“Petrie-Pork”: The Future for Meatatarians?

Rosana Escobar Brown

Test tube tacos, in-vitro veal parm, and beaker burgers—sounds like something more from a Jetson’s episode than from a leading science journal, but could it be for real?

Scientists have been developing lab-created meat for over a decade and now it seems as though this man-made meat might just become reality…someday.  PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) seems to think so also.  In 2008, PETA announced a “contest” on their website offering 1 million dollars in grant funds to the scientist who can create chicken meat that would be competitively cost effective on a grand scale and ready to market by 2012.  The funds have yet to be claimed and reader opinions regarding the PETA “contest” range from accepting, to skeptical, to belligerent.  Certain blogs on the topic fear the worst including unsafe food, and the source where cells are derived from.  One blog post even cries out that stem cells come from humans making the consumption of in-vitro meat akin to cannibalism.

Don’t fret just yet; the cells used to develop this man-made meat actually come from animals, not humans.  According to a recent article from Nature.com, a small biopsy is taken from the animal which is left unharmed; alternatively, embryonic stem cells would provide limitless supplies of meat but attempts at development have not been successful.

A research laboratory in Holland has shown the most successful progress in the field of meat-making and that is also where it is said that the only petrie-pork has been tasted on record.    

Animal Law CLE Opportunity

David Cassuto

Some farm animal-related CLE from the good folks at the ABA.  Note the intriguing speaker lineup.

Farmed Animal Welfare and Consumer Labeling Issues

To Register:

http://www.abanet.org/tips/market/10SepAnimalLawWeb.html

Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=146567802042349&ref=mf

Increasingly, consumers concerned about the welfare of farm animals, and related health, food safety, and environmental issues, are seeking to purchase animal-derived foods that are labeled or advertised in a way that provides information regarding the treatment of the animals. Can this give rise to liability when those labels are out of sync with consumer perceptions?

Our panel of attorneys, professors and experts in the field will discuss:

Commercial speech and the role of liability for false advertising under Federal and State law in the labeling of food products.   

CLONED BEEF, It’s what’s for dinner.

Tara Dugo

The world was fascinated when Dolly, the first cloned animal, was introduced in 1996.  As factory farmers have always been struggling to obtain livestock that produce more meat, milk, eggs, etc., it is no surprise that the cloning of Dolly made way for the introduction of cloning to

the farming industry.  Many farmers have found that a benefit to using cloned livestock is that genetically superior animals can be bred.  These animals, such as fast growing beef cattle and cows that produce copious amount of milk would ultimately result in higher profits for the farmers.