[ExI] Pink Slime

[Stefano Vaj]

On 16 March 2012 01:49, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:

> 2012/3/14 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> > "Colour" should be easy enough, and if we can engineer the production of
> > entire, structured body organs for, say, transplant, foie gras should
> not be
> > much more difficult than a human liver... :-)
>
> Makes you wonder if someday there won't be quite the same prohibition
> against cannibalism as there is today. Would you eat factory produced
> meat based on human DNA? Of all the human societal prohibitions, that
> against cannibalism is one of the most universal. Brave new world
> indeed.
>

The cannibalism is far from universal, but it must be said that unless in
very specific circumstances cannibalism has a more ritual than nutritional
meaning even in cultures practising it.

As such it is not very unusual in other species, but the real rationale
behind the taboo is that there is obviously a perfect compatibility of any
infective or parasitic disease carried by the meat and your own organism.

Interestingly, pork taboos have often been justified with an analogous
albeit much lower compatibility of human and suine "ecologies", which is
exactly the reason OTOH why pigs were often considered for xenotransplants.

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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