PETA Offers $1Million for First Manmade Chicken

by James Pate | April 21, 2008 at 08:35 pm
554 views | 19 Recommendations | 6 comments

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100 Hot Chicks!!!!!!!!!!!

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100 Hot Chicks!!!!!!!!!!!

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Chickens at Fickle Creek Farm

Chickens at Fickle Creek Farm

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The organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is offering a prize for the first scientist to create chicken meat for human consumption in a laboratory. Recently I have been hearing about scientists trying to grow human organs in a laboratory using stem cells, but it never occurred to me that this or similar technology could be geared toward producing food. I'm not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

We already produce many things we put in or on our bodies in laboratories. Everything from perfumes to "artificial" or "natural" strawberry flavour (which, by the way, takes about 350 different chemical reactions to produce) are made in labs, most of them in New Jersey, US. I usually stop to appreciate the irony of a product using the term "natural flavour" to describe a flavour made just about as artificially as an "artificial flavour". Which also begs the question, would the public be properly informed at the grocery store whether they'll be buying this manufactured meat or the soon to be good old fashioned kind?

Something else to consider would be the environmental impact of our lust for meat. Everything from cow farts to hog cesspools, there is a real need to address these issues for the sake of the environment and public health. It's still too early to say if manufacturing meat in labs will do anything to reduce carbon emissions, however. Oh yeah, I almost forgot the obvious killing of animals.

Like many things the future has in store, it will happen, regardless of what the implications may be.

PETA is offering a $1 million prize to the contest participant able to make the first in vitro chicken meat and sell it to the public by June 30, 2012. The contestant must do both of the following:

• Produce an in vitro chicken-meat product that has a taste and texture indistinguishable from real chicken flesh to non-meat-eaters and meat-eaters alike.
• Manufacture the approved product in large enough quantities to be sold commercially, and successfully sell it at a competitive price in at least 10 states.

recommend This comment thread is now closed
Rob Peters
Rob Peters
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 21:09 on April 21st, 2008

Nice find, thanks James.

QUESTION: Even if scientists don't make a whole chicken and just the body parts, doesn't chicken meat contain part of a chicken soul, and thus, shouldn't PETA be just as concerned about in vitro buffalo wings?

0
James Pate

Thanks Rob. Actually, and I'm no expert, unless the body parts are put together and then "animated" I don't think they have claim to a soul.

Sanjay Jha
Sanjay Jha
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 02:09 on April 22nd, 2008

James Pate, I like this story. It's good stuff.Very good spot indeed

0
James Pate

Thanks for the goodstuff Sanjay!

Beaulieu
Beaulieu
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 08:28 on April 22nd, 2008

James Pate, I like this story. It's good stuff.

Caoimhin1
Caoimhin1
flagged this story as Good Stuff

at 21:14 on July 7th, 2008

James Pate, I like this story. It's good stuff.

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

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Rob Peters
First Flagged at 9:09 PM, Apr 21, 2008 by Rob Peters
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