[ExI] Pink Slime

[Stefano Vaj]

2012/3/13 Dave Sill <sparge at gmail.com>

> Why do we need to engineer the perfect meat substitute when we've got
> already got real meat that's relatively inexpensive, nutritious, and
> renewable?
>

Some have utilitarian concerns, even though it is unclear why,
hypothetically, a painless, unexpected death after a decent-condition
living of animal populations which would not otherwise exist at all would
detract much from the happiness/suffering balance in the universe.

For the rest of us, the interest of meatoid is basically twofold:

- It might provide a more efficient way of producing animal proteins,
without the waste involved in breeding full-fledged animals around them
(who burn calories for other purposes, grow inedible parts, etc.): in this
respect, it would be the same of cloning a liver rather than cloning an
entire individual, *The Island*-style, and then perform a transplant. This
could also be a way out of the conundrum introduced by the neolithic
revolution (quantity or quality?), allowing us to have our pie and eat it
too.

- At least theoretically, it might be engineered as a "superior" product,
in terms of gastronomic and/or nutritional qualities and/or consistency
across product units, same as a replicant in comparison with a "natural"
human being with its genetic and phenotypic vagaries. Economics of
manufacturing here would not really count, as long as meatoid
price-perfomance ratio were still better than meat, allowing it to be
marketed as a luxury product.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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