Professor Victor Kumar co-authors Boston Globe Article
Professor Victor Kumar, along with his co-author Josh May, had an article published in the Boston Globe entitled, “The thing that could finally get us to eat less meat is — meat.” The article, appearing in the Perspectives section of the Globe’s Magazine, explains how new developments in cruelty-free and alternative meat production may finally pave the way for our society to reconcile itself with the moral and environmental downsides to our current factory farming system. Writes Kumar and Campbell:
“Unlike commonly available meat substitutes like Beyond Burger, cultivated meat is made of … well, meat. It has the exact same molecules and the exact same taste as the burger you know and love (or it will, once perfected). But instead of being harvested from a living, breathing animal — one that can feel pleasure and pain, cares for its young, and is likely more intelligent than your toddler — it’s designed in a lab and cultured in vats. The process doesn’t require killing animals or keeping them in captivity. Cells are taken from a pasture-raised animal, then grown in a nutrient-rich medium.
Cultivated meat, in other words, may allow us to consume what we crave without the moral costs.
As professors of moral philosophy, we celebrate these developments — and we think everyone who cares about animal welfare, the environment, or public health should, too. We believe most people grasp on some level that eating meat from factory farms — where the vast majority of it comes from — is wrong. But meat is a delicious, nutrient-dense food, central to many cherished cultural traditions. So we rationalize away or ignore our qualms.“
Click here to read the Boston Globe article.
Congratulations, Professor!