A Snack of the Clones

I'm intrigued...yet revolted. By what? you might reasonably wonder? Take a guess. Go on. Wow! Yes, you got it exactly. And in one try? Yes, I am intrigued yet revolted by the idea of these lab-grown chicken nuggets that just got approved for sale in Singapore.

Someday soon, we may be even further
from knowing exactly what's in a chicken nugget.

Pictured: not me. 残念ですね...

I'm what you might call an aspirational vegetarian. I'm an aspirational a lot of things: speaker of Japanese, pianist, person with a cool haircut. A lot of things. What I'm saying is that I'd like to be a vegetarian. I was one for two entire years in which I was very hungry all the time, and while I'm off that particular wagon the idea of meat produced without slaughtering animals appeals to me. But then I read the part about how lab grown meat is made and it's, well it's...I think the phrase is "horror show"? 

While the article is specifically talking about the lab-grown chicken made by a U.S. company called Eat Just, I think it's basically the same story with any cultured meat-which, right there. Cultured? Could they...could they have maybe picked a different word?

Sure, it can mean someone who's well-read and enjoys the finer things,
but I also think of bacteria and things left in the fridge too long.

Pictured: a science farmer.

(artist's rendition)

To be clear, I am 100% onboard with Eat Just and similar companies' goal here: meat without the ethical dilemma or the environmental impact. It's just that this sorta chicken that will soon be finding its way into restaurants and eventually grocery stores is made by culturing biopsied cells taken from living chickens in bioreactors using fetal bovine serum as growth medium. So, cow's blood. From unborn calves. Which in addition to being super-gross sounding also would seem to undercut the cruelty-free mission statement but then I'm not a science farmer so what do I know?

Again, good for them, good for chickens and good for the planet. I am down for murder-free meat. I guess what I'm saying here is that meat producers of the future are going to need some serious marketing wizardry to sell us on this stuff because yikes.

"We use only the finest biopsies and freshest fetal cow blood in our
bioreactors to bring you the best tasting chicken science can culture."

-The future of "meat" marketing