It's a staple of science fiction: at some point we humans stop being barbaric* and cease eating animal flesh. Yet we still manage to chow down on burgers, chops, and chicken.

How?

By growing the meat in a lab. Vat grown meat with the look, texture and most important of all** taste of real meat has been the dream since the days of England's most quoted Prime Minister- and we don't mean Tony Blair:

In 1932, Winston Churchill, appalled by the leftover bones and gristle crowding his dinner plate, predicted that in 50 years "we shall escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium." It's taken longer than that, but at the dawn of the 21st century we're finally closing in on tasty and eerily healthy meat grown by scientists instead of Old MacDonald.

Jason Gelt of the LA Times blog "This is Brand X" has the whole story on the movement behind in vitro meat.

*Author's note: I'm no vegan crusader, today's lunch was a Subway sandwhich and something tells me there's an In-N-Out run in my immediate future.
** Okay, the nutritional value is what's really important, but if that rack of Sci-Fi ribs doesn't taste right I'm sending them back!