Finally, Someone Asked Americans if We Actually Want Lab-Grown Meat

The world's first lab-grown burger was introduced in 2013, but fake meat still has yet to take off, even though it's arguably better for the environment, animal welfare, and human health, since there's no breeding, raising, or slaughtering involved. One of the biggest problems is that lab-grown meat (aka in-vitro meat, or IVM) is expensive to make: Last year, a company called Memphis Meats introduced lab-grown meatballs made from cow cells; they cost $1,000 a pop. Memphis Meats is now a few years away from selling lab-grown chicken fingers and other poultry products, too, but any company in this field needs lots of people to buy their petri-dish meat in order to be able to sell it at a competitive price.

Now, Ars Technica reports that a pair of researchers looked into Americans' willingness to eat lab-grown meat. The researchers, who are based in Australia but whatever, surveyed 673 Americans, roughly half male, half female, on their attitudes about meat. None of them had eaten IVM before but 65 percent said they would probably or definitely be willing to try it and 33 percent said they'd eat it regularly. They published their findings in PLoS One.

Men were slightly more likely than women to say they'd try it, as were people who said they were liberal versus conservative. Vegans and vegetarians were more likely to agree that IVM is ethical and better for the environment, but were less willing to eat it compared to carnivores (if it ain't broke…). A few dozen people who would never eat farmed horse, dog, or cat meat said they'd be willing to try IVM versions of those.

Overall, though, 79 percent were worried that IVM would lack flavor and aesthetic appeal and 20 percent were concerned about price; only 16 percent of the respondents would pay more for it than farmed meat.

An interesting experiment would be to conduct the survey using IVM's more marketing-friendly name, "clean meat"—bet that would turn out differently.

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