Would you eat a hamburger that was grown in a test tube? How about a chicken nugget from a petri dish? Sometimes called "shmeat" (as in, a sheet of lab-grown meat), in vitro meat might someday be an option for people with carnivorous inclinations who aren't wild about the idea of killing and eating real animals.
That's the question Kate Sheppard puts to readers at Mother Jones. Well, many greens and foodies are already irrationally opposed to GMO foods (for unwarranted environmental and health concerns), so I don't see them accepting synthetic meat anytime soon. Still, if you're interested in the state of the science on the fake meat front, and the challenges it must overcome before a lab-grown chicken nugget lands on your dinner plate, Kate provides a nice overview.
