While the first lab-grown hamburger
is getting taste tested in London, there is extensive discussion about the
promise of cultured beef and its impact on feeding the growing world population
and on mitigating climate change. This project, funded by Sergey Brin, a co-founder
of Google, takes stem cells from cow muscle and replicates them into the
millions of cells, forming a lean meat patty without any fat. With 1.4 billion
people that are obese, and close to a billion hungry, lab grown meat seems
promising in its ability to feed the world with high quality protein. It uses
forty-five percent less energy in production and causes just four percent of greenhouse
gas emissions caused by conventionally farmed beef.
Article 25 in The Universal
Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including
food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.” I disagree with food, or any other necessity,
as an essential human right so far as
resources are limited; however, that people are dying of malnutrition with
excess food being wasted, is a human rights abuse. If production for lab grown
meat can be scaled up and offered at a lower price, it is not unreasonable to
believe that in the next couple decades the world population can be fed on a
smaller ecological footprint. In fact, I think we do have some sort of moral
obligation to pursue alternatives to conventionally farmed beef, especially
since the benefits are reaped in the wealthy meat-eating countries while its
detrimental environmental effects are largely felt in the poorest countries.
Yes, I think you may find that the people protesting this kind of production are those who have never and will never be starving. What if we asked the starving people about this? I think the answer would be quite different. But I do understand the worry behind making food like this...it is so untested.
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