Manorfire

You may already know this, but currently, somewhere out there, scientists are growing real meat in a laboratory - that's meat grown independently of any animal. It isn't hatched or born and it'll never graze, walk or breathe, yet it is still alive and growing in a room where somebody called it into existence with a pipette and syringe.

They call it "cultured meat" and it is supposed to save us from the execrable pollution and guilt of factory farms while still allowing people to stuff their gullets with bacon butties whenever they want to. It already exists in ground or chipped form, but now Dutch scientists are working on a product that will cost a few dollars per pound instead of a few thousand. They say it could be as little as five years away.

The concept is so simple that even I can basically explain it: you take some stem cells, or myoblasts, which are the precursors to muscle cells, and lay them on a lubricated scaffold that they can attach to. Put them in a "growth medium" - some kind of fluid supplying the nutrients that blood would ordinarily provide - and "exercise" them regularly by administering electric currents and mechanically stretching the sheets of cells. Then wait, harvest and eat....oops, I guess you cook it first?

Regarding human health, artery-clogging fat could be swapped, in vitro, in favour of salmon fat. Regarding human tastebuds, they just need to make it more palatable. Add it all up, and some people find cultured meat a splendid idea. Of course, there's the 'yuck' factor and the tampering with nature angle. However, I would say cultured meat is not inherently more unnatural and icky than producing meat from animals raised intensively in their own feaces and fed on antibiotics, but perhaps this is just me? Would you buy this lab-grown meat?