THE GREAT DIVIDE - MEAT: A Benign Extravagance - page 275

growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separ-
ately under a suitable medium' and the idea has been developed by generations of science
fiction writers, most recently Margaret Atwood, whose bio-engineered Chickie Nobs, in
her novel Oryx and Crake , have eight breasts and no brains.
Recently there has been a spurt of research in this direction, initiated in 2001 by NASA,
in an experiment designed to produce a source of fresh meat for space flights. Scientists
chopped chunks of muscle about five to ten centimetres long from living gold fish, and
immersed them in a vat of foetal bovine serum extracted from the blood of unborn cows.
Within a week the chunks had grown 14 per cent in size. The NASA researchers claimed
that their achievement held out the prospect of growing meat in industrial quantities from
the muscle cell lines of various animals or fish. The gruesome method employed did not
prevent project leader Morris Benjaminson claiming that 'this could save you having to
slaughter animals for food'. 35
In the years since then, lab-grown meat has shown signs of becoming a sunrise industry.
The technology is similar to the stem cell techniques that have resulted in the growing of
organs, such as human windpipes, outside the human body under laboratory conditions. In
June 2005 the magazine Tissue Engineering published what it claimed was 'the first peer-
reviewed discussion of the prospects for industrial production of cultured meat.' 36 Two
methods were described: growing cells either as flat sheets on thin membranes, or grow-
ing them on small three-dimensional beads. The challenge, said one of the authors Jason
Matheny, who works with Benjaminson on a project called New Harvest, 'is getting the
texture right. We have to figure out how to 'exercise' the muscle cells. For the right texture
you have to stretch the tissue, like a live animal would.' However, once the difficulties are
ironed out, he claims, 'cultured meat could appeal to people concerned about food safety,
the environment and animal welfare'.
The scientists working on lab-grown meat can recognize an expanding market when they
see one and the vegan/vegetarian market is tailored for their needs. Artificial meat, made,
not from animal tissue, but from spun soya protein, has been around for several decades,
and this in turn is a descendant of the 'nut cutlets' which gave vegetarians in the middle
years of the 20th century the opportunity to sink their teeth into something at least analog-
ous to flesh. Leafu (a paste extracted from inedible grasses or other plants), soya milk and
soft margarine are all to a greater or lesser degree part of the same tendency. Processed pro-
tein and fat is a staple part of a great many vegans' diets. At a time when the organic sector
of the green movement is campaigning for slow food, real meat and fresh local produce,
the vegan/vegetarian camp has been nudging the industry in the very opposite direction:
towards factory farming and factory food. Cultured muscle tissue is the dream product that
lies at the end of this road.