Debate: Would You Eat Meat Grown in a Lab?

By Glenn & Jake 

It's no secret that many writers on One Year in Texas are vegetarians (Glenn, Maddie, Bobby Langston, Jake, Hot Rod) and that's what makes this particular debate so controversial and intriguing. Is it ethical for one to eat meat grown in a laboratory by the neo-farmers we have decided to call scientists? Vegetarianism is a very controversial lifestyle choice - even more so than piano playing - and the discovery that you can grow meat in labs instead of slitting your favorite pet's throat and smashing its skull with a hammer changes the dynamic of the debate. This discussion will mostly affect vegetarians but even normal Americans will have something to learn as we decide if it's okay to eat meat grown in a lab.

Glenn: I answer with a resounding "yes." There were a lot of factors that led me to stop eating dead animal flesh and byproducts (henceforth known as "meat") back in 2001 when I started college: the treatment of animals, the environmental impact of meat consumption and the fact that Morrissey wore a shirt that said "I Don't Eat My Friends." Put very simply, the way I look at it is that I wouldn't put a bullet into some random cow so I shouldn't be eating the fruits of that bullet fired from someone else's gun, even if it's the DC Sniper's. With lab meat though, there is no gun and there is no death or pain. It's like a children's movie. The moral and ethical reasons to not eat animals are all removed if it's grown in a lap. I would eat lab meat as happily as I would eat an adult stem cell.

Jake: While Glenn's "yes" might be resounding, my "no" is like thunder straight out of Thor's hammer. I am coming up on the tenth anniversary of not eating meat. While I am a firm believer in killing, I just don't like the taste of meat. Right before I became a pescatarian I would be eating a piece of chicken or turkey (I didn't eat red meat) and I would think about the animal going home to its family and arguing with its spouse. I just couldn't bring myself to keep eating the flesh of such a creature. Maybe if I had envisioned it putting a dirty bomb on a subway in England I would still be a carnivore, but this was a pre-9/11 world I was living in and there were no terrorists yet.

Kaleena really pushes for buying organic food and won't even let me eat anything containing high fructose corn syrup, so I wouldn't even dare ask if she would allow me to eat some rabbit grown in a lab (or labbit, as I like to call it). I wouldn't wan to eat it anyway, because meat is pretty gross and meat grown in a lab seems freakier to me than Cirque du Soleil or a remake of Drop Dead Fred.

Glenn: Of course there is the "ick" factor present here, just like with all technological advancements that make people uncomfortable at first. The first time I saw a genetically modified grape thrice the size of a regular one, I was scared but it was delicious. I also felt uncomfortable the first time I had sex with a clone of myself. These things are always going to seem weird but most Americans "don't want to know" how the package of raw meat ends up at their grocery store anyway. They think it absolves them from moral responsibility in the mistreatment of animals and it does - completely. So I don't see why they should be concerned with meat that ends up there because some crazy scientist accidentally created it while he was trying to come up with an exciting new medicine to make your penis bigger.

Jake: When I think about a lab I think of rats. Usually labs are used to torture rats and other small animals, but this time these geniuses have decided to grow meat. If it doesn't technically come from an animal is it still meat? If it tastes comparable to these genetically modified, lab grown tomatoes then I would have to say no. They taste like nothing. I barely remember what meat tastes like, but I'm certainly not going to be trying some chicken that some nerd created in a test-tube. I'm not morally against the eating of a rotting carcass, but I like people more when I find out they're vegetarians. I respect people less when they tell me they only eat food grown in labs.

Glenn: I guess Jake sort of hits on the point: this isn't meat in the way that you or I, true Americans, conceive of it. It is really no different than eating Morningstar Riblets, which I love. So who could be against eating those? I don't really remember what meat tastes like either but I remember liking it. I guess you could say the same thing about Bill Clinton's presidency. Sometimes people ask me why I eat meat substitutes since I don't want to "eat meat." The answer is because I was raised on a variety of different dead animals, such as chickens and raccoons. Anything we are raised on we always love even if it's wrong - just ask Michael Bay producer of the awful Transformers movies. I think lab meat would just bring me closer to eating chicken without compromising my principles against eating chickens. While Jake envisions a chicken coming home and arguing with its spouse, I imagine a chicken inventing the cure for Polio or becoming the first black President. It's enough to continue my vegetarianism for another four year term.

Jake: What chickens do in the privacy of their own homes is none of our business, and it barely pertains to this debate other than giving it a farcical edge. What chickens do that does matter is they eat poop. This would be a reason to eat lab meat, right? Wrong. I believe that most of the flavor in chicken comes from poop. Plus how are we going to get eggs? Are they going to grow those in labs too? Maybe my jump in logic (that chickens will no longer exist if we start growing meat in labs) is crazy, but it may be more true than we will ever know.