Anyone up for some laboratory-grown meat?

A few days ago, a friend asked me if I would consider eating laboratory-grown meat.

As a vegan, I still found that intuitively un-appetising, but she pushed me to explain why not. It wouldn’t involve killing an animal, and the animal wouldn’t have eaten huge amounts of vegetation, and would therefore be without a climate footprint. I do not know how growing live cells and harvesting them for food might be painless — will this lab meat be without nerve endings? I am not even sure of the ecological footprint, far less the climate footprint. How much water will such an experiment need, for example, compared to a kilo of cauliflower?

When my friend pushed me, I realised what made me squirm — moving life forms to the lab. That we were reproducing an approximation of life, and calling it life, in laboratories. It seemed like GM foods plus-plus.

I am usually a tech-phile. But mastery over nature instead of conserving it — indeed the harder option — is not acceptable. You cannot cherry pick the parts you think you need, modify them in a lab and pat yourself on the back. You have to see technology as one step in the battle to conserve, the other being reduced consumption. Self-control as a society is key. Otherwise, why not simply put out sweet-natured, non-biting lab tigers in an enclosed safari and let the rest of the wild tigers die out as their habitat is destroyed and poachers hunt them down? Doesn’t make sense? Push yourself to ask why.

Perhaps your answer will also help you figure out your position on lab meat.