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29 May 2006 01:57 pm

Pigs and Morals

Will Saletan is onto something, as usual. I live with major cognitive dissonance, since I have been largely persuaded that the way in which most animals are treated and harvested for meat is unethical at best and may even be one the great moral enormities of our time. When I think that pigs have the same intelligence and range of feelings that dogs have, and then think of what they are subjected to in factory farming, I feel I am morally delinquent in eating bacon. And yet I still do. What if there were an alternative? Will thinks it's possible:

How? By growing meat in labs, the way we grow tissue from stem cells. That's the great thing about cells: They're programmed to multiply. You just have to figure out what chemical and structural environment they need to do their thing. Researchers in Holland and the United States are working on the problem. They've grown and sautéed fish that smelled like dinner, though FDA rules didn't allow them to taste it. Now they're working on pork. The short-term goal is sausage, ground beef, and chicken nuggets. Steaks will be more difficult. Three Dutch universities and a nonprofit consortium called New Harvest are involved. They need money. A fraction of what we spend on cattle subsidies would help.

I'd say the market could provide the money. There are lots of people like me who want to be moral but can't resist the crackling in the pan. Give us an alternative, and you could make a fortune.

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