"Cultured" meat

Nice, normal, uncultured cows.

That's the terminology used for meat created in the lab: cultured meat. And guess what? No animals will be required to create this artificial meat. An article at ScienceDaily says they won't even use animal cells to create the meat. They're thinking algae. From this they will tease tissue -- and you know what the other name for tissue is, don't you? Yup, meat. It's a wild notion, isn't it? Meat from algae.

Of course, the place where they're honchoing this project is Sweden. Where else, right? Right now, scientists, ethicists, economists, tissue experts and other "stakeholders" are meeting to decide the future direction for this soon-to-be industry. The benefits of creating meat from scratch are immense, the main one being that animals won't have to suffer just so people can get their carnivorous rocks off.

But it's bigger than that. The animals won't be farting up the planet's carbon dioxide levels; we won't have to devote huge tracts of land to grazing, nor will we have to feed, water and house millions of animals -- and we can close down the slaughterhouses. I like that last part and I bet the animals will, too.

On the other hand the whole notion is kind of yucky. We don't need meat in our diets; vegetarians do just fine without it. But since humans continue to torture and kill animals in order to eat them, I'm in favor of this idea. I hope cultured meat becomes a reality, and fast.