Don't Eat That!

Do you ever find yourself fighting an irresistible urge to shout, "STOP! Don't eat that! It's poison! Well, more like a slow poison...that takes actually years to kill you. But still, pay no attention to how good it tastes-- just don't eat it!" This is the script (more or less) that plays out in my head every time I see someone make a sandwich out of grocery store bread, or order a Coke--or worse yet, a Mountain Dew--at the restaurant (or french fries that have been cooked in week-old carcinogenic-laden vegetable oil), or reach for a carton of soy milk in the dairy section (it really ought to have it's own section...labeled "Hormone Disrupter Aisle"--it's not really dairy, after all).

And then there are those who are so proud of themselves because they choose skim milk over whole, or pretzels over candy, or diet Coke over regular... and it's all I can do not to burst their satisfaction bubble.

But I find myself resisting the urge more often than giving in to it, even though the more I learn about nutrition and the food choices we have, the more frustrated I get. I'm finding that people generally don't want to be told there's something wrong with their food choices. And, they have the mainstream nutrition "experts" supporting their choices more often than not.

Still, I carry my soapbox wherever I go, just in case.  And given the opportunity (such as, someone brings up nutrition in a conversation), I step on up and preach the gospel of healthy eating to whomever will listen...at least until they make it clear they've had enough. (Apologies to my family, who get the worst brunt of it.)

Speaking of food choices, the world of "science" is about to give us yet another one: man-made meat. Sort of. It starts out with God-made cells, and goes downhill from there. I give you "test-tube burger," grown by scientists using stem cells from cattle. From an article in this week's online publication, DailyMail.co.uk, entitled The £250,000 Hamburger...

"A four-step technique is used to turn stem cells from animal flesh into a burger.

1. First, the stem cells are stripped from the cow’s muscle.
2. Next, they are incubated in a nutrient broth until they multiply many times over, creating a sticky tissue with the consistency of an under-cooked egg.
3. This ‘wasted muscle’ is then bulked up through the laboratory equivalent of exercise - it is anchored to Velcro and stretched.
4. Finally, 3,000 strips of the lab-grown meat are minced, and, along with 200 pieces of lab-grown animal fat, formed into a burger.

The process is still lengthy, as well as expensive, but it could take just six weeks from stem cell to supermarket shelf."

The kicker was this:  according to Professor Mark Post, the researcher heading up this project,

"It comes down to the fact that animals are very inefficient at converting vegetable protein into animal protein. This helps drive up the cost of meat."

Apparently, in Professor Post's world, growing 3,000 strips of fake meat in a laboratory for a 5 ounce burger is more efficient and less costly than a cow grazing on a field of grass for a year and then providing two to three hundred pounds of meat. I'm sure God is shaking his head at the absurd nature of Professor Post's thought processes...I know I am. 

What drives up the cost of meat is the unnatural method by which the cattle are raised, and the government regulation that surrounds the meat industry. Cattle know how to turn cheap green grass into meat. They have a lot more trouble with corn, but that's another story.

And then there's that other problem-- persuading people to actually eat the stuff. Is this fake meat tasty? Well, it is described as being grey and slimy (like octopus meat). It probably looks a little bit like that raw hamburger that languished in the back of the refrigerator for two or three weeks before being discover, and promptly discarded. Not only that, but the good professor suggested it was possible to add fatty tissue and nutrients to make it "more palatable" to the public. In other words, their science experiment doesn't really resemble hamburger in its current form. Go figure.

If we thought genetically modified food was bad (and it is!), THIS has got to be exponentially worse. Meat in its natural form has the input of a very complex biological system. How can a sterile stem cell tricked into becoming meat muscle in some scientist's petrie dish possibly provide anywhere near a comparable food?

But never fear. The "Food Standards Board" will still need to sign off on it, once the manufacturers "prove" that it's nutritionally equivalent to real meat, and safe for the public to consume. And they will...you can count on it. There will be studies that document the health of those guinea-pig volunteers over a very long period--three, maybe four weeks!--with no adverse results. "No difference!" they'll declare. And besides that, it has the backing of PETA! No animals were injured during this process.

Where's my soap box?! Really! Please! Don't eat that!

Image credit: cow.org