Would you eat laboratory grown meat? (Gotta be better than soylent green?)

I wonder if these meaty bits might lead to lab research animals being replaced ?

No.

Bad dog.

I like a nice veal chop and I get immense pleasure an gnawin on the bone after all the meats done gone. Is this "Petri pork" gonna have bones and fat streaks and tender spots . Im gonna say no. Its all gonna look like slabs of thick baloney without any shape. I think Id actually become a vegetarian if my meat got so like a mosaic block. Why would I go and order a mytery meat steak? It would be a slab of connective tissue, all doctored up with flavor and fragrance enhancers.

And the factories doing the manufacture. Im sure they will be just all clean and aseptic. Im sure this will be the case.

Clean like the abbatoirs?

I can imagine boutique meat factories with their own special flavour.

What of all the farmers and third world herdsmen (and their families) who will be out of work?

Indeed.

What of the lessened environmental disaster and cheap protein?


I don't know whether it is good or bad, but I see potential for good as well as bad.

What of all the saddlelers and stable hands (and their families) who will be out of work when we switch from horses to new fangled automobiles ?

Don't take this personally, Miss Cunning Coney, because it is not intended that way.

**** like this drives me round the bend, and makes me want to go out, hunt down some tofu-eatin' vegans and choke the bastards to death with my bare hands. Soy beans are an ecological disaster on a scale that makes feed lots look positively benign. Large scale soy bean production leads to incredible wind and water erosion, on a scale that almost no other commercial crop matches. The Illinois River, which drains all the land lying between Chicago and St. Louis, has been killed by soy bean farming. The river is wide, deep and has a very slow current. The silt which has accumulated has killed the river's living ecosystem. Because of its peculiar circumstance of being a very large river with a slow current, it is just more noticeably affected. But this happens to rivers and streams all over the world where soy beans are produced.

Even more tragic is the example of Brazil. Beginning about 40 years ago, agri-business in Brazil got into soy bean production in a big way, because of the high demand for tofu in the far east. They've been cutting down rain forest with gleeful abandon ever since they exhausted the soil of the farm lands where they began, which doesn't take long. In a rain forest, the great majority of the nutrients are in the biomass above the ground, and since they just cut the forest down and burn it, that means the soil is exhausted even more quickly than is the case with ordinarily developed farm land. Five to seven years is normal for the complete depletion of the soil of former rain forest lands. Thereafter, of course, the corporate farmers just move on, run off any Amerindians in the way, cut down more rain forest, and plant more soy beans.

It is a gross propaganda campaign to suggest that the production of livestock is somehow an environmental disaster without taking into account both the short- and long-term effects of intensive, technological agriculture.

Trouble is that most meat (beef, chicken, pork) raised in factory farms is brought up on a corn-based diet, and corn, while not as bad as soybeans in this regard, also is a big offender re: soil erosion, at least relative to native flora or to forage.

That is certainly true. I don't believe, though, that anyone is cutting down rain forests to clear land for the production of feed corn. I'm not attempting to defend feed lot operations--but i do get sick of the holier than thou attitude of vegetarians who like to suggest that meat eaters and meat eating are evil, while they are the very soul of ecological responsibility. In addition to the tofu scam, one has to consider how much agricultural land is now being diverted to growing corn for ethanol in the name of "greener" fuel sources.

No one is simon pure in these matters, and i'm frankly tired of hearing bullshit from vegan creeps.

There are more and more halth nuts beginning to rebel against soy beans, too.

That would be a very good thing, EB. The first sensible thing i've heard of in the dietary wars is the "hundred mile diet," which holds that you should only eat food grown within one hundred miles of where you live, because of the high cost in terms of energy and CO2 pollution contingent upon the transportation of food. I happen to think it's sensible for other reasons, though. I also don't consider it a be-all and end-all solution. I still want to eat bananas, for example, and i'm pretty sure they aren't grown anywhere near the Great Lakes.

Jesus where do you get this **** from ? Have you even seen a map of the world ? Can New York grow enough food within a hundred mile limit ? What about high intensity areas where you can only see the same food type for 200 miles ? Try to think before having a feeling would you, you are embarrasing yourself.

The idea of the hundred mile diet is not mine. As it happens, there is a wealth of productive farm land within one hundred miles of New York. Have you ever seen a map of the United States? Are you aware that New Jersey is known as the Garden State for precisely this reason? Try to think before you attack an idea that someone else has expressed, and which you have no reason to assume originated with the author. I merely observed that of the host of silly notions concerning diet which have been advanced over the years, the notion of the hundred mile diet is more plausible than most.

Actually, it's a damn fine idea.

Not always possible, but a great way to limit the impact of your food on the planet, generally speaking.

Just think for a moment....less transport, hence less poison into the air etc., less need for preservation, ditto...etc.

I read a while back that some Brits* had conducted a study to demonstrate the environmental utility of consuming locally produced foodstuffs, and they found some interesting results. For some fruits and vegetables, there was less production of greenhouse gases for food items produced in Africa and shipped to the UK than for food items produced at home in the UK. This was attributed to the fact that much of the work that was performed by hand in Africa was performed by petrol-guzzling farm machinery in the UK as well as to intensive practices (pesticide application, use of industrial fertilizers, etc.) in the latter but not in the former.

This didn't hold for all foodstuffs, but I thought it was interesting that it did for some.



*Sorry, don't recall the source, but I'm sure it was a popular press write-up of a scientific publication, so grains of salt are advised on that front as well as on my spotty recollection.

I'll attack any idea I want to, and if you support it dont sqauwk foul. You cant be serious if you think there is enough farmland to support a built up area like that, even if they call it Eden. Try to think before you claim something is a good idea.
I repeat : " Have you even seen a map of the world ? Can New York grow enough food within a hundred mile limit ? What about high intensity areas where you can only see the same food type for 200 miles ? " Perhaps Iceland should farm whales. Japan cant grow enough food. Who is going to break the news to them ? This "good idea", who will implement it ? A world government ?

Yes...I read that I think as well....and that a Merc is more environmentally friendly than a Prius, if you look at the entirety of its life.

But overall, I think, the 100 mile rule makes a lot of sense.

Click here to visit the Hundred Mile Diet web site. Here is an intersting article on the subject which appeared in The Nation. Click here to see the Amazon review of the book by which inspired the hundred mile diet movement.. Alisa Smith and James MacKinnon live in an apartment in Vancouver, British Columbia, and decided to attempt to eat only food produced within one hundred miles of their apartment for one year. Smith and MacKinnon (whose relationship almost foundered in that year) discovered just how much they would have to give up, but their book has nevertheless inspired thousands of people world-wide. It is a strong and growing movement.

Within one hundred miles of the city of New York are the states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware, all of which have thriving agricultural industries. These states already supply the majority of the fresh food which is sold in New York, including seafood. And, of course, there is upstate New York, which is a thriving agricultural area, and which is noted for its dairy farms. There are several monasteries in upstate New York which are famed for their cheese. Certainly the hundred mile diet is not a complete solution, but as the Wabbit points out, it's a damned fine idea.

I'm not surprised by what the Peppermint Patio Dog reports on this subject. But, as i noted already, it's not a complete solution, i like the idea for other reasons that simply the energy consumption. It keeps the money in the local economy and it encourages diversity in the crop production of the farmers, which anyone with a lick of sense knows is a good idea for any working farm. It also encourages people to think about where their food comes from and how it gets to them. The many hundred mile diet web site (and there are many of them) claim that food served in the United States typically comes from 1500 miles away. Obviously, you're not going to be using products like olive oil and remain faithful to the diet.

Anyone who thinks you can't provide most of New York's food requirements by agriculture within one hundred miles of the city is an idiot who knows nothing about the United States, and the agricultural production there which already serves the city.