Growing Our Meat

Will Saletan has a nice article in Slate about growing meat in a laboratory, and also about the cognitive dissonance in the difference between our diets and our conscience. I've been thinking about this for about a month, ever since I saw this horrendous video shot by PETA that shows cows being butchered alive in a slaughterhouse. I haven't eaten any beef since, though I have eaten chicken. I've tried in the past to be a vegetarian, but after three months or so I start to feel kind of squirrely. I would have far less problems eating beef if they weren't factory farmed--if they were raised humanely and killed cleanly and instantaneously. It's the factory farming that gets to me. I hope someday there is a solution for this and humanity takes the issue of animal rights seriously, but unfortunately I do not expect it to be in my lifetime.