PETA offers $1 million for fake meat

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, the animal rights group based in Virginia, is offering a $1 million prize for meat produced in a laboratory.

PETA said scientists are working to develop meat using animal stem cells.

"More than 40 billion chickens, fish, pigs, and cows are killed every year for food in the United States in horrific ways," PETA said Monday in a release. "Chickens are drugged to grow so large they often become crippled, mother pigs are confined to metal cages so small they can't move, and fish are hacked apart while still conscious -- all to feed America's meat addiction."

The group said "in vitro meat" would spare animals from suffering and reduce the effects the meat industry has on the environment.

The $1 million prize is being offered to the scientist who makes the first in vitro chicken meat and sells it to the public by June 30, 2012. The winning in vitro chicken-meat product must have a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh and it must be produced in large enough quantities to be sold commercially at a competitive price in at least 10 states, PETA said.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

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Posted by OmegaRed 04/22/08 10:37

Rank: 3/5 after 2 votes

If you invented that product today would it even be possible to have it on the market by 2012? Wouldn't that have to go through the FDA and various trials first?

Seems like PETA's lame attempt to make themselves seem like they are NOT a terrorist organization.

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Posted by Corban 04/22/08 10:53

Rank: 3/5 after 3 votes

It's a niche product with a strong substitute (real meat). In order to be economically viable, lab space would have to be cheaper than farmland.

...That isn't happening in the next 40 years.

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Posted by CaptSpaulding 04/22/08 14:51

Rank: 1.5/5 after 2 votes

Corban, most meat in the US isn't farmed anymore, at least not in the traditional sense. However, the likely hood that it can pass USFDA regulations by 2012 is a joke. However, the inventor might be able to make it for animal feed, I don't know what the regulations are for that. It may actually end up being cheaper if you can optimize the process to eliminate organs/bones that are not generally consumed and more or less grow the muscle in a cube, cyclinder, or whatever. You could probably make the entire process more space and resource efficient, and likely contaminate free (no more madcow, lame animal, high antibiotic loads, etc.). Also, it might allow for a commercially viable, non-human, stem cell research sector.