TY - JOUR
T1 - An anticipatory social assessment of factory-grown meat
AU - Mattick, Carolyn S.
AU - Wetmore, Jameson
AU - Allenby, Braden
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 IEEE.
PY - 2015/3/1
Y1 - 2015/3/1
N2 - On August 5, 2013, a prototype sample of cultured, or in vitro, meat was tasted at a well-publicized event in London [1]. This hamburger was not grown in an animal, but rather from bovine stem cells in Dr. Mark Post?s laboratory at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The event may foreshadow a day when traditional livestock production has given way to large-scale growth of meat in factories, or carneries. Dr. Post has suggested that commercialization of cultured meat could be ten to twenty years away [1]. The implications are profound. By some accounts the technology could reduce the environmental impacts of meat production [2], promote human health by eliminating harmful contents such as saturated fats and pathogens [2], address global hunger issues [3], and alleviate the ethical concerns associated with industrial livestock operations [4]. However, technologies powerful enough to address such significant challenges often come with unforseen consequences and a host of costs and benefits that seldom accrue to the same actors. In extreme cases, they can even be destabilizing to social, institutional, economic, and cultural systems [5].
AB - On August 5, 2013, a prototype sample of cultured, or in vitro, meat was tasted at a well-publicized event in London [1]. This hamburger was not grown in an animal, but rather from bovine stem cells in Dr. Mark Post?s laboratory at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. The event may foreshadow a day when traditional livestock production has given way to large-scale growth of meat in factories, or carneries. Dr. Post has suggested that commercialization of cultured meat could be ten to twenty years away [1]. The implications are profound. By some accounts the technology could reduce the environmental impacts of meat production [2], promote human health by eliminating harmful contents such as saturated fats and pathogens [2], address global hunger issues [3], and alleviate the ethical concerns associated with industrial livestock operations [4]. However, technologies powerful enough to address such significant challenges often come with unforseen consequences and a host of costs and benefits that seldom accrue to the same actors. In extreme cases, they can even be destabilizing to social, institutional, economic, and cultural systems [5].
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U2 - 10.1109/MTS.2015.2395967
DO - 10.1109/MTS.2015.2395967
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84925852815
SN - 0278-0097
VL - 34
SP - 56
EP - 64
JO - IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
JF - IEEE Technology and Society Magazine
IS - 1
M1 - 7064862
ER -