Meat planet Artificial flesh and the future of food

Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft

Book - 2019

"Meat Planet explores the quest to grow meat in laboratories--a substance sometimes called "cultured meat"--And asks what it means to imagine that this is the future of food. This book takes the reader on a tour of the laboratories, kitchens, public debates, and media events that may launch this novel food technology. While pundits and entrepreneurs promote cultured meat as a solution to the ethical and environmental problems of industrial meat, Meat Planet meditates on the philosophical, historical and anthropological meanings of future flesh"--Provided by publisher.

Saved in:

2nd Floor Show me where

338.176/Wurgaft
1 / 1 copies available
Location Call Number   Status
2nd Floor 338.176/Wurgaft Checked In
Subjects
Published
Oakland, California : University of California Press [2019]
Language
English
Main Author
Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft (author)
Physical Description
xiii, 242 pages ; 24 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN
9780520295537
  • Acknowledgments
  • 1. Cyberspace/Meatspace
  • 2. Meat
  • 3. Promise
  • 4. Fog
  • 5. Doubt
  • 6. Hope
  • 7. Tree
  • 8. Future
  • 9. Prometheus
  • 10. Memento
  • 11. Copy
  • 12. Philosophers
  • 13. Maastricht
  • 14. Kosher
  • 15. Whale
  • 16. Cannibals
  • 17. Gathering/Parting
  • 18. Epimetheus
  • Notes
  • Selected Bibliography
  • Index
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Historian Wurgaft (Thinking in Public: Strauss, Levinas, Arendt) expertly details the five years he spent, beginning in 2013, researching the emerging industry of producing meat from cultured tissues rather than from live animals. After observing the world's first laboratory-created hamburger, developed in 2013 by a Dutch scientist, he undertakes a worldwide investigation into the future of artificial meat. Wurgaft becomes "a kind of anthropological field worker," visiting and interviewing scientists and businesspeople in start-ups in New York, California, and Israel. Throughout, he uses cultured meat as a lens into how technology changes the world. Wurgaft describes how the various planned technologies will work ("a vision of cultured animal products being produced not through slaughter and butchery, but in sterile, sleek facilities that look a bit like breweries"), the roadblocks to its production, and ethical questions "about the implications cultured meat may hold for our moral regard for animals." Wurgaft's investigation into cellular-grown meat's various industrial and cultural issues should stand as an essential introduction to the subject. (Sept.)

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved