The main reasons I’ve seen from vegans for not eating meat seem to be all about the morality of eating a sentient animal, the practices of the modern meat industry, and the environmental impact of it. And don’t have anything to do with the taste of meat.
Since lab-grown meat doesn’t cause animal suffering, and assuming mass production is environmentally friendly, would you consider going back to eating meat if it were the lab-grown kind?
Extracting the stem cells may or may not cause harm to animals. If it is extracted from a live animal then it would cause harm and stress to an animal.
The medium used for growing may not be vegan (like FSB which is extracted from an animals death). But reportedly companies are moving to cheaper, plant-based, mediums.
Even if the process caused no harm or stress to animals, I’m not sure i would eat lab grown meat. I’ve already completely replaced meat in my cooking, and learned how to make much more nutrious meals. Adding meat back in would be regressive. Not to mention i feel like lab grown meat in particular will have been made possible through animal suffering research. While I’m glad it will have potential to be a net positive in the long run, i personally don’t feel the desire to support lab grown meat
I feel like there’s a limit to this. How much time has to pass before it’s ethical again? After all, many animals were harmed in the research (selective breeding) of modern vegetables too. It’s a process that took hundreds to thousands of years and a ton of livestock used as farm equipment to create something like the modern carrot.
Poking with a modern needle or using a single cattle by comparison is a lot less sacrificial research by comparison, only it’s more recent.
Of course this could apply to a lot of other things and i realize it isn’t particularly rational. Though on the note of modern needle vs not, a single biopsy on a live animal is causing harm so that’s not a good comparison since that is not vegan by any standard.
But i mention the past suffering here because that is what i would be reminded of eating lab grown meat, rational or not. In general i think if the current process is vegan then it is fine (so using a biopsy on a recently, naturally, deceased animal or from an umbilical cord).