Factory Meat

I just read the article attached to the link above (click the title).  A man has been working on creating meat in a factory - growing meat without an animal.  Let me just say right off that I figure nature (God, if you prefer) already has figured this out for us - made all the mistakes and provided us with solid food.  Secondly, I do agree that some people can live without meat - and if I could, I would, but when I go without meat my blood sugar levels get really screwed up.  So I DO eat meat - most of which is attained from the local Hutterite colony whose cows craze in a beautiful field.  And I eat FAR less than I used to.

I have major concerns with the whole idea that we even think this should even be attempted.  (I also have huge concerns with GMOs and think that in 50 years we're going to look back at them as a huge mistake).  If we look back on the past 100 years or so, there have been lots of miracle solutions out there:  Petroleum provided us with cheap transportation (and so many more things like plastics - and what a miracle they seemd to be);  Anti-biotics "cured" all the bad bacterial infections; Artificial sweeteners provide us with sweets without rotting our teeth or adding to our waist-lines.  But as we know, the pollution from the use of petroleum products is heating our earth at an unsustainable rate, plastics are now permanently clogging our oceans, new super-bacteria are developing that we can't control at all, and artificial sweeteners may actually add to weight-gain, not help weight-loss (as well as cause neurological problems, disrupt insulin production and a number of other problems that have been covered up by the chemical producers who make them).  Don't get me wrong.  I live in this society.  I drive my car, I use plastics, I have taken anti-biotics and hope they work in the future if I have pneumonia, and I drink a diet pop once in a while (sometimes more).  But all of these things that are integral parts of our society are causing us problems - and their raison d'etre is simply convenience.  We can survive without all of them (maybe not individually, as some people would die without antibiotics - but as a group, we've survived hundreds of thousands of years without them). 

Just SO MANY things that once seemed right have been proven wrong.  SO MANY!!!

So I guess what I'm experiencing here is huge doubt.  Anything that sounds too good to be true, probably is. I'm terribly afraid of this becoming mainstream and then finding out in 20 years that it causes cancer, or diabetes, or some new-fangled disease that's far worse.  I'm also afraid of it getting into our food system and not being properly labeled.  Look at how badly we've screwed up the current generation with obesity - just by feeding them processed foods.  What are we doing to them with the introduction of genetically engineered food?

We know how to grow meat.  So why don't we educate the general public about how much meat is actually needed? Why don't we stop over-consuming?  Why don't we encourage people to buy locally, to grow their own, to learn how to cook using meat as a flavouring instead of as the 12-oz main course?  Why?  Because those things don't make anyone any money.  And our culture, like it or not (and there are parts of it I don't!) is based entirely on making money.  And that is truly fucked up.