It's time to stop killing meat and start growing it. By William Saletan

Basically cloning cells means that it is technically feasible to produce meat without animals and so sidestep the animal welfare issues in meat-eating. What it also probably means is that the reason for me, for example being vegetarian is largely sidestepped: I am concerned by the ecological footprint of meat-raising and feel it is not really a good choice in a world of increasing scarcity and unjust food distribution systems [here's a good expostition of why]. As this article says:

Growing meat like this will be good for us in lots of ways. We'll be able to make beef with no fat, or with good fat transplanted from fish. We'll avoid bird flu, mad-cow disease, and salmonella. We'll scale back the land consumption and pollution involved in cattle farming.

In many ways it'd be rather like eating quorn [advertising link, but I don't think it has become generic yet] ...

It's time to stop killing meat and start growing it. By William Saletan
Filed in: vegetarian, cloning, meat, animal_welfare