I'm Supposed to Eat That?

I read a story online today that gave me the willys...err, you know what I mean. It was a Reuters article about a developmental biologist and tissue engineer (huh?) by the name of Dr. Vladimir Mironov who is trying to bio engineer "cultured" meat in a South Carolina lab. He feels that these new meat products could help deal with global food crises of the future.

Did anyone else think of the movie Soylent Green just now? What's not to love about those cool, green wafers. Yum! For the younger crowd who haven't seen it...it's set in the year 2022 (was made in 1973) and is a stark vision of the future where the population has exploded and the food is scarce. I'll stick on a trailer for the movie at the bottom of the post, for those feeling in a '70's Retro sort of mood. Fantastic sci-fi with Charlton Heston and Edward G. Robinson in his last movie.

You can link to the full Yahoo story here. Dr. Mironov has a visiting scholar of cancer cell biology, Nicholas Genovese, who is working under a three year grant from PETA. Genovese said, "Animals require between 3 and 8 pounds of nutrient to make 1 pound of meat. It's fairly inefficient. Animals consume food and produce waste. Cultured meat doesn't have a digestive system..."

Laboratory cultured steaks. I only have three or four steaks a year (evil cholesterol) and prefer them the old-fashioned way...from the freezer section. Under plastic. Chock-full of growth hor...

I'm thinking that if my only cost-effective options are cultured meat products from my friendly neighbourhood Fermi or DuPont Labs I may be looking at a future diet of eggplants and lentils...Oh! That reminds me of the sweet potato soup that 'V' force-fed me for supper tonight...my doctor would be so happy.