Lab-Grown Meat?

For many vegans and vegetarians, the precise method of lab-meat production is crucial in making a decision. The meat eaten Monday in London came from cells that were harmlessly extracted from living cows. Those cells, however, were then grown using fetal bovine serum, an unappetizing by-product of the slaughter of pregnant cattle.

�Everyone in the field acknowledges this as a problem,� says Dr. Neil Stephens of the use of the serum. �It�s not in any way animal friendly, it�s not cheap and it�s not environmentally friendly. It currently undermines a lot of the arguments that people put forward in support of in vitro meat.� Stephens, a sociologist at Cardiff University, has spent years studying the development of �cultured� meat. �There is a significant and long-lasting debate about where you get the cells and how you treat them,� he said.