# Would vegetarians eat meat grown on a stick? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 27, 2007, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814 "2007-04-27T01:21:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![emmaliminal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7bcc69/32.png) [@emmaliminal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/emmaliminal)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2007, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/41 "2007-04-28T20:36:35Z")
It depends. Is the stick harvested in a humane and environmentally sensitive manner? ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2007, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/42 "2007-04-28T22:48:19Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] So _that’s_ wear the coating comes from! [/QUOTE] Wear? _WEAR?!_ I’m an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/43 "2007-04-29T01:08:21Z")
> [@](#): > > It depends. Is the stick harvested in a humane and environmentally sensitive manner? Naturally, the sticks would have to come from baby seals. I don’t see any other way. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/44 "2007-04-29T01:13:39Z")
[QUOTE=Otto] What do you have against corn dogs? [/QUOTE] Or [city chicken](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_chicken), for that matter? (Personally though, I’m not really a fan of the latter. Corn dogs, on the other hand…) ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/45 "2007-04-29T01:16:46Z")
[QUOTE=Ruken] I think this argument may actually work _against_ meat-eaters. Most cows aren’t out foraging naturally grown grass on land that couldn’t be used for something else. Their food is planted and harvested for them. How much acreage must be used to feed one cow? How many people are fed off of that one cow? How many people could be fed if you planted people-food instead of cow-food? Lots of energy is wasted turning cow-food into cow, so it might be more efficient to bypass the cow and just eat the plants. [/QUOTE] That’s what I’ve always heard. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but it’s horribly inefficient; something like ten pounds of grass to make one pound of cow. Meat growth in a vat could be powered by, say, nuclear or geothermal energy and bypass all that. As an enthusiastic meat eater, I’d choose vat grown meat if I could. By preference I’d prefer all my food to be made in a factory. As for vegetarians, that of course depends on their motive; it’ll be fun to watch certain of the more obnoxious ones try to rationalize why eating plants is _still_ morally superior. ---
**Author:** ![CaerieD](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@CaerieD](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CaerieD)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/46 "2007-04-29T01:26:14Z")
[QUOTE=Christopher] Naturally, the sticks would have to come from baby seals. I don’t see any other way. [/QUOTE] Mmm. Baby seal sticks. For that, I’d gladly give up my veganism. ---
**Author:** ![I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/i_love_me_vol.i/32/521_2.png) [@I\_Love\_Me\_Vol.I](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/I_Love_Me_Vol.I)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/47 "2007-04-29T01:54:04Z")
\*\* I will not eat Fake eggs and ham I will not Eat them Spam-I-am What if it were grown on a rope? Meat-on-a-rope! you know, like soap? Would not Eat meat On a rope I won’t eat “grown” meat Nope Nope NOPE! But could you cope with meat-less meat? A soy-infused Rubbery treat? I will not eat meat-less meat It could n’er Be meatless Enough to eat I will not eat meat From a vat I will not eat meat made like that I shall not eat meat on a stick I shall not eat it Ick Ick ICK! \*\* (…and so on and so forth---- BTW I’m not even a vegetarian— well… sort of sometimes… when I do eat meat I only eat beef–sometimes some pork, NEVER seafood, turkey or chicken. Yuck!) ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/48 "2007-04-29T01:59:15Z")
::clap clap clap:: Thats very clever. Of course I must point out, that in the “Green eggs and ham” version, he eventually tried them and found they were quite tasty. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/49 "2007-04-29T02:52:17Z")
Who’s to say it’s “meat”? Call it beef-flavored spinach and everybody will be happy. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/50 "2007-04-29T03:15:54Z")
[QUOTE=Christopher] ::clap clap clap:: Thats very clever. Of course I must point out, that in the “Green eggs and ham” version, he eventually tried them and found they were quite tasty. [/QUOTE] Which always disturbed me, even as a kid. \< eats green meat and eggs \> \< dies gruesomely \> ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/51 "2007-04-29T07:49:30Z")
[QUOTE=Fretful Porpentine] disembodied eyeballs [/QUOTE] See, I’m fascinated by disembodied eyeballs. I’d grow them if I could. I see meat machines as fundamentally no different from iron machines or silicon machines, just more complicated and with all of the mechanical detail at the molecular level as opposed to the wrench-and-screwdriver level. Yer favorite Brain-Inna-Jar, August “Nanoscale” Derleth ---
**Author:** ![stucco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@stucco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stucco)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2007, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814/52 "2007-04-29T10:58:44Z")
[QUOTE=Der Trihs] That’s what I’ve always heard. I don’t recall the exact numbers, but it’s horribly inefficient; something like ten pounds of grass to make one pound of cow. Meat growth in a vat could be powered by, say, nuclear or geothermal energy and bypass all that. [/QUOTE] I’ve heard the figure that every calorie of beef takes 16 calories of plant food (assuming the cows are eating things that humans can too). Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the way vat-meat production would work, but wouldn’t the growing cells need some sort of glucose to grow on? Our bodies (and I assumed cow bodies) grow by taking sugar, starch, fat, etc and turning it into energy. We aren’t able to grow using electricity. Is there a way the cells would grow using just electricity? Or would vat meat require loads of sugar or some other substance, which we would still need to grow? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-vegetarians-eat-meat-grown-on-a-stick/401814.md?page=2)