Tastes Just Like Chicken

Surely lab-grown meat will be subsidized next

Lab-grown meat has all the requirements: it’s a losing business, hardly anyone wants it, and it’s promoted under false pretenses. So why not subsidize it?

I just read an article by Wired on lab-grown meat. I guess this is the latest thing. Plant-based fake meat hasn’t been going over very well, so the hope is that if meat is cultivated in a lab by starting with a few real animal cells as a base for the plant-based cells, people will be fooled into actually eating the stuff.

“This is the first time that cultivated meat—no-slaughter meat with real animal cells grown in bioreactors—has been sold at retail anywhere in the world. This novel meat has previously been available only in tiny proportions at a handful of mostly high-end restaurants in the US and Singapore…Now cultivated meat is available in one store in Singapore. There is a catch, however: The chicken on sale at Huber’s Butchery contains just 3 percent animal cells. The rest will be made of plant protein—the same kind of ingredients you’d find in plant-based meats that are already on supermarket shelves worldwide…This might feel like a bit of a bait and switch.”

Of course it costs more to make meat artificially than to let God-created meat “factories”, called animals, make the real McCoy for us. So if it costs more to produce, I don’t think this is going to be a way to feed the world. But as I said, it does have the potential for creating another way to spend tax dollars with more subsidies for things we don’t want – like EVs, offshore wind power, thousand acre solar “farms”, and supporting Ukraine’s dictator with tanks and ammunition, or things we do want, but are scientifically impossible to harness, like nuclear fusion, or things we’d like, but are economically unfeasible, like hydrogen fuel.

“The costs of brewing animal cells are simply so high that the quickest way to get something to market that even approaches a reasonable price is to make up a substantial portion with plants.”

The maker of this 3% meat has chosen a name guaranteed to fool some of the people all of the time – their company name is – wait for it – “Good Meat”. A clever deception indeed, a company from California of course.

“At 3 percent animal cells, it’s hard to know whether Good Meat’s chicken will be significantly—or even noticeably—better than the plant-based alternative.”

Like EVs, a niche product for the rich, cultivated meat will be another niche product – too expensive for the poor, but greedily gobbled up by the woke, the self-righteous moralists who think it’s wrong to raise animals for meat – even though the creator of both us and all the animals has clearly given us animals for meat. Read just a few examples from scripture:

A barbecue smells good.

“Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord.” Exodus 29:18

“Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant.” Genesis 9:3 Uh-Oh - that means it’s OK to eat insects…

When 3 men visited Abraham, and we find out later that one of them is the Lord himself, look how Abraham hosted them:

^“6 So Abraham hurried into the tent to Sarah. “Quick,” he said, “get three seahs of the finest flour and knead it and bake some bread.” ⁷ Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. ⁸ He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.”  Genesis 18:6-8

We also have the Lord’s blessing when we raise animals to provide various products for us, like milk, butter, and cheese, besides meat:

“23 Be sure you know the condition of your flocks,
    give careful attention to your herds;
²⁴ for riches do not endure forever,
    and a crown is not secure for all generations.
²⁵ When the hay is removed and new growth appears
    and the grass from the hills is gathered in,
²⁶ the lambs will provide you with clothing,
    and the goats with the price of a field.
²⁷ You will have plenty of goats’ milk to feed your family
    and to nourish your female servants”. Proverbs 27:23-27

In the Old Testament priesthood system, the priests ate meat. Animals were offered for sacrifice, and the meat from the sacrifice was not wasted.

When Solomon dedicated the temple, it was the time of the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles. This was a feast or festival that lasted for 7 days, and on this occasion, even 7 more days. The main course was fresh meat, enough to feed thousands of people:

“⁶² Then the king and all Israel with him offered sacrifices before the Lord. ⁶³ Solomon offered a sacrifice of fellowship offerings to the Lord: twenty-two thousand cattle and a hundred and twenty thousand sheep and goats. So the king and all the Israelites dedicated the temple of the Lord. ⁶⁴ On that same day the king consecrated the middle part of the courtyard in front of the temple of the Lord, and there he offered burnt offerings, grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings, because the bronze altar that stood before the Lord was too small to hold the burnt offerings, the grain offerings and the fat of the fellowship offerings. ⁶⁵ So Solomon observed the festival at that time, and all Israel with him—a vast assembly, people from Lebo Hamath to the Wadi of Egypt. They celebrated it before the Lord our God for seven days and seven days more, fourteen days in all.”  1Kings 8:62-65

Likewise, in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, consider how the father celebrated the son’s return:

²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’  ²⁸ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’  Luke 27:25-30

One more example - the solemn occasion of the Last Supper, at the time of the Passover Feast. The centerpiece of the meal was lamb, and Jesus was looking forward to it. I realize the physical meal pales in comparison to the spiritual meaning, but still…you get my point…

“And he said to them, “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer”

I have to close now, to get ready to go to my granddaughter’s “golden birthday”. She calls it that because she’s 18 on the 18th. So we’re going to have a feast. Her dad, an avid hunter and fisherman, is spending all day barbecuing and smoking a pork roast. Umm - my mouth is watering…

Postscript

Just got back from the feast. My son-in-law Kenny really knows how to barbecue - this is the real thing - nothing fake here. Pork roast and pulled pork. Already half gone…