'Tis meat?

As a child, after seeing a chicken being carried to its doom behind a butcher’s shop, I stopped eating non-vegetarian food. This enchanted phase lasted for 10 or so days, and then I was back to what the family called The Good Life. As an adult I’ve successfully resisted the temptation to convert, though I briefly considered it after reading Eric Schlosser’s description of the beef-making process in Cogs in the Great Machine and after watching Georges Franju’s 1949 documentary Le Sang des bêtes (Blood of the Beasts), an almost unbearably impassive look at what goes on inside the slaughterhouses of Paris. The film was made in black-and-white, which was the only reason I could keep my eyes on the screen from beginning to end; but even the most hardened non-vegetarian has to feel squeamish about the scenes showing calves being decapitated and strong, proud horses being reduced to twitching carcasses by stun-guns, before they are casually bled. (Anyone who seriously wants to turn vegetarian but needs that one final strong push, get hold of this film. You’ll thank me for it.)

Now scientists in the Netherlands are busy researching ways to produce meat that won’t entail the massacre of animals. Unappetising phrases such as “soggy pork” and “laboratory-grown” recur in news reports about the breakthrough, but the basic idea is to “improve” muscle tissue expanded from live cells, to the extent that people will eventually want to eat it.

But will they? There’s a distinct possibility that both vegetarians and non-vegetarians will find lab-meat revolting, for different reasons. “I’ll pass on this, the real thing is better. Who would buy this artificial crap?” goes a comment on Godlike Productions (http://tinyurl.com/y93fm28), and it seems representative of most visceral reactions to the report ...until the commenter adds, “Wait aren’t we all buying artificial food already?”

So expect the usual ethics-related debates that go with any discussion about genetically modified food conversations, along with a dissection of environmental repercussions. “Meat grown in a laboratory has a chance to have a significant environmental impact,” the Eat. Drink. Better blog (http://tinyurl.- com/ygyy7fj) points out. “Greenhouse gas emissions from livestock could be alleviated if meat is commercially grown in a lab.” But expect some satire as well. While waiting for The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/) to run a feature on the subject, I made do with a post on the Heavy Comedy website (http://tinyurl.com/ydhsxq7) about a secret “artificial meat taste test” that didn’t go down well. “The first bite was unpleasant — grainy and mushy, with a slightly acrid tang and a musky odor. As I masticated the meat, it seemed to become almost gelatinous in my mouth...it became thicker and stronger with every chew.” Eventually the meat develops eyes and a mouth, a reminder of our deep-rooted fears about tampering with nature.

Of course, the simple act of eating — whether vegetarian or non-vegetarian — comes with numerous cultural and religious associations attached. If “artificial meat” ever takes off, there will no doubt be heated debates about whether or not it’s permissible for certain communities. An early sample can be found on the Failed Messiah site (http://tinyurl.com/ydt2mcd), on a post headlined “Is it kosher? Debate”. The question is whether this new meat will meet Jewish dietary standards, and you know you’ve spent a lot of time online when you come across a comment that reads: “The only way it would be assur is if it is comparable to the rule in kodshim that an animal that is yonek from a treifa is also treif. Conceptually, if an animal gets its life from a non-kosher animal that life-giving force transfers its status to the animal.”

To the uninitiated, that sounds like a passage from a Star Wars manual for Jedis — but then, so does the idea that we’ll be dining on lab-meat anytime in the near future.

(jaiarjun@gmail.com)