A Bright Future for Narcissistic Cannibals

by Baron Earl

2005-11-13 19:08:55

Dining At The Deathwave Grill

Researchers in the Netherlands are working on making vat-grown meat cheap and plentiful. Their dream is to put a meat-maker in every home, allowing people to grow their own meat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Currently their research is focused on growing pork, but what about the possibility of growing and eating the other white meat, your own flesh?

Every first-year biology student is familiar with the stories of researchers keeping animal tissue alive and growing in test tubes, but until now growing meat this way was slow and costly. The Dutch Senter/Novem Institute has allotted a two million euro subsidy for a project to cultivate pork meat out of pig stem cells, hoping that with research and experimentation that the process will become cheap enough for people to grow their own meat.

But if you can grow pig cells or have a never-ending supply of chicken wing, why not grow your own flesh and eat that? There's no chance of getting a disease from your own meat, since by definition anything you eat is already in you. For the same reason kuru, the disease of cannibals, is no longer a problem.

But what part of your flesh can you grow? If you grow straight muscle tissue it's likely to be dry and tasteless -- you need to grow some fat too, and make sure that the mass is properly marbled for best flavor. What part of your body you get the starter cells from is up to you.

If you like liver and onions -- and who doesn't? -- a quick trip to the doctor, a small biopsy later and you're in business with a never-ending supply of liver. Add in some fava beans and a nice chianti... dinner is served.

Check it out yourself

burton@pigdog.org