The news about the future of meat consumption is all bad. It is cruel to animals, excessively resource intensive, damaging to the environment, and produces greenhouse gases that significantly contribute to climate change.
There is little evidence that human beings will voluntarily become vegetarians en masse. So what is the answer?
According to this essay at Symposion it is “cultured meat”.
Muscle-specific stem cells are taken from a cow and are encouraged to self-organize into muscle tissue, which is then grown in the lab, eventually finding its way to your plate. It is biologically identical to meat that comes from a cow.
I suspect the “yuk” factor will be difficult to overcome but I fail to see why. It isn’t fake meat—it’s the real thing derived from a different causal process.
“Test-tube babies” are real persons, cars manufactured by robots are real cars, seedless fruits are propagated using a culturing process, so why the “yuk” factor with manufactured beef?
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 