I was sent an interesting e-mail this morning from Indian Vegans about Peta… http://www.peta.org/feat_in_vitro_contest.asp
It appears that Peta is offering a million dollar prize for a company or person that can produce a commercially viable invitro-meat substitute.
I am a bit confused about what I think about this….
Personally, I find the idea of eating animal flesh quite disgusting, and I would prefer to follow a animal free diet. I also think that there is no ‘need’ to create a meat substitute – promoting ‘pure’ veganism would be the best thing for environment and for reducing suffering.
However, one of the key reasons why I am vegan is to reduce animal suffering and to minimise the environmental damage caused by animal farming. Unfortunately, the impact that a small group of vegans can have on the world is fairly limited.
An in-vitro meat could reduce the need to rear animals and to induce suffering. It could reduce the environmental impact of rearing animals, and it would allow people who enjoy the taste of meat to
reduce the harm that they cause, and potentially allow food to be generated at a lower cost.
Obvisouly there are ethical concerns with the idea of genetically playing around with animals in order to allow in-vitro meat production . (there is a good discussion about this in a book called ‘The Pig
that wants to be eaten’ – which refers to the pigs in ‘The restaurant at the end of the universe’ which actually want to be eaten – the book also has 99 other interesting thought experiments and is
definitely worth a read)
Again I think it is something that isn’t really necessary, but I think the ends justify the means.
Is this the right step for Peta to be taking? Should they be focussing hteir efforts on promoting vegetarianism and veganism? Or is this a way of them spreading out their concern about animals to the masses?
I have recently been doing a bit of research into Fair Trade, and it seems that Fair Trade’s initial impact was dwarfed by the fact that it was only bought by ‘alternative’ customers from shops such as Oxfam.
Going mainstream and allowing companies such as, Sainsburys, Tescos and Nescafe to sell ‘Fair Trade’ brands was seen as a controversial decision as it may have diluted the Fair Trade image. But this step
has allowed Fair Trade to mainstream and increase its impact on the world. I would think that most people would agree that mainstreaming Fair Trade has been a broadly good thing?
But then again, perhaps the uptake of an invitro meat wouldn’t be so good? People don’t tend to buy quorn products too often, even though that apparently tastes very similar to meat, and is a lot healthier. Perhaps people will just want to eat the real thing?
