Vegan lifestyle articles that discuss ways of living in peace with humans, animals, and the environment.
Robbie Lockie,
PlantBasedNews.org
July 2018
So looking at the systematic horror of the industrial farming complex, should vegans support clean meat, even though it is not vegan, as it is made from animal cells?
Could clean meat save billions of animals from slaughter every year?
(Photo: Armando Ascorve Morales)
When I talk about 'cultured meat' or 'clean meat' so many people say to
me that it is disgusting, or 'unnatural'.
Some people just can't understand how anyone would eat it?
What many fail to understand is that 95 percent of all meat consumed in the
Western world is produced on factory farms and nothing natural happens on a
factory farm. Nothing.
Worst enemy
These are places where thousands of sentient feeling animals are crammed
into tiny spaces, standing in their own feces and urine for months and
months at a time.
They may be pumped full of drugs and antibiotics in horrific conditions so
nightmarish you would not wish them on your own worst enemy.
Some do not see light, or breathe fresh air for their entire lives - until
the day they are taken to a slaughterhouse and killed.
Vegans
So looking at the systematic horror of the industrial farming complex,
should vegans support clean meat, even though it is not vegan, as it is made
from animal cells?
Paul Shapiro, author of Clean Meat: How Growing Meat Without Animals Will
Revolutionize Dinner and the World, told me: "Clean meat isn't intended for
vegans - it's real meat, after all.
"But vegans should support clean meat innovations since they can help
animals, the planet, and public health - the three primary reasons people
choose to become vegan in the first place."
Environment
Cellular agriculture - the creation of clean meat - uses a fraction of the
natural resources we need to produce flesh using standard animal agriculture
practices.
So really what is more 'natural'? Abusing and torturing animals for their
flesh, while simultaneously destroying our planet?
Or growing tissues in clean and hygienic labs without slaughtering billions
of living beings at a lower environmental cost?
Sustainability
Speaking about the sustainability of clean meat - as well as guarantees
consumers may seek in terms of the products impact, Shapiro says: "Clean
meat is likely to be both safer and more sustainable than conventional meat
today.
"It's imperative that credible third parties (not just the manufacturers
themselves) such as food safety, animal welfare, and environmental groups,
help inform consumers of the benefits clean meat innovations offer. At
scale, clean meat will be produced not in labs, but in breweries that really
resemble beer breweries today.
"It seems likely that there'll be limited, symbolic commercialization of
some clean animal products in the next year or so. I'd suggest that more
meaningful commercialization in which these products will regularly be on
store shelves is still years - though not decades - away."
The future
It is the future. And just like many other technologies that came before,
people where initially afraid of them but then they where widely accepted.
And as my friend Khaled bin Alwaleed Alsaud says "It's time to resign
factory farming to the dustbin of history..."
This technology could help us end it, forever.
Return to Articles Reflecting a Vegan Lifestyle