Question for Jews/Muslims/other crazies.

[lestat77]

I was just discussing this with Chibi and Justin.  Let's say scientists are able to synthesize pork, in other words make a slice of ham out of say, carbon molecules from coal.  It's absolutely indistinguishable from real pork.  It has the juices, the veins of fat, bits of skin, a molecular biologist with a really powerful microscope could not

Comments

[thoradin]

It would be like a food replicator in the Star Trek series. Since the replicator can make exact molecular copies of whatever you wish to eat, I would say the copy becomes the real thing and thus cannot be eaten if your religion prohibits it.

Whether or not a Vegan or Vegetarian would eat the animal safe meats is purely left up to the person. Most of them eat fake meats anyway so why hell not eat I say. I would have to guess a small percentage that eat veggies only for health reason would stay away from the meats since it can cause intestinal and colon problems if eaten in excess.

First thing I would replicate would be human flesh, they say it's very sweet and tender. >D

[lesserofnoevils]

Pork is usually defined as the flesh from a (domesticated) pig. If science advanced enough to synthesize flesh that was palatable to human tastes, I don't believe anything created would be defined as flesh of any living creature. It would be some pork-flavored, lab-made, protein steak. It'd probably be marketed as an animal-safe protein steak in order to market to those who would never touch animal meat.

That said, I don't think Jews, Muslims, or vegetarians would touch the thing unless 1) it were palatable (as you mentioned) and 2) they received the okay from their leaders (in the case of the religious folk). I'm inclined to believe that those leaders would not approve of the meal out of traditional observance... at least initially.

[lesserofnoevils]

If it were indistinguishable from real pork, there'd also be the lingering fear of "what's really on my plate?"

[lestat77]

Yeah, to me it seems like that might be the big difference in some people's minds between a product like I'm describing and the fake meats that are on the market now.

[willows_misery]

Exactly.

[specialkai]

cabo wabo and a ho hum