Have Your Steak and Eat it Too

In the podcast Making Sense, hosted by philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris, he talks to the visionary meat manufacturer Uma Valeti in an episode entitled “Meat without Misery.” Valeti is an accomplished cardiologist who has made it his goal to develop a way to culture artificial meat. In the podcast, Valeti and Harris discuss how lab meat is the best and only method to circumvent the moral scruple of eating organic meat. Valeti makes a persuasive case as to why lab-grown meat should replace meat from animals.
The first tactic Valeti uses to persuade the audience is an emotional appeal. As a way to illustrate the horror of conventional slaughter methods, he recalls a memory from his early childhood using extremely grotesque imagery. At the age of twelve, Valeti attended a birthday party in India with much of the food at the party including meat. As a curious child, he began wondering around the house where the party was held. Upon exiting the house and entering the backyard, he spotted piles of dead animal carcasses. Valeti recalled pools of sanguine blood polka-dotting the yard. Flies and an insufferable stench was storming the area. These were animals he knew and thought of as pets. Valeti confesses his innocence was shattered after this discovery; the idea that these animals weren’t simply friends but were actually a means to an end was a traumatic realization. This experience, which Valeti describes as “...a birthday and a death day,” was the catalyst for his belief that meat can be made in a better, more ethical way. Telling this story was a strategic move on Valeti’s part; it was moving and well placed in the interview. Valeti began his interview in medias res because this recollection was the first response he gave to Harris’ questions and, thus, making the story much more profound. Appealing to emotion to begin an argument captures the audience and makes them more attentive to the rest of the case. The morbid, vivid imagery Valeti uses when telling his story allows the listener to easily place themselves in the same scenario making them more empathetic while simultaneously disgusted by the slaughter of animals.

Another strategy Valeti uses to encourage believability is bolstering his credentials and trustworthiness. The host was the first to make an appeal to ethos; at the beginning of the podcast, Harris says, “Uma Velti is a successful nutritional scientist who has made it his goal to ensure the health and safety of animals and meat eaters across the world.” This not only paints Valeti as an authority on the science of food but also as a compassionate humanitarian. It is difficult to give an uncharitable reading to someone who is portrayed as wanting the best for all living creatures. Another way Valeti garners trustworthiness is by volunteering transparency. He describes his meat culturing process as detailed as possible and even admits the shortcomings of it. He confesses that lab-grown meat will likely be more expensive than organic meat and that it can “...rot, spoil, and expire.” Willingly explaining the negative sides of his endeavour makes him appear honest and proves he isn’t attempting to fool anyone. Valeti even goes as far as to offer public tours of his manufacturing facilities. At 26 minutes into the interview, Valeti says, “...when we are manufacturing and putting our product into the market, the public can visit all of our manufacturing plants… kids from school can see how [artificial meat] is being made because all of this will be transparent.” This is something many farmers would be terrified of offering especially those who own factory farms. These ethos arguments make Valeti seem very sincere and, therefore, persuasive.

As a way to further influence the audience, Valeti doesn’t explain why his scientific process is better but, rather, describes the downfalls of traditional farms and meat. He counters those who are concerned with lab-grown meat being unnatural by declaring, “...there is nothing natural about the conventional meat we are eating now. The chickens that we eat now grow six to seven times faster than what they would in a natural environment. The cows give ten times more milk than what they’d naturally give. The turkeys are so top heavy that they can’t even stand up to breed. There is nothing natural about that and it shows how genetically modified these animals have become.” This logos argument is designed to illustrate how there is nothing out of the ordinary with cultured meat because farm animals are already far from being natural. Valeti also adds, “...because these animals are raised in such confined conditions, lets say, in a barn that’s filled with feces… they have to pump these animals with antibiotics which leads to antibiotic resistance and superbugs. This also sets up the stage for really bad zoonotic diseases like the bird flu and swine flu.” This is a very serious health concern. The bird flu and swine flu are occasionally fatal but superbugs, on the other hand, have the potential of incurring a mass extinction event. This argument, however convincing, doesn’t explain how animals raised on better farms won’t be susceptible to the same contamination. What can be harmful about eating meat from a cow on an open range farm? Valeti answers this question: “...even if the animals are from the best pastures in the world, at the time of slaughter there is contamination of the meat from fecal material or from the guts. That’s a huge safety issue because most of the deaths from foodborne illness are related to the contamination of meat.” These points give the listener a logical reason not to eat organic meat; it is simply a health risk. Valeti effectively instills an intuition in the audience that there is a problem with how meat is currently collected and that there is a better way.

Along with showing how traditional meat production is unsavory, Valeti makes the case as to why cultured meat is a much more palatable alternative. Harris explains to Valeti that the biggest hurdle in his way is that people would find lab-grown meat to be “...just creepy.” In response, Valeti details what his meat is actually like: “When we look at [cultured meat] under a microscope and compare it to the cells of a slaughtered animal, they look identical… the cells in cultured meat contract when an electric current flows through them just like muscles in a living animal.” This reassures the listener that artificial meat will have the same exact atomic bonds, molecular structure, and cellular makeup as an organic piece of meat. Valeti goes further and states, “When we make, let’s say a block of meat and put it on a pan, they behave identical to how meat would sizzle, it would brown, it would smell as we do this, and the taste and texture is indistinguishable from a regular cut of meat.” After hearing these claims, the question seems to shift from why would one choose to eat cultured to why would one not choose to eat cultured meat. If a cultured steak would be indistinct, both at the microscopic and macroscopic scale, from steaks currently at the supermarket, what is the problem with eating them instead? Because Harris often discusses obscure philosophical concepts without explanation, his audience is likely educated in those subjects and, therefore, value logic and soundness. This cogent argument pins down those logically conscious listeners and gives them no choice but to regard the prospect of lab-grown meat as undeniable. Valeti later proclaims that, not only is lab-grown meat the same as organic meat, but it is far superior. He says, “...we are growing [the meat] in safe, clean environments using natural substances. For example, there are no antibiotics and there are no contaminants. In terms of making our meat safer and healthier, here is one big advantage: we can control how much fat we put in it as well as what types of fat. We can lower the amount of cholesterol or saturated fat but increase heart healthy fats and protein.” The decision seems clear with this information. With all that is wrong with conventional meat, switching to lab-grown meat appears to be nothing more than a no brainer. 

Uma Valeti and Sam Harris make convincing arguments as to why cultured meat is superior to organic meat. Harris describes the current state of meat production as “...on par with slavery and will ensure a health disaster.” Valeti uses his expertise and diverse rhetoric to make his case as persuasive as possible. Postmodernism has precipitated a growing need for inclusion and, with it, a moral consideration for animals. With the current socio-economic climate, the dilemma of carnivory demands an answer. After listening to the podcast, the audience has more than enough reason to believe cultured meat is the best and only way to eat meat without misery. 

Source:

Harris, Sam. “Making Sense with Sam Harris #28 - Meat Without Misery (with Uma Valeti).” YouTube, 15 Feb. 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=2edO6ova1Lk.