History Main / ArtificialMeat

Artificial meat.

* The manga ''BioMeat'' is about this, except in this story, [[InSovietRussiaTropeMocksYou meat eats you]].

* The Beef Vat improvement in {{Civilization}}: Call to Power. A future age improvement that prevents starvation.

* In an episode of [[FutureFood Future]] [[http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/future-food/ Food]] Chefs Omar Cantu and Ben Roche play around with making artificial meat out of the food that we feed animals to make them tasty. Grain and beets and soy and other ingredients are made into artificial beef and chicken.

* The Federation in ''StarTrek'' use {{Matter Replicator}}s for most of their meat.

The current meat industry is pretty bad. It's resource-intensive, it's environmentally unsound, generates product of questionable quality as far as health and safety goes, and the way animals get treated is pretty horrific. However, meat is sooo delicious that it's hard to give up.

* ''{{Neuromancer}}'' by WilliamGibson had vat-grown flesh, which was cheaper than real meat. In a posh restaurant at the moon, the protagonist Case is chastised by his companion Molly for wasting a steak, which is expensive because "they have to raise an animal for years and then kill it."

** [[http://arikrice.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/tastes-of-chicken/ This blog]] even goes one step further proposing that, since one could presumably grow meat from any animal or person, you could potentially have a steak grown ''out of your own DNA''.
** Which brings a whole new dimension to the phrase "Eat me!"

** [[{{Squick}} Tumor beef]], another amazing invention of Jobe Wilkins in the WhateleyUniverse. The United Nations sanctioned Jobe (yet again) for this.

** [[Squick Tumor beef]], another amazing invention of Jobe Wilkins in the WhateleyUniverse. The United Nations sanctioned Jobe (yet again) for this.

* {{Jack}}'s world has "synth meat". Unfortunately, it doesn't satisfy the Gluttonies, who took up fetishistic [[CarnivoreConfusion cannibalism]] in life and are now condemned to spend eternity [[IronicHell eating the other denizens of Hell and never feeling full]].

* ''The Space Merchants'' by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth has tumour meat cultures called "Chicken Little"

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* In ''OryxAndCrake'', soy-based meat substitutes are common, as are "ChickieKnobs", derived from heavily genetically engineered chickens which are entirely lacking in nervous systems (so they feel no pain).

* In an episode of FutureFood [[http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/future-food/]] Chefs Omar Cantu and Ben Roche play around with making artificial meat out of the food that we feed animals to make them tasty. Grain and beets and soy and other ingredients are made into artificial beef and chicken.

The current meat industry is pretty bad. It's resource-intensive, it's environmentally unsound and the way animals get treated is pretty horrific. However, meat is sooo delicious that it's hard to give up.

* A [[BlandNameProduct McMeaties]] employee tells [[InvaderZim Zim]] how [=NASA=] developed a germ-resistant form of '''SPACE MEAT''' to use as food on deep-space missions. However [=McMeaties=] can't afford it so they make theirs out of napkins.

* The heroine of John Varley's ''The Ophiuchi Hotline'' gets wealthy from developing a "bananameat" tree. Ostensibly the grafting of pork genes onto banana trees, the popularity of the meat's flavor is the result of including human DNA (the inventor's own).

* In an episode of [[http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/future-food/ Future Food]] Chefs Omar Cantu and Ben Roche play around with making artificial meat out of the food that we feed animals to make them tasty. Grain and beets and soy and other ingredients are made into artificial beef and chicken.

* In an episode of [[http://planetgreen.discovery.com/tv/future-food/ FutureFood]] Chefs Omar Cantu and Ben Roche play around with making artificial meat out of the food that we feed animals to make them tasty. Grain and beets and soy and other ingredients are made into artificial beef and chicken.

* ''{{Neuromancer}}'' by WilliamGibson had vat-grown flesh, which was cheaper than real meat. In a posh restaurant at the moon, the protagonist Case is chastised by his companion Molly for wasting a steak, which is expensive because "they have to raise an animal for years and then kill it."
* ''The Space Merchants'' by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth has tumour meat cultures called "Chicken Little"
* ''Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand'' by Samuel Delany has vat grown meat cultures from humans.
* The Federation in ''StarTrek'' use {{Matter Replicator}}s for most of their meat.
* ''Tuf Voyaging'' by GeorgeRRMartin: One of Haviland Tuf's suggestions for dealing with [[MeaningfulName Suthlam]]'s overpopulation is to feed the people with meat from a meatbeast, which is described as a [[{{Squick}} giant edible cancer]].

* The ''VorkosiganSaga'' has Vat Protein, grown meat flavored to taste like chicken, beef, etc. Primarily used by many advanced societies without mention, while some cultures prefer meat the old-fashioned way. (And for members of the former who get squicked by the latter, well, the best example is Cordelia, who grew up on Beta Colony, the most advanced planet in the Nexus, bravely chomping down on her son Miles' freshly caught and cooked catch of fish, when he was a young boy on Barrayar.)

* The 'real meat' factory from ''ProjectEden''.

* ''{{GURPS}} TranshumanSpace'' has this as the norm. Normal butchered meat is illegal and seen as disgusting and horrible barbaric.

* TruthInTelevision: While we haven't come up with anything that can be used on an industrial scale, we have a number of ideas. Check out TheOtherWiki [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_vitro_meat here]] for more details.
** [[http://arikrice.wordpress.com/2009/08/13/tastes-of-chicken/ This blog]] even goes one step further proposing that, since one could presumably grow meat from any animal or person, you could potentially have a steak grown ''out of your own DNA''.

* One of the products in development at [[BetterOffTed Veridian Dynamics]].

* The {{Redwall}} series has artificial milk, in the form of "greensap milk", supposedly the juice of a kind of tuber. [[TruthInTelevision Some plants do produce a milky fluid in real life]], but the real-life stuff probably wouldn't be close enough to make cheese.
** Considering that this milky "sap" in every case I can think of contains a high concentration of latex-like substances, no... probably not good for cheese.
* {{Jack}}'s world has "synth meat". Unfortunately, it doesn't satisfy the Gluttonies, who took up fetishistic [[CarnivoreConfusion cannibalism]] in life and are now condemned to spend eternity [[IronicHell eating the other denizens of Hell and never feeling full]].
* A [[BlandNameProduct McMeaties]] employee tells [[InvaderZim Zim]] how [=NASA=] developed a germ-resistant form of '''SPACE MEAT''' to use as food on deep-space missions. However [=McMeaties=] can't afford it so they make theirs out of napkins.

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