It’s just not sustainable. Lab-grown meat is here, it just needs to get to scale, get a bit cheaper and boom. Farming and killing animals for food will be obsolete.
This is the first thing that came to my mind, too. I’m a omnivore myself and admittedly love my meat, but it’s very bad for the environment and I can’t deny the ethical concerns are there. At the very least, I can see low key vegetarianism being the norm in 20 years, where the norm would simply be to not have meat products, and meat might instead be a more niche diet or simply not the norm.
If lab grown meat manages to become scalable enough, I can also see that nearly completely replacing “real” meat. Once it’s at least as affordable, I think “real” meat’s days would be numbered. It’d become a thing only for purists/elitists/exotic diners. I would even expect that lab grown meat would eventually become cheaper than “real” meat simply because it would be far faster to grow and take fewer resources than to grow an entire animal to adulthood.
As an aside, would labe grown meat be considered vegan? I think it would be since no animal is harmed in the making of it. I imagine many existing vegans wouldn’t want to eat something that tastes like meat, but it would be the thing that converts practically everyone else. I sure don’t see why I’d ever want to eat “real” meat again if I could get a comparable lab grown meat that doesn’t harm animals and is better for the environment. That’s just a win win.
I think in the grand scheme of things, if you have to ask if something is vegan, it’s probably not worth worrying about too much. Perfect not being the enemy of good and all that.
This definitely. For ethical or cost-effective reasons. I think price is going to be the main incentive. If its a dollar less a pound for lab grown hamburger and options at fast food outlets - we’ll definitely be there. Real meat will become the new “fancy food” - wasteful and indulgent spending.
My money is on this one. Once we find a more sustainable way to get meat, and that scales to the globe, whatever that method is, I think the idea of keeping animals only to kill then will quickly be viewed as abhorrent.
Likely won’t be as quick as within 20 years, however. Lots of companies currently making a fortune selling meat who will stand in the way of that.
When the quality and cost of labgrown meat matches the real thing - we’ll see the tables turn. Especially if they’re able to produce various *cuts^ and styles.
Even beyond that, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of cultural change. From what I can tell, drugs, sex and clearly defined gender identities are all on the decline in the younger generations in the west. I’m not sure there’s any good or clear external force pushing this. I think it’s just change. When it comes to eating meat, it’s pretty easy to start thinking through why you don’t need to do it as much as the typical western diet does, which feels pretty ripe for some form of merely cultural change.
Meat eating is a possibility. I don’t see it being universal, but veganism is on the ride and it makes sense to a lot of people.
It’s just not sustainable. Lab-grown meat is here, it just needs to get to scale, get a bit cheaper and boom. Farming and killing animals for food will be obsolete.
Farming as a whole will still not disappear at all, animal agriculture will change, but will also not disappear.
That is, of course, providing it’s sustainable, which at the moment it isn’t.
https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/lab-grown-meat-carbon-footprint-worse-beef
This is the first thing that came to my mind, too. I’m a omnivore myself and admittedly love my meat, but it’s very bad for the environment and I can’t deny the ethical concerns are there. At the very least, I can see low key vegetarianism being the norm in 20 years, where the norm would simply be to not have meat products, and meat might instead be a more niche diet or simply not the norm.
If lab grown meat manages to become scalable enough, I can also see that nearly completely replacing “real” meat. Once it’s at least as affordable, I think “real” meat’s days would be numbered. It’d become a thing only for purists/elitists/exotic diners. I would even expect that lab grown meat would eventually become cheaper than “real” meat simply because it would be far faster to grow and take fewer resources than to grow an entire animal to adulthood.
As an aside, would labe grown meat be considered vegan? I think it would be since no animal is harmed in the making of it. I imagine many existing vegans wouldn’t want to eat something that tastes like meat, but it would be the thing that converts practically everyone else. I sure don’t see why I’d ever want to eat “real” meat again if I could get a comparable lab grown meat that doesn’t harm animals and is better for the environment. That’s just a win win.
I think in the grand scheme of things, if you have to ask if something is vegan, it’s probably not worth worrying about too much. Perfect not being the enemy of good and all that.
This definitely. For ethical or cost-effective reasons. I think price is going to be the main incentive. If its a dollar less a pound for lab grown hamburger and options at fast food outlets - we’ll definitely be there. Real meat will become the new “fancy food” - wasteful and indulgent spending.
My money is on this one. Once we find a more sustainable way to get meat, and that scales to the globe, whatever that method is, I think the idea of keeping animals only to kill then will quickly be viewed as abhorrent.
Likely won’t be as quick as within 20 years, however. Lots of companies currently making a fortune selling meat who will stand in the way of that.
When the quality and cost of labgrown meat matches the real thing - we’ll see the tables turn. Especially if they’re able to produce various *cuts^ and styles.
Even beyond that, I wouldn’t underestimate the power of cultural change. From what I can tell, drugs, sex and clearly defined gender identities are all on the decline in the younger generations in the west. I’m not sure there’s any good or clear external force pushing this. I think it’s just change. When it comes to eating meat, it’s pretty easy to start thinking through why you don’t need to do it as much as the typical western diet does, which feels pretty ripe for some form of merely cultural change.