Vegetarian/vegan: Since it is cruelty-free, I will give it a taste
Vegetarian/vegan: No way
0voters
So after watching a bad Netlfix movie about time-jumping yesterday, I had a dream last night in which I time-jumped somehow to maybe 20-30 years in the future, and was invited to a buffet-style meal that featured baby-back rib style lab-grown meat. the “rib” part was a polymer-composite material (fully recyclable, of course) which the meat was grown onto. And they were actually pretty tasty!
So, let’s say they perfect lab-grown meat, make it commercially viable, and it comes to market. Let’s say the taste is pretty spot-on, but the texture is maybe just a little off. So you probably wouldn’t want to eat a grilled lab-grown steak by itself, but use in stuff like stews, soups and stir-fries is just fine-- almost exactly like the real thing.
The meat is hormone-free, cruelty-free, and has a much smaller environmental footprint than raising cattle, pigs or even chickens. From a health profile, it’s about the same as real meat, having similar amounts of fat in order to match the flavor as closely as possible.
I know vegans and vegetarians have many different reasons why they go meat-free. For those who go meat-free primarily for ethical reasons, would you give it a try?
I would try lab-grown meat, because as an adult, I do not insist that my food must be reared in a literal lake of shit and then be slaughtered horribly to demonstrate my unquestioned dominance over captive livestock.
However, I do need it to taste passably good. Ground lab-grown meat ought to be fine, but lab-grown cuts are guilty until proven innocent. I wish they could grow an entire cow from the neck down.
I assume it will be a reasonably good facsimile of a living breathing animal with respect to texture and taste. I plan to be an early adopter in any case. The sooner we can put an end to unnecessary suffering, environmental damage and waste of factory farming, the better.
I’ve been in chicken and hogs farms. Disgusting and cruel places where the animals are pumped up on hormones and wallow in their won filth. Yeah, I’d try lab-grown. Eventually it could lead to better treatment of food animals in order to compete with lab-grown.
Naturally I would try it. I have tried some of the vegetable “meats” and have even found some I like. If safe and close to the same price, I would never look back.
I have been a vegetarian for 25 years, mostly for ethical and environmental reasons, and yes, I would try it if these reasons were eliminated for lab meat. I still sometimes crave meat and often eat veggie “meat” (which got better and better since I’ve gone vegetarian), so I’d welcome the taste of an even more authentic alternative.
ETA: I wouldn’t care for artificial “bones” though, they could skip that. That’d be only superfluous garbage.
What about price?
That’s one of the reasons I don’t eat more “meat alternatives.” Many of the ones that I’ve found to be not bad cost twice as much as meat (which I understand is heavily subsidized and has non-monetary prices).
If lab-grown meat becomes a luxury food only, it will have a much lower rate of adoption.
66 votes and one answer gets 1%? No wonder the answer is “No Way”! These polls need decimals.
I believe those meat substitutes are weird, but I would give them a try and voted accordingly. But I wonder why we need meat substitutes at all - don’t want meat, don’t eat it! Veggies can taste great. Cook them, roast them, braise them, ferment them… the possibilities are endless! Speaking of fermenting: We need more mushrooms, there are so many species we don’t grow that would be commercially viable. I think there is great promise there. And no, I am not only talking of psylocibin The mushrooms supermarkets sell are boring compared with what is edible and feasible to raise. In Europe anyway (getting slowly better though).
I’ve been asked this question many times in real life, sometimes with a mocking or even aggressive tone, but I don’t understand the confusion. What’s so hard about understanding that some people don’t want to eat meat for reasons that don’t include that they don’t like the taste of meat, so sometimes crave something that comes close to it? I was raised on a typical diet of meat, potatoes and vegetables, and sometimes it’s nice to have such a meal again, with a veggie schnitzel instead of a real one.
I hope my answer did not come across as aggresive: I have difficulties understanding why people won’t eat meat for ethical reasons but still have a craving for it. I understand the ethical reasons, I don’t understand the craving. Specially considering that the substitutes do not come close (IMHO). But that is perhaps just me, perhaps other people like quorn or seitan.
Disclaimer: I do still eat meat, but less and less as time goes by. Mostly poultry.
Don’t worry, your post didn’t sound aggressive at all, I just have been burned before on that matter by some people (all omnivores by the way, though I’m sure that there are vegetarians and vegans from whom I’d get flak for eating meat substitutes, too). As for the craving: it’s simple. I loved to eat meat until I was 28, I could still make a list of many specialties with meat which were my favorite foods. I took up vegetarianism after a years long thought progress until I couldn’t stand eating meat anymore out of ethical and environmental reasons, but I still wasn’t disgusted by meat in a culinary sense. I’d like to go as far as calling that decision a kind of sacrifice, though I’m a bit uncomfortable to call it that, because I’m not on a mission.
I will try to be more precise: I understand craving for meat, in, as you very well put it, a culinary sense. I eat meat myself! What I don’t understand is the craving for the ersatz. It is just not good enough.
But in an exersice of suspension of disbelief I assumed that the OP’s premise was that the ersatz would get better. And I am willing to give it a try. But if I ever go full vegetarian I can imagine eating no substitutes at all, as culinarily speaking the alternatives are great with plants and mushrooms alone.
Ok, I understand. It’s true, the substitutes don’t taste exactly like the real thing, but they’ve come a long way in the last 25 years. You really don’t get a passable vegetarian t-bone steak or a schweinshaxe, that’s for sure, but just today, I made linguini bolognese with veggie ground “meat”.I bet 95 % of people wouldn’t taste the difference.
ETA: the texture, besides the taste, also has a lot to do with it. Sometimes I want to bite something that feels like meat.
I`ll PM you a recipe for vegetarian bolognese tomorrow, with oven dried mushrooms as the main ingredient, if you like. I like it better than the ersatz variants, but I have never tried the latest inventions. I believe they are difficult to buy in Germany and probably still very expensive.
That’s funny, Tim Mälzer, who normally is very critical of vegetarianism, years ago cooked bolognese on his show with fermented mushrooms, and I always wanted to cook it myself. Please send your recipe, I’m curious if it’s similar to Mälzer’s.
And the availability of good meat substitutes has dramatically increased in the last years in Germany, even in my rural neck of the woods. I get good and affordable products even at Aldi and Lidl.
there’s no enthusiastic yes option, just a tepid yes. there should be.
benefits can include.
cheaper
no animal suffering
less water usage
less animal feed usage
healthier micronutrients and macro nutrients
less impact on climate change
less impact on deforestation
fewer pathogenic microbes
less waste runoff
less antibiotic resistance
I’m enthusiastic about it and have been looking forward to it for a decade.
Omnivore, not on my life. Yet, anyway.
I have no problem with going vegan other than my allergies to many foods on the vegan table but I am very leery of vat-grown meat. Why? Because I’m allergic or sensitive to so many foods. I eat organic whenever possible, also due to allergies. Vat-grown meat just reeks of stuff that gives me the all-overs. I’ll wait until I see that you don’t all don’t have any (and I mean any) health problems with it. Then I’ll look closely and decide if I want to try it.
What is odd about my reaction, even to me, is that I generally trust the science. So why? Because I totally don’t trust the FDA telling me something is as good as or better than what went before. Because they’ve got a track record that does not shine. And I don’t want to land in the hospital because I believed them.
The mushrooms supermarkets sell are boring compared with what is edible and feasible to raise. In Europe anyway (getting slowly better though).