Six on Food: Cultured meat seems gross?; circa 1916. "Opossums hanging up outside shop."; How to Become TripAdvisor’s #1 Fak
panaritisp
"The world is in the grips of a food-tech revolution. One of the most compelling new developments is cultured meat, also known as clean, cell-based or slaughter-free meat. It’s grown from stem cells taken from a live animal without the need for slaughter.
Proponents hail cultured meat as the long-awaited solution to the factory farming problem. If commercialized successfully, it could solve many of the environmental, animal welfare and public health issues of animal agriculture while giving consumers exactly what they’re used to eating.
Despite this, the public is uncertain about cultured meat. Scientists and high-profile supporters, including investors like Bill Gates and Richard Branson, are pushing for broader adoption, but it’s difficult to sell the public on new food technology – case in point, genetically modified food."
Cultured meat seems gross? It's much better than animal agriculture
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"Baldwin's hunting was recreational, but the neighbor, George W. Bryant, who had scolded him earlier, was like Hosmer in the business of marketing pigeons, and Baldwin was evidently intrigued. He was so interested in this enterprise that he gathered some information about Hosmer and pigeons and then wrote one of his own extended reflections that appear from time to time in his chronicle.
Asa Hosmer, Jr., is a hunter by profession. He does nothing but hunt, and has made it his whole business for above ten years, and what is remarkable, he gets a good living by it. He told me that last year he caught over eight hundred dozens of pigeons in Templeton, and that this was not one-half the number taken in the town. Mr. Joseph Robbins and a person by the name of Parks, in Winchendon, caught thirteen hundred dozens; and a Mr. Harris of that town about seven hundred doz. more. They have taken nearly the same number for several years past. They find a market for them in Boston, Worcester, Providence & their vicinity. They [pigeons] sell from one dollar and fifty cents to two dollars per dozen, and the feathers sell for enough more to pay all expenses.
Pigeons—like some other breeds of birds—were easy to hunt, indeed, so easy that the hunt couldn't be sustainable. "Innumerable thousands of pigeons have been seen during the fore part of this month of this year in various parts of New England," Baldwin continued. This was the scary part: it was frightening to see the sky blackened by a mile-long flight of birds, "an appearance which, with our ancestors, would have created the most alarming apprehensions."
It is said that their flight portends bloody war. I can well remember that in the spring of 1811 a flock passed over Templeton that was many hours in sight, and so large as to cover the whole horizon. They first appeared about half an hour before sunrise and continued until after ten o'clock. They were going to the north-east. All the old people said it was a sign of war; and, whether the pigeons had anything to do with the affairs of men or not, I cannot tell, but this is nevertheless true, that the United States did declare war against England within fourteen months from that time."
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Despite his own elite background, Trump has something of a masterful ability to appeal to white working class tastes, and to mobilize that group in opposition to political progressives who might actually work to improve their lives and livelihoods. Working class foods like burgers are part of the habitus through which these sort of Trump voters define themselves. To those who love fast food, serving it to football players might read like an embrace of their ways of being over the so-called cultural elites who (they believe) look down on them. Mocking Trump for this lends credence to this belief.
There is no shortage of reasons to object to fast food— land use and environmental degradation, worker exploitation, low pay, and the concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands—and, of course, there are no shortage of reasons to object to Trump’s behavior. But when we mock fast food culture out of context, we ignore the fact that many people have cultural attachments to these foods, and through them, tell themselves stories about who they are and what they believe in. As sociologists, I hope we can hear and empathize with those stories, rather than dismiss them"
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