FOUR LEGS GOOD, TWO LEGS BAD
Animal Farm
George Orwell, 1945
A second helping of ‘cultured pork’ anyone? The Associated Press' January 15th piece, Scientists turn stem cells into pork, is the second article in just over six weeks about scientists who are trying to help the starving masses and save the environment using some cutting-edge genetic and biological engineering. The first article, Scientists grow pork meat in a laboratory, appeared in the TIMESONLINE at the end of November, and didn’t have much in the way of details. The latest article, also emanating from London, presents significantly more in the way of who, what, when…and it makes me think that we are in the initial stages of an unfolding PR acclimation project.
It appears that projects of this nature are in progress in Europe, in Japan, and here in the USA sponsored by organizations like The In Vitro Meat Consortium and New Harvest. Basically, the object of the game is to take pig muscle stem cells, put them in a “nutrient-based soup” and create large quantities of ready to eat entrées in “bioreactors.” This will alleviate the need to raise pigs on an industrial scale. Right now, the sorcerers, and their apprentices, have been able to produce one-centimeter strips of pork with the consistency of scallops. They claim that this is because the ‘cultured pork’ is only 80% protein whereas actual pork is 99% protein. While this article indicates that the “nutrient-based soup” is made up of “amino acids, fats and natural sugars,” the earlier article indicated that at present the “nutritious “broth” is derived from the blood products of animal foetuses.” It appears that the texture isn’t the only problem to overcome.
Why is all of this brainpower being devoted to creating a ‘better’ sausage and pepper sandwich? Well, the article indicates three essential needs that ‘cultured pork,’ could alleviate, global hunger, lower greenhouse gases and water usage, and the usual artery-clogging fats found in livestock meat. Of course, since most of the problems created by our ‘meat’ supply began occurring when we allowed it to be turned into a series of industrial processes, it probably makes that we let science and industry solve these problems. I think that the very first paragraph is most telling:
Call it pork in a petri dish — a technique to turn pig stem cells into strips of meat that scientists say could one day offer a green alternative to raising livestock, help alleviate world hunger, and save some pigs their bacon.
It isn’t clear from what follows that the author sees the irony in this paragraph or that it is these scientists who don’t see the irony. By selling ‘cultured pork’ as a “green alternative to raising livestock” there is an implication that all agriculture is industrial agriculture. It is as if farming in its very nature is anti-green, a part of Original Sin.
Heaven forbid that we should try and cure the disease, when we can side step it with the aid of technology - it has always solved our problems. But, as with most new ideas in their nascent stages, this technology is long on promise and short on details. What happens if the scientists can’t develop a ‘synthetic’ soup to culture their hot dogs in, won’t it then take millions and millions of pig fetuses to produce that soup? But, what if they are able to grow the Soylent Pink in “amino acids, fats and natural sugars,” where will these come from…the same soybeans, corn and agricultural and food processing waste that they are feeding to our pigs now?
Are we just being promised some 21st Century alchemy, that riches will be created from base materials, or is this just a shell game? Big Ag has devoted countless resources over the last half century trying grow pigs faster using as little feed or as low a quality feed as possible, and in the process it has created a product that is as tasteless as it is unhealthy. Since they’ve proven that their customers will literally eat anything, are they now just trying to shortcut the process further, and oh yes, do it without the oink and all the shit.
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