Save The Planet, Eat Manufactured Meat

You can have your meat and eat it, too. This is according to the In Vitro Meat Consortium, which just had its first meeting in Norway. They intend to feed an increasing human population delicious chicken nuggets and hamburgers without unleashing destructive

methane gases. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) just might go out of business. No more messy slaughterhouses. No more chicken heads in your fast food. Real animal muscle, cultured in clean and spiffy production facilities. The world consumed 270 million metric tons of meat in 2007. This is expected to increase by 4.7 million metric tons this year.

In theory, if the meat factory is powered by sustainable alternative energy, the carbon footprint of each pound of meat would dwarf that of meat produced by conventional livestock. Unfortunately, the current state of in vitro meat technology means that cultured meat is still much more expensive than conventional meat.

As the technology improves, the main question is whether or not the industry can afford the public relations campaign that would be necessary to convince people to actually eat the stuff.

[via New York Times Dot Earth]