Would you like fries with that…?

Whether or not we should eat meat is, clearly, a serious question in the domain of practical or applied ethics. Aside from the obvious animal welfare issues, advocates of the vegetarian diet may also now be prone to argue that meat production is a hugely inefficient use of natural resources, and that in a world of burgeoning population growth, not to mention the potential shrinking of habitable land mass following from the byproducts climate change (rising sea-levels, increased desertification), a meat-based diet is environmentally unsustainable.

However, even accepting these arguments, a recent report in the Times suggests that we might, in the future, be able to tuck into a steak – or at least sausages – without being afflicted by the niggling pangs of conscience.