In an earlier post, we took a quick look at the amount of food wasted around the world each year. On the heels of this news, there’s been a new food-related issue gaining attention in the media. Brace yourself, because it might sound crazy: What if we grew meat in labs?

I know, I know: It sounds like science fiction, and you may have already heard of this idea. We’ve been talking about the concept since 2009, and the first patent for lab-grown meat dates back to 1999. It’s been gaining acceptance — and feasibility — since then. Recently, science writer Michael Specter visited laboratories in North Carolina and Netherlands to get a first-hand look at the process.

Lab-grown meat has several potential benefits. For starters, our test-tube chicken breasts and sirloin could put an end to the current practices of the meat industry, often derisively called ‘factory farming.’ (Check out Josh’s post on factory farming for more information.) Society would no longer have a need to continue force-feeding pigs, chickens and cows in cramped conditions — for that matter, we might not need to have a livestock industry at all. This possibility is exciting to animal rights activists, and it’s reasonable to assume that most consumers would be fine with the change. After all, it’s not as if being cruel to animals makes them taste better.

Second, there are tangible benefits to reducing the amount of animals raised for human consumption. The UN found that almost one-fifth of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions come from raising livestock.

Yet lab-grown meat needs a lot of work before you’ll find cloneburgers at your local grocery store. Scientists aren’t sure how to mass-produce this sort of meat, and it’s currently far too expensive to replace traditional meat products.

Still, humanity is on schedule to add another 2 billion people to the planet by 2050 (taking us to a grand total of 9 billion), and we have to figure something out sooner rather than later.

So what do you think about lab-grown meat? Could it become a viable product in grocery stores of the future? Could it possibly replace today’s more conventional meat products? While I could see lab-grown meat becoming a real product in the future, I have a hard time believing it could completely replace the current meat industry — but I would love to be wrong.