventually becomes a hamburger. (Flavors and colors are added along the way.) The research is being funded by PETA - you know, the animal rights people who typically employ tactics like releasing test animals from labs, demonstrating at fur-laden celebrity events, and putting egg-selling monks out of business. Apparently they've decided that convincing people, one or two at a time, to go vegan isn't working well enough. Quietly, they've made peace with the fact that most people enjoy meat and aren't willing to give it up.
From where I sit now, there's no way I'm putting any lab-cultured meat in my mouth. Although a large-scale switch to engineered meat would save countless animals from the horrors of life on a factory farm, not to mention freeing up land once used for livestock farming to be used for growing food or replanting forests, there's just something viscerally repulsive to me about the idea of meat that's actually meat but was (except for the first few original cells) never part of an actual animal. But I'm open to changing my mind someday. Since I'm only 28, if I enjoy an average life expectancy, I can bet on seeing all kinds of unbelievable technologies and cultural shifts become reality during my lifetime. Get back to me in 20 or 30 years; I may be using "Charlem" (they really are going to have to come up with a more appetizing name for their product) in my lasagna.
Obviously, there are many hurdles to be jumped before cultured meat can go on the market. A taste test is scheduled for August - in Sweden (insert whatever joke you like about Swedish cuisine) - but the FDA approval process has not yet begun and could take up to ten years, even if all goes well. As a potential consumer, I have so many questions: is "Charlem" nutritionally identical to meat from an animal? Are there health risks? The researchers claim it's "spiked with vitamins and other nutrients." Why? Is it nutritionally deficient? Or did they just figure they'd improve on meat while they were at it? And what about the flavorings they add? Are they artificial? How safe are they? What about the long-term effects of cultured meat consumption?
It's not as though "real meat" is always safe or nutritious, of course, as I'm sure PETA would be happy to point out. Savvy consumers are well aware that "factory farmed" livestock are often fed antibiotics, animal by-products, and other things diners prefer not to think about. Meat you buy in the store can contain fillers and excess salt and water. And hey, maybe these researchers can make red meat less dangerous to your arteries, while they're fooling around with it anyway. (They claim they can already adjust the fat content of the meat.) So there's no point in waxing nostalgic about "real meat," unless the golden time you're remembering involves going out back to slaughter an animal that's grazing in your pasture.
Ultimately, what bothers me about this cultured meat project (if it goes anywhere) is how symptomatic it is of our approach to most problems of scarce resources. Rather than cutting back on consumption, we try to develop a way to continue consuming much more of something than we need, but without the ill effects. We try to have our cake and eat it, too. That, of course, has always been the basis of Yankee ingenuity, and in many cases it has served us well. But I think we also need to ask ourselves why. Why do we leap for the far-fetched, expensive, potentially risky solution, when the solution in front of our noses is to simply eat/buy/burn/drive/make/consume/build less?
On Friday, I listened to On Point on NPR, and one of the guests was culinary historian Jessica Harris, who has just written a book, called High on the Hog, about the African origins of many American foods. Because she believes the influence of African foods and cooking methods extends far beyond the African-American community, Harris isn't fond of the term "soul food." But the conversation inevitably turned to the question, isn't soul food really, really bad for you? Ms. Harris pointed out two things in defense of the cuisine that evolved from what slaves ate in the American South. First, the people who originally ate it were slaves who did back-breaking work for twelve or more hours a day. They needed high-calorie, high-protein food, and they weren't getting fat off it. But the amount of meat used in today's soul food is also much greater than what the slaves ate, said Ms. Harris. Then, meat (which was of course hard to come by) was used as a seasoning, not as a main dish. Whereas today we might throw a whole ham hock in a pot of greens, the creators of soul food might have used a tiny piece of bacon fat to flavor the collards.
The advent of cultured meat isn't going to affect most vegetarians. Even those who have given up meat because of ethical objections to the way animals are raised and killed for their meat are probably used to going without and may be just as unappetized as I am by the thought of eating an animal product grown in a laboratory. But I think it would be a worthwhile exercise for meat-eaters to consider our consumption. Is it all necessary? Is it socially and ecologically responsible? Are we using meat as a flavoring and source of protein, or eating huge hunks of it without thought to where it came from? If lab meat becomes cheap and popular, many of us will be side-stepping these questions, once again. We can only hope that our new meat source won't turn out to have unhealthy side effects. What degree of risk are we willing to take in exchange for the right to consume at will, in virtually unlimited quantities?
- KPE
posted by The Eastvold Blog at 10:50 AM
1 Comments:
I find your reaction to "fake meat" interesting. I agree with something like the sentiment you start with - if I want chicken, I would like chicken, and I would prefer is my tofu did not masquerade as chicken, though I also find tofu quite tasty when it is "allowed to be itself."
Hot dogs are, in fact, a notable exception for me: I like "fake" hot dogs (and, not having eaten beef or pork in about three years, fake hot dogs are the only kind of hot dogs I eat anyway). The line I give about this is "well, all hot dogs are fake meat, aren't they?" Most of the deli meat or chicken nuggets we eat are already "sectioned and formed meat products" (search for that phrase for more info) to the point of being at best distant relatives of the original animal product - basically the turkey is liquefied and then smushed back together in something vaguely of the shape we expect from turkeys. And I've come to peace with that, though it seemed pretty nasty at first. I wonder if some of your gut revulsion to this new style of meat production is based on ignoring some current realities about the way we eat meat now.
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