Could vegetarians eat a 'test tube' burger?

No moral implications of eating human flesh for these two.

Coup de theatre by these Dutch TV presenters.

There's more than one type of veggie

Any form of meat production is likely to be grossly inefficient, maybe a bit better than whole cows but still wasteful. Some veggies see that as a motivation in a world where food costs are rising.

Many of course are bozos, persuing an over romanticised ideal that ignore the basic biology that we not only can eat meat but as omnivores we do need to consume at least some.

Then again a friend of mine is an Oxford PhD biologist who just finds cows disgusting.

Eating human flesh does have a moral dimension, depending upon your ethical system of course.

There are diseases like Kuru which have evolved to exploit cannibalism and mad cow disease seems to have come about because recycling of non-food grade meat into animal feed was a short enough cycle that something could survive and evolve to exploit this new "environment".

That means cannibalism creates a form of pollution, helping undesirable organisms evolve, indeed as we recycle more, we can expect stuff like that this to happen more.

Have faith in GM

The burger will probably try to eat vegetarians .....

ITs bad enough monsanto wants to control the worlds food resource with GM crops, and by eating that it genetically modify our bodies and the French studies shows it gives the rats cancer. Why does anyone want to eat genertically lab produced meat?

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2012/11/retraction-gm-crop-cancer-study.html

Way old thread but it shows up in the forum list and I'm a vegetarian so what the hell?

As such, I am often amused at the way some non-vegetarians (i.e. 'normal' people) throw out the 'we are meant to eat meat' line whenever any questions about vegetarianism come up. The amusing part is not that the person in question is just parroting a line, but that they are doing so in an almost defensive way.

Let's be clear, though - I have no problems at all with meat-eaters. My long-time partner is not vegetarian and none of my previous partners have been. My family isn't vegetarian and none of my friends or co-workers are. I don't care if you use the 'meat tongs' to turn my vegetarian sausages on the BBQ. If I ever had kids, I would feed them meat until such time as they can make their own decisions.

My opinions as regards manufactured meat, therefore, are not based at all on an ideological position.

My first point would be, then, that growing meat naturally - in (e.g.) cow form - takes a lot of resources. It takes land and water and feed and medical treatment and so on.

Unfortunately, there are situations where this is just not feasible, the most notable one looming somewhere over the horizon being space travel. The proposed Mars colonists are unlikely to be enjoying steak or bacon when they get there.

It is very worthwhile to look at developing these alternatives because with time they will become more refined - cheaper to produce (in cost, required space and ingredients) - and thus more viable. There may well come a time in the not-right-now-but-not-that-far-off-either future where our population has expanded to such an extent that 'real' meat has become a luxury that very few are able to afford.

It might sound like some bad dystopian sci-fi scenario but our population is increasing as our usable farming land is decreasing - we need food sources that are sustainable, plentiful, affordable and nutritious. Taste is important but that can come later.

no one uses the science forum?

Bump!

Shame on you commentards for letting the science forum be the least used!