I have to give credit where credit is due.  When our dinner conversation last night turned to the news of the day, which included scientists creating beef in a lab, my youngest, Riley, said, “Mom we won’t have red barns in the country anymore, we will just have white lab buildings.”

Here again…out of the mouths of babes.

Hubby started talking about 30 years from now, sitting around the table saying, “You can’t even tell it’s not real.”

My oldest corrected Dad on the fact that it will still be real, etc., then said, “I hope I’m not sitting at this table still in 30 years.” (can you tell he just turned 15?!)

*Sniff* Mom moment when I realize he will be grown and gone sooner rather than later.

Seriously, though…fast forward 30+ years, and we will no longer have packaged meats and butcher shops in supermarkets.  We will probably have egg cartons along side, beef cartons, chicken cartons and pork cartons, all packaged with stem cells, and we will have a countertop growth chamber for our protein staples.  We won’t even need to be scientists to grow our own meat.  The patented stem cell growth system will be automated, like a bread maker.  Only, this will be a meat maker, and the scientists who patented the process and the meat maker will be leading the NASDAC in genetic engineering growth stocks.

Will this solve the world hunger crisis?

Probably not.  (The world will always be divided into the haves, and the have-nots.)

So, before you run out and invest in this scientist’s company during it’s initial IPO, think about the other things that will be affected by this “manufactured beef”:

What’s going to happen to the fertilizer industry?
Where are we going to get our leather products?
Where do we get the bovine stem cells?  *hint – pregnant cow embryos anyone?
How do we handle spontaneous genetic mutations in our kitchen that produce green hamburger patties?
What do we do with all the grassland now available?  *hint – anyone need more GMO soybeans?

 

Don’t say my 11yo and I didn’t warn you.

Mary Kathryn Johnson
Author ~ Entrepreneur ~ Mom