Artificial Meat

This goes by several different labels. 'Cultured meat' or 'lab-grown meat' are others. Essentially it is biochemically the same as 'real meat' but produced by cellular or possibly cell-free biochemical process in factories instead of by live animals. As well as ordinary 'meat' in the sense of muscle tissue, almost any livestock commodity could be generated, including milk and egg protein (especially easy) and all manner of 'bespoke', products such as 'pork' or more exotic 'venison' or even 'elephant'. It is undeniable that much purchased meat is rather homogenised and of unknown provenance (e.g. sausages, burgers, mince, meat in frozen poducts, pies, pasties etc) and this could easily be substituted with something that tastes identical.

Of course there is a lot of research, testing and other matters to get through before this becomes a mature technology and is cheaply available on a large scale. Personally I have no doubt this is possible, and I think the field ought to be actively funded and researched. It does not mean the end of Real Meat, which will still be available, although expensive if it pays its real carbon costs. I imagine the real stuff will be reserved for special occasions, and will follow the pattern described by Simon Fairlie in his splendid Meat: A Benign Extravagance as 'default meat production', that is the production of livestock products as part of a mixed-farming system making optimum use of waste materials. It might very well be of the highest, probably organic, quality, and God bless it.