Some of you might have read about the first ever in-vitro meat product.
It is meat that actually comes from cultured cow cells grown in petri dishes in the lab.
I am a vegetarian and so don’t know how different this is from real meat, but from what I read in the above article and others, it doesn’t taste exactly like beef.
At first, I didn’t pay much attention to this bit of news. However, an article in an Indian newspaper made me think more deeply about this.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/130810/commentary-columnists/commentary/belief-beyond-beef
One paragraph in particular caught my attention
“But now the crucial question affecting a billion Hindus. Will the fact that no slaughter takes place and no cows are killed in the process of producing the beefburger bring them in droves…? I have a strong feeling that it won’t. Religion will find some new justification for not eating a product that tastes like the cow, even though no cows or bulls were slaughtered or were involved in any way in its production.”
I don’t think religion is the only reason why a lot of Hindus are vegetarian. Ahimsa is one reason, but some Hindus don’t eat meat partly because they just don’t like it. Would the author care for some ‘cockroach tasting patty’ even if no real cockroaches were in the ingredients?!
I don’t know why there is such an insistence/criticism about getting vegetarians to eat meat. Would meat-eaters who are disgusted by one kind of meat like it if they are offered that meat to eat? How about a snake head sandwich? Or octopus brain? There are many Asians who eat insects and reptiles that makes other meat-eaters to become absolutely disgusted. How would people who eat certain types of meat but not others feel if it was implied that they were being self-righteous for not wanting to eat worms and lizards? That is what vegetarian Hindus feel like when people write articles like the one in Deccan Chronicle.
I myself eat onions and garlic (with great relish I might add!) and don’t believe that they incite ‘lustful tendencies’, at the same time I don’t force those who refrain from consuming onions and garlic for whatever reason to eat them.
I personally would give this ‘artificial’ meat a pass. In fact, this Stem-Cell Hamburger is actually closer to real meat than I had initially thought. Check this out
“Post produces his burger by macerating the cattle-muscle cells in a broth that includes fetal-calf serum, obtained by slaughtering pregnant cows, yet his work is lauded by some vegetarians.”
YIKES! There is nothing here for vegetarians to be happy about!!
What about my other fellow Hindu vegetarians? Would you care to try this stem-cell hamburger?