Fake Meat?

A reader notes: There was a movie called “Soylent Green” in the 1970s where the food was made out of people.  I won’t be eating any of that fake meat.

First of all, I wouldn’t call it “fake.” Plant-based meat is made from the protein called heme, which is what makes beef taste like beef.  Heme is a substance precursive to hemoglobin, which is necessary to bind oxygen in the bloodstream, and it’s biosynthesized in both the bone marrow and the liver. Fortunately, it’s also found in plants, and so it could be argued that it’s immaterial in what life form’s body the protein was synthesized.  

Second, I wouldn’t be too sure, depending on your life expectancy.  Considering the trajectory of the science behind plant-based meat, as well as meat that is grown from the DNA of a living cow, it’s very likely that young people today will be consuming an awful lot of meat that doesn’t come from slaughtered cows before they leave this Earth.