Cultured meat is eye-catching technology. But it is also an over-engineered solution to a problem that we can solve by changing our diets. If we simply stopped eating meat, or ate it far less often, then there would be no need for either harmful intensive animal agriculture or meat grown in a lab. The cultured meat industry rests on a view of human beings as greedy and incapable of change.
I dunno. I totally understand meat is an environmental disaster and has complicated health impacts. So dang tasty, though. Thai duck noodle soup. Carne asada taco. Mortadella. Fish 'n' chips.
Weaning people off meat is going to take some dang tasty impossible beyond seitan tofurkey.
Several ways to read that question. Assuming one key reason is the heavy environmental cost, a thing that could be done very easily and have a huge impact is to replace meat in foods where it's not center stage and/or cheap meat products.
Why do they bother making cheap chicken nuggets out of chicken, or cheap fish fingers out of fish? It's the worst bits, ground to a paste, texturizers and flavors added, then coated in crumbs and fried. Doesn't need to have any meat in it at all. Many cheap hamburgers are known to be basically a chewable substrate for flavors concocted in a lab in New Jersey, so why not go the extra step? The "meat" in canned chili? The shrimp in frozen egg rolls? The ??? in hot dogs? Far-sub-premium versions should be much easier texture-and-taste targets to hit.
The bakery chain Gregg's in the UK has had a smash success with their veg-meat sausage rolls. The "meat" was so heavily processed and flavored, taking away the animal protein was a minor change and a major win.
But to target premium hamburgers? Standalone chicken breasts? Why add the extra degrees of difficulty?
I'll be the first to admit that I actually prefer tacos and burritos made from "Grillers Prime Crumble" but I think that has more to do with not having to deal with the extra grease in my already sufficiently moist "texmex". So, I am empathetic to the "why not just use soy and flour argument" (as far as taco filling goes) but don't image I will ever be pleased to eat petri-meat. The thing I can't get passed is (for me anyways) "lab grown" meat is just gross, no matter how it is reconstituted.
I'll never mentally separate "lab-grown beef" from "soylent green" or whatever the human goo was called in Cloud Atlas. I would gladly eat the garbage parts that end up in a "Ball Park Frank" than any petri-dish cow. Even if they call it wagyu and massage it in sake, I'm not going to eat it and I can't imagine how anyone else would.
Part is parts (as they say) and if surplus parts end up making my hot dogs tasty then I'm glad to do my share to make sure as much of the "real" cow is used as possible.
I dunno. I totally understand meat is an environmental disaster and has complicated health impacts. So dang tasty, though. Thai duck noodle soup. Carne asada taco. Mortadella. Fish 'n' chips.
Weaning people off meat is going to take some dang tasty impossible beyond seitan tofurkey.