LabDonalds?

Those clever scientists at the University of Maastricht have created a beef-burger that has no relationship whatsoever with a living animal. One wonders if they've ever heard of McDonalds.

It cost £250,000 to produce one 5oz. 'patty' and the technology will, according to its producers, solve the world's food crisis, save the environment from climate change and be good for animals, especially cows.

Thank goodness for that. We should all rejoice. They can now build a big 'fuck-off' lab in the 'desolate' north of England and have the rest of the country sealed, underlaid and carpeted. We won't need fields anymore or grass, silage, cattle feed, pigs or sheep (tweek the scientific formula surely?) or farms, markets, wildlife even. Maybe we can put a roof on the place and live dry, temperature controlled, hermetically sealed, clinically safe, indoor lives unaffected by the elements.

Just a couple of very small, almost insignificant, flies in the ointment if I may Professor Post (University of Maastricht)?

You say, 'Livestock production is not good for the environment'. I'm not quite sure I understand that. Do you mean that cow's farts (CO2) have an impact on climate change and are causing an increase in global temperatures? Don't worry old chap, they aren't - you should know that you're a scientist.  The climate hasn't been warming for more than 15 years now and besides, volcanoes produce more CO2 every year than man, or animals, have produced over the whole of the life of the planet. 

Perhaps you mean that the creation of neat, tidy fields - the agricultural countryside of much of Europe and the developed world - for efficient arable and livestock farming is bad for the environment? Promoting as it does the hedgerows and other wildlife habitats that mean we have such a strong, diverse and thriving ecology. It's not exactly a laboratory environment I agree, but do you really think we want and need that?

You also say, 'livestock production is not good for animals.' Well clearly you have a point in terms of it not being particularly good for the poor animal that is being converted from a living being into a burger or other form of meat product. Do you think, if that wasn't the case, that this animal would exist? Do you think there would be an endlessly growing population of cows and other hitherto agricultural livestock roaming unfettered around our new (carpeted) landscape? Is it preferable for an animal to have a relatively short but happy, looked after, well-fed, comfortable, stress-free life (and one which serves a purpose) or none at all? There is no third alternative. If they weren't produced to help feed the population, the only place you would find a few cows, sheep, pigs etc, would be in zoos. 

Anyway these are moot points really aren't they? Because despite the ITV (and other media) coverage featuring quotes from vegetarian groups (we might eat it if it's not from animals); from agricultural bodies, animal welfare groups etc., the fact is that you would not be able to give these burgers away for free in the UK or the rest of Europe (except perhaps in the worst-hit areas of poverty created by the EU in the south of the continent).

Food needs to be labelled - by law as per the EU directives of recent years. That's a bit awkward for you isn't it? Maybe you could call them 'Science Burgers' and get a few geeks (as well as Greeks) to buy them? 

Monsanto and BASF giving up on their efforts to secure licenses for GM crops in Europe because GM simply will not sell here, just a couple of months ago, must also have been a blow, but you were committed to this PR thing by then I guess.

But hold on. There's Africa, where people are starving - maybe there will be a market for your Lab-Burgers there? But it's not about solving the food shortage problem really is it? If we wanted to, we could, as a race or as a world, easily feed everyone from what we already produce. We could help people to become sustainable in food production in Africa, so that they wouldn't need food aid every few years. If only they'd stop shooting at us when we did. And if only our elected Governments would stop arming these people.

It might involve taking out a few fuckwit dictators, like Mugabe for example: President of a country that was a prosperous, food exporting success story 30 years ago and is now a basket-case with 95% unemployment because of the actions of this fucking idiot dictator who has no concern whatsoever for his people and who 'buys' or bullies his way to favourable, corrupt election results, and to whom we still send aid.

It might involve people eating less meat than they do now - eating more healthily in fact, but the availability of Lab-Burgers is not going to solve the world's food issue. And that's not really why you've produced them is it? You have produced them to prove you can, commercial interests will be, erm, interested because it might provide a way to exploit people and to control the markets for the product. Like Monsanto and BASF were trying to do. It's abut profit not solving a humanitarian problem. As usual.

Now if you could convert bullets and weapons into burgers you might be onto something. 

Thanks for reading