As another vegetarian, I'd much prefer to eat lab grown meat than real meat for both ethical and environmental reasons.
Food I already eat is produced in factories, including things like Quorn or Beyond Meat, and I don't find it off-putting whatsoever. For health reasons, I try to ensure the majority of my diet is home cooked plant-based whole foods, but that's only because the current evidence is diets based on "ultra processed food" are harmful. However, it doesn't seem to be at all clear yet on what specifically makes processed food diets harmful in aggregate, so I can't currently make an educated decision on whether one type of processed food is healthier than another. I just treat anything processed as junk food to be enjoyed occasionally, and the same would be true for me if we had viable lab grown meat.
By comparison, I find those occasional tiny maggots in farm-grown strawberries much more off-putting, but strawberries taste so good that I do my best to just focus on the free protein.
This is the first comment I've seen in this thread that would actually buy/consume this product. As a meat eater, I am incredibly opposed to this product.
I’m surprised by the amount of negativity. Personally I eat meat but feel guilty about doing so because of animal cruelty. If someone is actually able to produce lab-grown meat that tastes the same and has the same nutritional value, I’ll switch in a heartbeat.
I don’t care at all whether the food I eat is “natural”. I don’t even care whether the ingredients are authentic, if there isn’t a health hazard; my reaction to the article’s mention of rodent DNA contamination is “who cares”. So of course I’ve tried plant-based meat alternatives, but found that they don’t taste right, while also being higher-calorie. My layman’s hope is that lab-grown meat will be able to replicate the taste more accurately. I realize that there’s no guarantee it will, even if they do succeed at producing something edible that’s made of animal cells (but has a very different structure). But it might.
I'm pretty much a carnivore whenever given a choice. I find the Impossible line of beef replacement perfectly edible and usable in any dish where cooked ground beef would otherwise work. (I don't think I'd enjoy it as mett, but it's fine for anything else.)
Impossible's only problem for me is the price makes it impossible for them to succeed in the market. Their product tastes fine; it's not enough better than $3/lb ground beef for people to pick it.
Food I already eat is produced in factories, including things like Quorn or Beyond Meat, and I don't find it off-putting whatsoever. For health reasons, I try to ensure the majority of my diet is home cooked plant-based whole foods, but that's only because the current evidence is diets based on "ultra processed food" are harmful. However, it doesn't seem to be at all clear yet on what specifically makes processed food diets harmful in aggregate, so I can't currently make an educated decision on whether one type of processed food is healthier than another. I just treat anything processed as junk food to be enjoyed occasionally, and the same would be true for me if we had viable lab grown meat.
By comparison, I find those occasional tiny maggots in farm-grown strawberries much more off-putting, but strawberries taste so good that I do my best to just focus on the free protein.