Thursday, January 16, 2014

Class 3: 15/1/14 MAG2 Schmeat



 

Please watch the video: Test Tube Meat: Time Explains by TIME Magazine
Published on August 5, 2013 by Maria Cheng  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cglEAQhDymo

  1. What kind of current meat production is good for the environment? (00:05)

        a. free range         b. organic sustainable       c. low cost             d. FDA approved

  1. What is the new green way to get your burger meat called? (00:11)

  1. How do current practices of raising animals impact the environment?  (0:23)

  1. How much will world wide demand for meat increase by 2050?  (00:43)

                a. 30%                    b. 40%                    c. 50%                    d. 60%

  1. Is this " real" meat tissue? (00:55)

  1. What do the scientists use to make the meat tissue?  (1:00)

  1. How could this be positive for vegetarians?  (1:22)

  1. What did PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) do to promote this research? (1:30)

  1. How much does it cost for 1 burger?  (1:51)

Hold the Relish

A lab-grown burger excites hopes but not taste buds

Photo-illustration by Marcus Gaab for TIME
Article shortened for use


True beef or not true beef? That is the question two volunteers masticating a burger in front of an invited audience in a London theater attempted to answer Aug. 5. Developing this version of the global fast-food staple in a laboratory had taken three months and eaten up £250,000 ($331,400)...
Schmeat--or "cultured beef," as the patty's progenitor, Mark Post, a professor of physiology and biomedical technology at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, calls it--is the culinary product of stem cells harvested from a cow's shoulder and lab-nurtured into strips of muscle. It's hailed by proponents as a potential solution to several juicy existential problems. The demand for cheap meat has been met at a high price to the environment--contributing greenhouse gases and diminishing biodiversity as ever more land is given over to feed crops--as well as risking human health and animal welfare. In Britain, beef eaters have experienced some of the downsides of industrialized farming and food production: an epidemic of bovine spongiform encephalopathy that spiked in the early 1990s, a foot-and-mouth epidemic a decade later and, this year, the revelation that the "beef" in certain prepared foods was actually horse meat. Schmeat production, if scaled up enough to bring prices down, could help feed the world and reduce some of the pressures on the planet.
The quest to develop in vitro meat is ridden with apparent contradictions. Can this most processed of processed foods be healthy? Is it possible to solve problems created by our greed for meat by making more meat more cheaply? Post's work is lauded by some vegetarians. "Our goal is to promote foods that don't use animals at all," says Ingrid Newkirk, president of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an animal-rights organization. "But enormous swaths of the population can't bring themselves to become vegan, so it's logical to support in vitro meat if its goal is to reduce suffering."
But if this really is the food of the future--and the most optimistic estimates suggest schmeat won't make it into supermarkets for 10 to 20 years--it will have to overcome "the ick factor."
"If consumers don't accept it, it won't work. It will end up having been a science experiment," says Cook, who flew to London for the event and believes the technology is "worth a look."



Vocabulary
to be hailed by someone - être salué par qqun
ridden - affigé
 lauded - loué; glorifié
swaths - partie
ick - berk

Questions
1.       How is "Shmeat" made?
2.       Why are current methods of generating meat bad for the world?
3.       What are the problems with Shmeat?
4.       Why is PETA a fan of Shmeat?
5.       Would you eat Shmeat?  Why/why not?
6.       Do you think this is a viable option for the future?
7.       Should Shmeat replace all other forms of meat?

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