Meat Grown in a Lab...

Not sure how I feel about this, but the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has just offered a $1 million prize to anyone who develops a commercially viable "in vitro chicken-meat product." If we can "grow" various parts of the human body and these parts are human, why can't we grow meat for consumption in a petri dish? Would I eat it - not sure. It is grown from a chicken and therefore chicken, but it seems wrong. Where do we lose the "actual chicken" and start to create this meat from modified or genetically engineered embryos. But isn't this what they are already doing? They are skipping the "bird" part and going right to the meat.

Here is an excerpt from Slate:

The idea is simple: Instead of growing a chicken embryo into a bird and cutting meat from it, you skip the bird part and grow the meat directly from the embryo.

If you don't believe this can be done, read up on the blood vessels, livers, bladders, and hearts we've already grown in labs. Check out this month's International In Vitro Meat Symposium. Scan the latest updates on "cultured meat" R&D.

It's no freakier or more far-fetched than what you've been hearing from politicians about stem cells and what they can do for people. Scientists aren't even allowed to try a stem-cell experiment in people till it works in animals. That's all PETA is asking for: "animal stem cells that would be placed in a medium to grow and reproduce."

To put it crudely, if you can grow a hunk of flesh for transplant, you can grow it for food.

I know that this may be a better way, but I still have the fear that people (those who are greedy) will want to find a cheaper way to make this meat. When this happens it is guaranteed that it will once again be unhealthy for human consumption!