Would you eat lab meat? BigBarn’s view.

Here is our reply to the the Guardian’s Would you eat lab grown meat to save the environment? – poll
Hi-tech hamburgers are being pitched as a solution to growing demand for meat, but maybe money and time could be better invested elsewhere for food sustainability.

Ant at BigBarn wrote: I would rather eat meat from local sustainable mixed farms, and see the true cost of producing non sustainable meat, added to the price of the product. If lab meat was then much cheaper, and proved to be safe, I MIGHT buy it. But expect I would rather opt for a vege burger, as long as it does not contain GM soya.

So in answer to ‘where to spend money’? I would say: Work out the true cost of non sustainable farming and charge the farmer or the customer.

To expand on this a bit more. The food industry is not a level playing field. Governments have tried to support farmers with subsidies and kept restrictions on factory farming low to keep the cost of food low. Scares of not enough food for the world have meant more focus on commoditisation, science, production, and yield instead of long term sustainable farming methods and good tasty food.

Organic farming is a classic example. The cost of an organic food is nearly always more expensive than non organic, yet non organic food does not include the cost of removing pesticides from our water, or soil depletion, etc.

A mega dairy produces milk cheaper than a small organic dairy yet produces more Co2 with food miles and employs less people.

What is really interesting is that the price of the milk to customer is not be much greater for the local organic yet a much better product.

The trouble is governments have attributed the ‘Arab Spring’ to the sudden rise in cost of bread, due to the world grain price and are scared of adding cost to any food.

Unfortunately, this will distort the food market and restrict the growth of good, sustainable, farming.

So to find better food and help encourage sustainable production use the BigBarn local food map to find your local food and reduce food miles whilst boosting your local economy. You will probably find better cheaper food as the middle men and supply chain margins have been cut!