Test Tube Steak

Peta is offering $1 million prize for "commercially viable" test tube meat.

PETA is calling on all "tissue engineers" to create a meat product that can be grown in a test tube. More affectionately known as "schmeat" is grown from a cell culture, not from a live animal. These harvested cells are taken from an animal, such as a pig, and placed in a "nutrient-rich medium" that mimics blood. Once the cells multiply they are attached to a spongy scaffold or sheet (sheet + meat = shmeat) that has been soaked with nutrients and stretched to increase cell size and protein content.

This shmeat could, in theory, be harvested in vast quantities and used in minced meat products: burgers, nuggety things, or potted meat-food products, etc. While scientists (they call themselves "tissue engineers") admit that growing a pork chop with a bone without a real pig attached is not likely, they say also that affordable, palatable minced shmeat might be available at a grocery store near you within a decade.

Would you eat shmeat? If the technology is viable and tasty, I think it's a great idea. Anything that can cut down on animal suffering, the resources to raise them and animal disease all at the same time is jim-dandy with me.

Mad scientists may be at the forefront of a promising industry.