Too expensive.

Burgerville uses only local seasonal ingredients and grass-fed cattle raised without hormones or antibiotics. They compost, reducing 85% of their waste, turn their used canola oil into biodiesel, and run on 100% wind power.

The result? I have to pay seven dollars for a combo meal. That's a whole dollar more than I pay at Wendy's. Inexcusable.

yeah, but that 15% increase hits your wallet a little harder when you're surviving solely on nut paste brought in by relief efforts because you and everyone you know are completely without means to take part in your country's economy.

i fully support a human's right to follow whatever wacky diet they are most comfortable with--eating at Burgerville is a fine choice for a person to make. but if we're defining "sustainable' as "no messin' with momma nature", then i don't think it's wise--and it's certainly not humane--to discard otherwise useful tools that could be used to help correct the world's not-eating-enough problems. such as, y'know, hormone-pumped, antibiotic-laden cows that eat whatever the hell it is that non-grass-fed cows eat. or tubmeat!

and, hey, nobody's said that here, that i know of. i just wanted to point it out.

Sometimes it's bits of other cows, which when it includes spine and brain tissue can cause mad cow disease.

Cows eating bits of other cows. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure out there's something wrong with that.

heh, point. i'm gonna go ahead and say that zomb--er, that is, mad cows are not a useful tool that could be used to help correct the world's not-eating-enough problems.

I guess I'm just concerned that if the in-vitro meat works, grocery stores won't distinguish between the two (like irradiated stuff) and cause a huge cock-up.

I dunno. Seems weird.

I'm sorry, but we, as a species, didn't bite, scratch, claw and club our way to the top of the food chain just to turn around and give it all up. If PETA has such a problem with animals getting killed to be turned into food, well hell, they better head up to the arctic and start picketing those evil, meat-eating polar bears for chompin' away at all those baby seals.

Actually, i'd like to see that.

...technical problem* here...

hang on...sorry...looks like a record triple-post for 1 attempt.

SergeantPsycho said:
This is one of those threads I'm going to have a hard time talking seriously in.

First being serious: Popular Mechanics about a year ago had an excellent article on using stem cells to create meat. I think there are two benefits to researching that kind of technology: 1) Once perfected, it's quite possible that the cost of meat will go down, allowing those in poorer countries the nutritional value of eating meat (mainly animal protien).

2) The technology used to create giant slabs of animal tissues might also have some medical applications, like replacing the tissue of damaged organs.

___________________

is this opposite day? I just found myself agreeing with sergeantcrazy on both of his real points (1 & 2)...weird.
*"technical problem" means drunk

Or perhaps those that beleive we should not eat meat are as seen in this article proving that they are just plain unstable human beings that need treatment do to there obsessive belief that animals are human.

i read this article and thought to myself, "what is wrong with the world now". in everyday life there will be two sides to every argument. I myself think PETA members are lunatics going against human nature. not that i believe experimentation, cruelty, or using animals for entertainment is right. I think not eating natural animals is completely against human nature. Hunter gather which is what a human has been since the beginning of time. Honestly i think it is a bad idea to grow meat in a lab. pretty much it is cloning meat. when they started cloning sheep PETA had a absolute fit, but in my eyes it is the same thing. then the meat cloning will go into making organs, and substitute limbs for less fortunate individuals which is a good idea. Im sure PETA and other individuals will have a fit about that. next thing you know lesbians will be using vitro grown penises on each other. just seems like a subject that will cause a lot raised eyebrows and more crazed fanatics.

Don't they ever wonder what will happen to the cows and chickens if everyone stopped eating them? Do they really think people will spend millions to keep herds of cows alive just as pets?? I am sure one day PETA will realize that if we really all stopped eating meat, cows and chickens would be pretty much wiped out as they would have no use anymore and would be to expensive to keep for no profit. Actually they might never realize that... they are lunatics with no for sight into a realitistic future.

If the meat industry as it is now was forced to shut down, out of nowhere, the humane thing to do would be to cease further breeding and let the animals die natural deaths.

The meat industry isn't going to shut down out of nowhere, though, and it's in fact more likely that, in the event of lab-meat becoming the main source for restaurants and grocers, the amount of livestock would just naturally dwindle with the decrease in demand.

In any case, I doubt PETA's stance on animal rights entails keeping population levels for cattle, chickens, and the like at their current numbers. They oppose the breeding of pets, after all, so chances are they'd oppose the breeding of livestock as well, though maybe an argument could be made for keeping a few around in zoos to remind us of where we used to get our food from.

The animals that Meat farms raise are already basically unrecognizable as such and far creepier than this.