Have you heard of cultured meat? It’s a process of growing meat from the cells of animals. Cultured meat is coming to a market near you probably within the next five to ten years. There are a number of questions about the product but I’m mainly curious about the attitude of Vegans and Vegetarians; although everyone’s comments are welcome.

There are any number of benefits that cultured meat provides and one of these is that animals don’t suffer in the process. I think even animal husbandry die-hards will admit animals suffer in their industry. We have to admit billions of male chicks being summarily tossed into the incinerator isn’t a pleasant thought, even for those of us that enjoy eating the animals. I will not venture further down that path as it is not the point of my article.

Certainly, many vegetarians don’t eat meat for health reasons rather than concern for the welfare of animals but I think most people who eschew eating meat do so, at least partially, because of the suffering animals must endure. People also do so because of the negative environmental impacts associated with raising so many animals. Both of these concerns are at least largely removed if we eat such meat.

That leads to the question I posed in the title of this post. If you are a vegetarian or a vegan, would you eat cultured meat? Naturally, I’d like to hear from those who eat meat regularly also. I’m sure there are meat eaters out there who see cultured meat as a threat to the livelihood of those who raise cattle and chickens and would refuse to eat it for that reason. The situation is somewhat muddy as to who will partake in cultured meat and why they would be willing to do so.

One thing seems certain, like it or not, cultured meat is coming to a grocery shelf near you and it’s coming pretty quickly.

Tom Liberman