Trip Asking for Prime Rib

Will people hundreds of years from now consider this request repulsive?

Will factory farming still exist?

 

Enterprise is only set 150 years in the future. By Kirk's time, they're still eating things like meatloaf, but sometimes make it look like something else, like turkey. By Picard's time, they're eating burned replicated bird meat. And other cultures would still eat meat. An average Federation citizen might try something considered exotic ethnic food once in a while. And Miles O'Brien's grandmother (or somebody) cooked with raw meat.

 

That is a superbly canonical post.

Thank you.

 

After absorbing about 50 years of Star Trek, you'll find that kind of stuff sort of burns into the brain.

 

Though it's kind of funny T'Pol called Archer and Trip barbaric carnivores or something to that effect.... last I checked humans are omnivores... those that aren't, it's by choice. You'd think T'Pol would know that... or she was just baiting them because she didn't want to be there.

 

I don 't think that being an omnivore is any kind of an issue when you have replicator technology.

So, back to factory farming...

 

We're on the verge of lab grown meat now as it is.

 

Actual meat that was never connected to an animal grown in a lab?

From what?

 

It's been shown that some people can tell the difference between real food and replicated. And others, like Picard's brother, refused to allow replicators in their homes. So replicators are not a cure-all for everything...

I'm sure the farming process can be refined so that it's more humane to the animals.

 

This is presuming that the "protein resequencer" technology at the time wasn't able to make a chunk of raw meat that could pass as prime rib, once suitably prepared by the mysterious Chef. It was able to make chicken and meatloaf after all, per Memory Alpha. Regardless, for the size of the ship it would certainly have enough space aboard to freeze several head's worth of cattle, or enough to feed her crew of 87 with beef dishes for at least the first year of the voyage; "Desert Crossing" in which Trip references the meal is some ten months since they left Earth.

Anyway, as to whether or not humanity has gone vegan - I would hardly think so. I've always assumed that replicators and their equivalents were a luxury aboard starships that would save everyone the hassle of carrying all sorts of foodstuffs around with them, and the facilities to prepare them. On Earth in the 22nd century, the population's diet would consist largely of local sustainable meats and agricultural products, helped along by various alien technologies (as suggested in "Broken Bow"). By TNG, Keiko's surprise in "The Wounded" that Miles' family prepared and ate raw meats suggests that by then few people prepared meats at all, and would at best head to the supermarket for some prepackaged raw stuff. Humanity has always enjoyed the preparation of food and I hardly think we'd move wholesale to a TV dinner society if we could help it. Ask the Siskos.

Mind you, twenty years ago as a starving student I might have liked nothing more than a Chef Boyardee can of ravioil... But these days though I'm much happier making my own rice and slicing up a steak or pork chop or even stir frying some noodles to go along with that and my salad.

Mark

 

Just as we have people who grow their own food and raise their own animals today to be self-sufficient, the 24th century is sure to have a few anti-technology types, living like their primitive ancestors of 2013.

 

It's only an issue because T'Pol decided her values have to be better than everyone else's and drew the conclusion that anyone who didn't embrace them are barbaric be default.

Heck fast forward to the 24th century. O'brien, Sisko and Eddington all declared on numerous occasions that real food tastes better than replicated stuff. Couple that with the fact that food preparation has been a hobby for many throughout humanity and still is in the 24th if you look at Sisko and his dad, then I don't see why there wouldn't be livestock and farms still. That "raw meat" Keiko so surprisingly gasped over and all Joe Sisko's shrimp had to come from somewhere after all.

 

And just to be clear, this is the same T'Pol who said that time travel was impossible, and later became a drug addict?

Joseph Sisko served real shell fish in his restuarant in the 24th century.

 

Right now, cow stem cells stimulated to reproduce. The cost is fantastically prohibitive as it is, but then, that's the way a project like this starts. As far as I'm aware there haven't yet been obvious technological objections to growing more in-vitro meat.

Stipulating that this becomes a practical method of producing meat fit for general consumption, then, those who are vegetarian (or vegan) for primarily moral reasons connected to not wanting to unnecessarily harm animals might choose to eat this: after all, no animal is immediately harmed by its production.

They might not, however, since developing the technology did demand the killing of animals along the way (if nothing else so people would know that the final product looked and tasted and felt like animal-bred meat), and they might wish to avoid being the beneficiaries of harm for a benefit they regard as trivial.

And those who are vegetarian for other reasons might well find the difference unimportant.

 

Wouldn't that defeat the philosophy of being a "vegetarian?" Not consuming flesh.

 

Gosh, I sure hope so! What will my clone eat in the future?

 

It's awful but if we end up with totally lab grown flesh I will have to in good conscience abstain from eating real animals who suffered and died for my plate and only eat that. I'll be pretty pissed off at science forcing my ethical subroutines to kick in though.

 

It always boggled me how animals can get labelled with the word "humane" regarding their treatment, given the first give letters of that word. Furthermore how I can get more jailtime for kicking my neighbor's dog than I could his daughter with our justice system these days.

I suppose some will think this is cruel of me but I don't think an animal's life is on par with a human one. That doesn't mean I approve of violence towards animals but I don't get how people think it's worse than violence against other humans.

As for the whole process of synthetic meat.... I dunno, kinda grosses me out to be honest. It'll be years before a guy like me can try it though, so we'll see then. If that can provide an equal substitute then well... that would make everyone happy I suppose.

 

I think you might find that a relatively high fraction of the people who eat vegetarian (or are trying to) are also generally reluctant to eat human flesh.

 

It's not about the species we are dealing with, rather it's about believing that what makes us human is that we strive to treat all life forms with care and respect.

I AM SO FUCKING STAR TREK