in vitro meat - (Feb/25/2008 )
first some information so you know what this is about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat
or this if you like papers:
http://www.new-harvest.org/img/files/Edelman.pdf
or if you dont like reading at all just look at this picture:
artificial meat grown in a cell culture? would you eat it?
do you think it would be possible to ferment cells at such a scale that you could feed people with them?
is this a way to end hunger or the next big biotech flop?
are you a vegan? would you eat "this" meat?
Never know, might be delicious. And, you wouldn't have to worry about mad cow disease. 
ah... but ever looked at the cost of tissue culture media?
You need a system that convert complex proteins, polysaccarides, etc into something simple that an animal cell can use. You need converter of sorts.... and the best converter we have is the digestive system of an animal. Synthetic systems are 'expensive' (time and energy). That is why there is so much work going into artificial celulase and lignase enzyme when all you really need to break down wood/leaves/stalks is a vat of concentrated HCl and time.
For the system to actually work (in real life economics) you will have to make some (biological) machine that can take a plant and break it up into pieces small emough to be acted upon by enzymes, absorb the useful molecules, discard the bits it can't use or are toxic, move the nutrient molecules to the 'meat' tissue, remove any waste generated by the tissue and maintain homeostasic, sterility.... all this done cheaply.
And with the knowledge we have on growing bacteria and yeast it is a very different world scalling up a small culture to a industrial size culture. Small things like nutrient diffusion, heat production, secondary metabolites, oxygen and carbon dioxide distribution, become problems.
I don't see this working economically, if not for some very extreme engineering or genetic engineering.
What is the raw material? According to wikipedia plant material, so for me, it would be okay, similar to Tofu food, and tofu-burger or sausages you can already buy. It protects as mentioned from all animal diseases, it needs not so much energy and plant material ( see http://veg.ca/content/view/133/111/ for details on meat production) and avoids cruelty to animals, that is the standard in normal meat production.
But first the picture reminded me to "Soylent Green" 
(If you don't know what it is look here.)
I don't see this working economically, if not for some very extreme engineering or genetic engineering.
i don't think the cost is so much higher, i think tissue culture has had a lot of advances. when it comes to consider all the income you have to put in a farm it is overwhelming the amount of money it can be: first the animals, food, medicine, infrastructure, electricity, pay role and other basic inputs, not considering when inconvenients are present.
the in vitro meat would certainly lack characteristics of animal meat (a nutritionist would be needed here to make a study) but still sounds like a good idea. PETA wouldn't be there anymore, since there wouldn't be animals in risk or mistreated. one of the smartest teachers i've had was vegetarian (still don't understand how they resist the exquisite smell of bbq) arguing that instead of feeding livestock humans should eat that food.
wasn't this in an episode of the simpsons?
V (for vegetarian)
I think that meat will be popular in next century!
Oh please, stop with all these industrial foods ! 
We are getting more and more fat : why? because of industrialized food.
Now you can cook rice in 3 minutes ?! (remember, few years ago, the rice needed at least 30 minutes to cook).
everything is pre-digested, and that's why we are getting more and more fat.
And what about the taste? several meats taste differently, several parts of the same animal taste differently, and there are so many different species of vegetalbes that have their own particular taste.
I will fight to preserve our traditional cook ! 
Thanks Missele for putting some sense. totally agree with that, traditional cooking, and a big NO to processed foods (of any kind).
Thanks Missele for putting some sense. totally agree with that, traditional cooking, and a big NO to processed foods (of any kind).
Both you are idealistic, but how to feed the increasing human populations that like or insist on meat (remember some African countries that destroy their environments, because of extensive land use by cattle, or the devastation of rain forests for cattle food, etc)? Some cheating to save the environment and finally ourselves is perhaps necessary in future.
And BBQ with today's Tofu-sausages, I don't taste the difference.
PS A German criminal, better mass murderer, named A. H. (1889-1945) was also vegetarian, thus vegetarians are not per se the better humans.