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From my own vegetarian perspective, I would answer that, no, I would not eat "clean" or "cultured" meat. At the very least, after years of vegetarianism, I really doubt that I would enjoy eating meat. It is not unusual for long-term vegetarians to lose a taste for meat, as well as the enzymes required for comfortably digesting it. In addition, as I have already managed to eschew meat-eating, I think that eating laboratory-produced meat would increase my contribution to animal suffering. I am suspicious of the term "clean meat." If this meat is produced from stem cells, then it still requires the involvement of animals in the process, at least until it is perfected. Given the current practices in factory farms and laboratories performing animal research, I have little reason to trust that the cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, and other animals needed to serve as sources for the stem cell lines (and perhaps as control groups for what meat tastes, smells, and looks like) will be treated kindly and allowed to provide scientific samples in a painless manner, or given adequate pasture, sanitation, or exercise when they are not required for donations. In addition, there will be the rats and primates who will be required to safety test cultured meat before it is approved for human consumption. Moreover, humans often manipulate nature to their own chagrin. Many thought genetically engineered corn which produced its own pesticide was a brilliant idea, but failed to take into account its devastation of non-pests, like butterflies. As Traci Hukill asks in her AlterNet article, "who's to say what would come of overexploited RNA or mitochondria?" ("Would You Eat Lab-Grown Meat?" http://www.alternet.org/enviro nment/38755?page=2)

However, I strongly believe that meat grown in a laboratory is vastly preferable to factory farming. The waves of suffering which emanate from the intensive factory farms are vast. There is the animal herself, who is subjected to a life spent living in her own waste, with barely enough room to twitch, eating an abominable diet that often contains byproducts of her deceased brethren and sistren, before being carted off on a long waterless, airless trip to a painful slaughter. There is the environmental devastation caused by the production of tons of manure and greenhouse gasses, animal blood flowing into rivers from slaughterhouses, and the slashing-and-burning of ancient trees to clear more land for meat-raising (and these are only a portion of the environmental concerns. People suffer as well, whether it is the underpaid migrant farm worker toiling in unsafe conditions, the patient suffering from an antibiotic-resistant infection, or the impoverished who cannot afford plant-based nutrition because the need for animal feed drives up the cost of grain. If cultured meat proves to be the only stop-gap for ending factory farming, as William Saletan suggests in his Slate.com article, ("Growing Meat Without Growing Animals, http://www.slate.com/id/218967 6/) then I would give it my whole-hearted support.

Still and all, I am not convinced that cultured meat is the answer to the prayers of animal rights activists and environmentalists. It certainly has yet to be concluded whether the world would benefit more from cultured meat than laws and societal mores that would restrict animal husbandry to small organic, humane farms that would reduce meat production as well as consumption, since meat would become a luxury item, with the high prices that entails. Very little has been said and done about understanding the possible repercussions of cultured meat.

Besides, I am ever-hopeful that more and more people are on the verge of the epiphany that some things in life are more important than a hamburger.

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