No. I don't trust "food" that comes from a factory or a mega-corporation. Something necessary will be missing and/or something we seriously don't need to have in our bodies will be added. I have no problem with the ethics of eating meat so long as the animals are raised in humane and healthy conditions appropriate to their species, and slaughtered with care.

We are inching ever closer to Soylent Green.

Scary, my friends. VERY SCARY.

I'm moving to Mars and I'm taking all the cows I can fit in my space shuttle!

I think we assume we know too much about the composition of foods; the compounds that make them healthy.... I am very doubtful that what they are producing is even comparable to natural meat... at this stage...

now onto your question specifically.. if they could somehow show that there were no differences between real meat and the artificial stuff then I would consider it... do we really think that they could determine whether its the same... or that they wouldn't tamper with it to make it "healthier" (and in that process making it far worse)...

I reckon good farmers treating livestock properly and feeding them properly is going to be much better than any in-vitro substitutes for a very long time.

I would not. I much prefer my meat to come from a happy animal, as best as possible, and at worst, at least it came from an animal. To me, eating shmeat would be quiet disturbing.

I think it's fantastic, assuming your caveat that it could be shown to be more healthful than grass fed meat.

Think of the lives that could be saved from tainted meat. Mad cow...etc.

Also if it could replace factory farmed meat then even better! The environmental pollution from factory farming is enormous, never mind the suffering of the animals.

Of course the meat lobby would never let this happen :-/

No, it's precisely because we care about animals that we eat meat. If we switched to "shmeat" en masse, there would be no pressure to treat farm animals humanely. In fact, most farm animals would be destroyed like trash once they had lost their economic value. This is the sad reality. If we care about animals and the environment, we need to ensure they both have high economic value so there is an incentive to care for them appropriately.

Its scientist wasting time and resources to find a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. What is this solving? What is wrong with grass-fed family farming? Its like when people go on and on, about finding different ways for pest control in farming, the solution is growing up and not being a baby and eating the leafs that have a little hole eaten in them, its not a real problem.

You know what, give it 40+ years, if consumers haven't grown an udder or hooves - I'm in!

If it were just as healthy and tasty as good quality meat then, yes, why wouldn't you eat it?

However, I expect the chances of this being the case when the product finally comes to market are nil.

Well, my initial thought (or problem with it) would be, even if they show studies that it is more healthy than grass fed meat: Will there be any long-term negative effects? Or how can they be a 100% sure, that there is nothing in there that there are no long-term negative effects.

That would be my main reason, why I would be very cautious with it in any way. Though I am also not saying, that I would never try it. As mentioned, it could have a lot of other benefits.

If it was actually as nutritious as quality meat i would eat it. But there seems to be a direct relationship between how naturally mest is raised and how good it is for you. Studies have shown thst pastured / free-range / natural meat has many TIMES the nutrients of factory farmed mest. I can only assume that test tube meat would be a further step in the wrong direction.

I don't like the bastardization of Yiddish either for it. Sounds hipsterish too like tofurkey. Where is Soylent Green?

What the shmeat?!

I couldn't do it. Nothing beats nature. I also think it's unethical to play with the natural balance of life - like how the saying goes, "playing God," or the like. Wasn't this the initial promise of GMOs? Very scary.

Answer no: I would prefer not to see all farm animals either killed or driven off their land. I think its more ethical to let them live, than replace them with test tubes.

I would try to avoid it.

I imagine this kind of product would be engineered to be 'healthy' and pretty homogeonous in texture - a highly processed 'fake food'. It would probably be low in fat - a uniform mass of muscle tissue. Eating it as your main meat source would give you all the disadvantages of eating only lean muscle meat. I can't see them making fatty cuts or organ meat versions of this stuff.

It would also have to be grown on some substrate (made from what? corn? soya?) containing minerals, amino acids and a source of energy for the cells. You'd probably be missing trace minerals and vitamins which come from a real animal ingesting real plant food.

I can't see this stuff being a good idea.