Cultured meat is supposedly getting pretty close, maybe the next few years, though maybe longer. https://www.memphismeats.com/ is one company doing it.

I'm vegetarian and I would definitely eat it, and most of my vegetarian friends would as well (assuming they figure out how to produce it without fetal bovine serum, which isn't vegetarian). But certainly everyone is different. I imagine some people will still have ethical qualms, and I know a number of vegetarians who don't like the impossible burger because they don't like the taste and texture of meat, so presumably they wouldn't like lab-grown meat either.

How do you ensure that the meat didn't come from a factory farm? When you're going to a friend's BBQ or a restaurant you may not know the source of the meat.

I assume that it would be possible to ask and find out from the packaging, just as one currently finds out if foods contain certain allergens. Asking the BBQ host if the meat is factory farmed or grown in a lab would be just like asking if the mustard contains gluten.

This is an actual use case for a blockchain - it’s already used in Walmart (with IBM) to check where some vegetables have come from and this is not far from that. Maybe some sort of QR code you can scan to see the items history from source.

It would technically be a plant of sorts. Or maybe it would make vegetables the new "meat" in terms of ethical concerns. Do vegans distinguish between something like carrots (where you basically kill the entire plant) and apples (where the fruits are harvested but the tree remains in tact)?

> Or maybe it would make vegetables the new "meat" in terms of ethical concerns. Do vegans distinguish between something like carrots (where you basically kill the entire plant) and apples (where the fruits are harvested but the tree remains in tact)?

Actually, there are fringe but growing number of people who hate vegans because vegans kill and torture plants. Plants after all have senses and can feel and communicate with each other. And they find people who eat fruits disgusting since fruits are a plants' womb and eggs.

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20170109-plants-can-see-hear-...

https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/plants-have-feelings...

Just like vegans, these people have too much time on their hands and an unhealthy desire to feel morally superior to others.

I’ve heard of these - their diet consists of fruits that fall onto the ground (therefore ‘dead’) and certain vegetables that don’t have feelings right?

It’s like living life on Very Hard mode.

You're asking about the difference between "vegan" and "fruitarian", for what it's worth.

I forgot about fruitarians. Thanks!

Personally I find meat unappealing and lab grown stuff would still be the same, it’s the same reason why I don’t agree with vegan alternatives that look, feel and taste like meat so much so that it mimics blood. Disgusting

Most butchered meat has the blood removed.