There have been numerous news reports and opinion pieces recently about synthetically created meat that may be available soon. I do not mean plant-based imitation meat, although if they can fool me, more power to them. Anyway, it's being said that we may be able to create animal flesh without killing an animal very soon.
The whole thing may be completely contrary to localism, or to a healthy community as I imagine it, but this seems like a great idea, if it is safe.
There is nothing in me culturally anymore that has to prove my manliness, or devotion to the truth. Raising animals to feed ourselves is expensive, and fraught with moral ambiguities that we tend to gloss over, for the sake of convenience, or because we don't want to be identified as "those liberal hippies."
Sustainability tends to be a buzzword nowadays, but in light of climate change, and the lack of access to basic things of life for many people around the world--food and clean water, for example--those of us in the developed world should welcome anything that does not promote unsustainable consumption.
I suppose in the beginning, they'll have to let us know that we are eating meat that was never alive, but when the dire troubles of the future come, we may forget about whatever tribal thing related to eating meat that we'd otherwise be fighting about. At least I hope so.
In the end, I just want to have a burger, without feeling bad about it. And I don't want to be the sort of person who doesn't feel bad, because he's been destroying his conscience the entire time.
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