Up Front 05/04

Although I can’t say I salivate at the prospect of a trip to the bottle bank, I have occasionally returned with renewed enthusiasm for the world around me. On my last visit I couldn’t ignore a conversation between a local environmental campaigner and a woman with a strong Glaswegian accent. They had somehow got into a discussion on vegetarianism. Our Northern friend was highlighting the thread of an article she had read that argued for the future demise of moralistic vegetarianism. According to her, in the future, scientists will be able to grow prime cuts of meat without the need to create life. Therefore anyone who avoids eating meat purely through concern over the taking of a life would be able to sit down to steak, chips and three veg like all the other human carnivores. She went on to suggest that if we can grow any type of meat why not grow human meat for consumption? At this, our generally mild mannered environmental friend nearly blew a fuse and the conversation raced to levels of outrage and fury in seconds. They stopped short of trading insults but both certainly held forth with convincing arguments. All this was set to a background of bottles smashing and brief snatches of pounding rap music from passing car stereos. I left them to it but as I pondered the moral sensibilities of our future food chain I couldn’t help wishing I’d had a couple more empty wine bottles to recycle, I might have heard the outcome of the argument.