Is in-vitro meat kosher?

by Reb Yudel

ylove passed on a link to a fascinating article about the future of in-vitro meat, that is, meat grown in a test-tube:

It starts with cells--it could be a stem cell or something called a myoblast, a precursor to muscle. You proliferate these cells in a kind of nutritious soup that's filled with vitamins and amino acids and salts and sugar. This is the biochemical equivalent of blood. In order for the cells to grow into tissues, they need this medium. And, it turns out, the most promising approach to producing this medium is to use microalgae, which are photosynthetic organisms even more efficient than plants. We recently funded some research at Oxford University to examine how meat cultured with this medium compares to conventional meat in terms of energy impact, and the study showed that it uses 90 percent less land and water, all while producing 80 percent fewer greenhouse emissions.

Development is being spearheaded by a non-profit whose goal is reducing the resource footprint of the world's appetite for meat.

Growing hamburgers in vats solves some halachic problems: No tzaar baalei hayim, cruelty to animals, as in endemic in contemporary factory farming. No need to hire rabbis to oversee the slaughter.

But it raises other questions.

Does meat cloned from a cow's stem cell count as ever min hachai -- meat (ultimately) from a live animal, which is prohibited to be eaten? Can a tissue culture be said to chew its cud if it has no cud, or to have cloven hoofs if it has no hooves? Could it conceivable be parve and permitted to be served with milk?

Ten years from now, McDonald's may boast that its serves low-carbon, cruelty-free in vitro burgers. As Jews, should we eat them?

Last Thoughts on Bobbie Zimmerman on the occasion of his forthcoming Christmas album

by Reb Yudel

Where do you go with these words that have been herded
Where do you go with these rumors been twittered
The Bob Dylan has gone
and recorded an album
of songs singing of Christmas
and gone and delivered the album to Sony
with royalties all pledged
to high-minded charities
with full tax deductions
to help the hungry to feed the suffering
at home in America and across the Atlantic
an album of Christmas
of songs most religious
from he whose origins
once hidden and furtive
were revealed and proclaimed
in Time Magazine
when youngish invention
had claimed he was orphaned
so shocking it was
to read Dylan was Zimmerman
and then went to Israel
and asked of kibbutz life
who then went and found Jesus
with evangelical fervor
then quietly was rumored
to be with a long island yeshiva
and went on to sing for
a telethon of Chabad
and went on to blurb Manis Friedman
and take a frum son-in-law for his daughter
to attend most regularly
yom kippur services
and now Bob Dylan
has recorded a Christmas album
as if to declare
my love is of the music
and for the land
and I've seen the yeshiva where my grandchildren go to school
and I just can't buy that crap.
Merry Christmas, Jewboys.

Help us publish The Comic Torah

by Reb Yudel

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