Where's the Beef? In the Test Tube

Scene from inside a fancy restaurant circa 2015:

Man: (scanning the menu) - What are you thinking of getting dear?
Woman: Hmmm...the pasta looks good, but I think I'd actually prefer a steak.
Man: Do you know where the meat comes from?
Woman: Of course! I always inquire about the source of the meat I eat. It's from vat 13 at Acme Labs!

This scene may sound like fodder for a science fiction novel, but according to Wired, test tube meat may end up on consumers' plates in the not-too-distant future.

Grown in bioreactors, the in vitro meat would be created to mimic the texture and flavor or real meat, from to ground chuck to filet mignon. As of now, scientests say that they have a ways to go before reaching the desired results - but they're making progress. Wired reported: "Researchers can currently grow small amounts of meat in the lab, and have even been able to get heart cells to beat in Petri dishes. Growing muscle cells on an industrial scale is the next step."

The most fascinating (and also disconcerting) thing about in vitro meat is that, according to the folks who believe in it, it will be good for both consumers *and* the environment. The UN projects that the rising middle class across the globe will double meat consumption by 2050. And with the way the meat industry is, more cows = more feedlots, more risk for mad cow disease and more, ahem, gaseous pollution. The group of scientists who met this March in Norway for an In Vitro Meat Consortium had this to say:

"Global meat consumption is estimated to be about 270m tonnes annually. The environmental impact of meeting this forecast demand significant. Cultured meat technology offers an alternative production consumption. This would then allow a downsized livestock production ecologically sound and to meet basic animal welfare needs."

Jason Matheny, a researcher at John's Hopkins and co-founder of New Harvest (which promotes in vitro meat research) told Wired that, "to produce the meat we eat now, 75 to 95 percent of what we feed an animal is lost because of metabolism and inedible structures like skeleton or neurological tissue. With cultured meat, there's no body to support; you're only building the meat that eventually gets eaten."

My gut response? Um...ewww! My second response: Okay, it's sweet and all that you're doing this for the "environment," but it's starting to sound creepily like another green revolution.

Millions upon millions of dollars are now going into research to create a "solution" for the socially-created problem of people eating too much meat. Why not put some of that money towards educating kids and families across the globe (including and especially Americans) about eating less meat and more vegetables and whole grains? Better yet, forget education, why not put that money towards a full-on, mega-watt, marketing campaign to the same effect? It worked with Victory Gardens in World War II. Why can't we declare a full-on war with climate change and make it patriotic and sexy to grow our own food? (And no I do NOT mean in a test tube!)

Of course I understand it's not that simple - there are many political and cultural factors that stand in the way. But the rising trend of meat consumption does not have to be assumed. Forgive me for sounding like a 60's hippie here, but we don't need a technological "fix" like in vitro meat that - low and behold - will most likely have a multitude of other unforseen problems attached to it. We need ourselves an old-fashioned paradigm shift.