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I almost forgot about this. It was one of those weird things I discovered last night surfing the Internet. Did you know that they can produce meat in the laboratory? Seriously who would have thunk it?

Well after hearing about this phenomenon I looked it up on Wiki.

In vitro meat, also known as laboratory-grown meat, is animal flesh that has never been part of a complete, living animal.

So this begged two questions from me. One would I eat it? Would you? and Two, is there a moral dilemma in bypassing the natural process of birth?

McDonald's: May I take Your order?
Me: I'd like one burger with vat meat, please.

Just look at all the needless pain and death that would end. No more slaughter houses processing steaks and veal for your local Food Lion.

I think I'm for it except I think It would play mind games on me, wondering if they screwed up the genetic code just slightly and I'm eating something like human flesh.

There is another type of meat that you can eat that does not require the harming of any animal? Do you know what it is?

Christians are such cannibals!!!

LOL... I look back at my post and just realized that my post could be interpreted as sexually oriented. I did not mean it that way.

I have to wonder why it is that consumers in a moderately-educated society would be uneasy about using such things. I mean, you'd expect that any genetic manipulation would be checked for harmful properties before leaving the lab, wouldn't you?

I think it's the whole "messing with what God didn't create" thing...

Liv wrote:I think it's the whole "messing with what God didn't create" thing...

I kind of wonder. You know, we hear all sorts of weird stories of what scientists can do with plants and animals when they start splicing genes. I bet a lot of those stories are started without any real basis in fact.

But I think that if a plant can be changed so that it becomes poisonous to bugs, it sure as heck can be changed to be poisonous to humans. Which is where the FDA should come into play. The question is: are government regulators able to correctly and effectively handle the problems this technology can lead to?

I sure hope that religion-based superstitions don't come into play on this question. Because I think that a plant that can be made far more beneficial to us -- and kept from having any unmanageable side effects -- would be a huge plus. We don't need some whack-job to stand in the way saying "If God didn't make peanuts this way, I won't let you try this!"

I guess the big fear is how stable are the genetic modifications? Will everytime the peanut convert to a giant peanut, or does the probability exist in the genetic modifications for the occasional mutation that might create, oh say a plastic peanut?

Liv wrote:I guess the big fear is how stable are the genetic modifications? Will everytime the peanut convert to a giant peanut, or does the probability exist in the genetic modifications for the occasional mutation that might create, oh say a plastic peanut?

It should be reasonable to expect engineered peanuts to mutate at the same rate that natural ones do. It would be a good question to explore, though.