History Main / ArtificialCannibalism

* ''Manga/BusoRenkin'': Once a person becomes a homunculus, they get an insatiable lust for human flesh. However the {{Vegetarian Vampire}} Victoria eats her mother's [[BrainFood cloned brain flesh]].
* ''Manga/FirePunch'' often features human meat that is technically natural, but came from people [[HealingFactor who can quickly regenerate what is taken from them]]--willingly or not. Luna and Agni fed their whole village with severed limbs, while Behemdorg extracted a kind of starchy liquid from people strapped to medical beds. Doma [[DoomedHometown burned Agni's village down]] when he found their CannibalLarder. [[spoiler:Doma actually ''did'' know where the meat came from, but killed the villagers because he assumed they'd resort to regular cannibalism. [[MoralMyopia This despite working for Behemdorg.]]]]

[[folder:Film - Live Action]]
* ''Film/{{Antiviral}}'' takes place in a world where celebrity worship is such that fans are willing to shell out serious cash to eat the cloned tissue of big stars from licensed, mainstream "meat markets." The company "Astral Bodies" is one such provider, selling items like sausages, bacon bits, and "1st Grade Stem Cell Meat" taken from movie star Hanna Geist.

* In one good ending of the book "Dimension of Doom" of the ''Literature/StarChallenge'' series, a {{cyborg}} in the alternate universe asks for food to feed the dinosaurs present on his planet (long history). Since they're carnivorous he asks for a sample of human genetic code to produce artificial meat for them, which gets slapping your character in the face.

* In one ScienceFiction story by Creator/ArthurCClarke, "The Food of the Gods", people stopped killing animals for meat long ago and instead grew it in vats. Indeed, the idea of eating the flesh of dead animals is enough to turn people's stomachs. Then one company hit upon the idea of cloning and growing meat cloned from humans, which proved a wild success. However, their competitors insinuated there was something wrong with the food, and when the Senate [[HauledBeforeASenateSubcommittee decided to investigate]], they were only too happy to explain the problem:

* Two examples by Creator/CharlesStross:
** ''Literature/Rule34'' mentions the Morningside Cannibals, a club of middle-class people who held dinner parties where they served meat cultured from each other. The police wanted to charge them but couldn't find a law they had broken. Then the press got hold of the story.
** ''{{Literature/Accelerando}}'' includes a description of a party where "long pork" was served. It isn't explicitly stated that this was artificial meat, but the setting would imply it.
* In ''{{Literature/Strata}}'' the Shand are ritual cannibals. At one point Silver goes insane from hunger and is fed meat cultured from her own cells because there is no other meat with a compatible biology to use as a pattern.
* [[Creator/IainBanks Iain M. Banks]]'s ''Literature/TheCulture'' does this in ''State of the Art''. While a Contact ship visits Earth, one of the crew arranges a feast including the power figures of 1977:

* In ''Literature/TheCaseOfTheToxicSpellDump'', artificial human tissue is used as a substitute in modern Aztec HumanSacrifice. [[spoiler:Some people still use real humans.]]
* In ''Literature/ProjectHailMary'', [[spoiler:at the end of the novel Ryland Grace ends up subsisting on what he calls "me-burgers" -- meat made from his own cloned muscle tissue. He acknowledges the {{Squick}} factor, but given that he's living on a planet unsuited to humans or their nutritional needs, it's not like he has many other options.]]
* ''Literature/DanShambleZombiePI'': "Tastes-just-like-human" meat products (mostly derived from chicken or pork) become a vital commodity to ensure peaceful human/Unnatural relations in the wake of the Big Easy.

[[folder:Mythology]]
* In Catholic theology the bread and wine served in the Eucharist are miraculously changed into the body and blood of Christ, although they still appear to be just bread and wine.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Shadowrun}}''. In the ''Shadowrun'' universe, people infected by a certain magical virus turn into ghouls, who must eat metahuman flesh in order to survive. One of the bequests in the will of the dragon Dunkelzahn was to give 2 million nuyen to anyone who developed artificial metahuman flesh that could satisfy a ghoul's hunger.

[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-604 SCP-604]], "The Cannibal's Banquet", is a magical rather than technological version of this trope. It is a dinner set which converts any food or drink placed on it into human flesh and blood, usually that of infants. Before the Foundation got hold of it, it was owned by the evil corporation known as Marshall, Carter and Dark Ltd., who used it to provide {{Exotic Entree}}s at some of their more exclusive business functions. The Foundation's interest in it seems to be no more than scientific curiosity, but they are considering using it to feed [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-352 SCP-352]], aka Literature/BabaYaga, as a "more efficient" alternative to her [[EatsBabies usual diet]].
[[/folder]]

* On one page of ''Webcomic/BloodyUrban'' Shaz finds a pack of hot dogs made from cloned celebrity meat and uses their YouAreWhoYouEat powers to transform into Creator/SamuelLJackson.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3800/fc03791.htm 3791]] has an instant food vending machine serving [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoprotein mycoprotein]] in "Mythical Meat" flavours, with options including Phoenix and Yeti. A notice at the bottom adds "Long pig no longer being served". Diners also notice that Kraken smells a lot like sqid, Sam Starfall's species, and muse that they should discontinue the flavour before opening diplomatic relations.
* ''Webcomic/{{Unsounded}}'': The Silver Eel grows fruit shaped things for Cutter to eat by replicating the meat of its victims.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': At the end of the episode "Her Parents," Lady Rainicorn's parents introduce Finn and Jake to the delicacy "soy people." Humans have seemingly been extinct for centuries in Ooo, so Rainicorns can't actually taste the real thing, but the soy version apparently has an identical taste. Finn hesitantly takes a bite...and [[ITasteDelicious ends up enjoying the taste]].

* [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hufu Hufu]] was a short-lived tofu product parodically marketed as "the healthy human flesh alternative" for "cannibals who want to quit."

[[/Folder]]

* ''Manga/FirePunch'' often features human meat that is technically natural, but came from people [[HealingFactor who can quickly regenerate what is taken from them]]--willingly or not. Luna and Agni fed their whole village with severed limbs, while Behemdorg extracted a kind of starchy liquid from people strapped to medical beds. Doma [[DoomedHometown burned Agni's village down]]] when he found their CannibalLarder. [[spoiler:Doma actually ''did'' know where the meat came from, but killed the villagers because he assumed they'd resort to regular cannibalism. [[MoralMyopia This despite working for Behemdorg.]]]]

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-604 SCP-604]], "The Cannibal's Banquet", is a magical rather than technological version of this trope. It is a dinner set which converts any food or drink placed on it into human flesh and blood, usually that of infants. Before the Foundation got hold of it, it was owned by the evil corporation known as Marshall, Carter and Dark Ltd., who used it to provide {{Exotic Entree}}s at some of their more exclusive business functions. The Foundation's interest in it seems to be no more than scientific curiosity, but they are considering using it to feed [[http://www.scpwiki.com/scp-352 SCP-352]], aka Literature/BabaYaga, as a "more efficient" alternative to her [[EatsBabies usual diet]].

* In ''{{Literature/Strata}}'' the Shand are ritual cannibals. At one point Silver is fed meat cultured from her own cells because there is nothing else with a compatible biology to use as a pattern.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3800/fc03791.htm 3791]] has an instant food vending machine serving [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoprotein mycoprotein]] in "Mythical Meat" flavours, with options including Phoenix and Yeti. A notice at the bottom adds "Long pig no longer being served". Diners also notice that Kraken reminds them strongly of sqid, Sam Starfall's species, and muses that they should discontinue the flavour before opening diplomatic relations.

* ''Webcomic/{{Freefall}}'' [[http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff3800/fc03791.htm 3791]] has an instant food vending machine serving [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mycoprotein mycoprotein]] in "Mythical Meat" flavours, with options including Phoenix and Yeti. A notice at the bottom adds "Long pig no longer being served".