These Mammoth Meatballs Ain't So Big!

Vow Foods is an Australian company, specialising in culturing meats in the laboratory. Most companies, operating in this general area, use cells from beef, chicken and pork, when producing their products. This delivers meat with neither the need to occupy grazing land nor to slaughter. In contrast, Vow Foods have explored 'exotic' animal sources for their meats. They have looked at numerous fish species, crocodile, kangaroo, alpaca, buffalo, peacock and Japanese quail. Vow Foods have even produced a meatball from cells obtained from the extinct Woolly mammoth. The company claim their prime motivation is to move people away from killing animals to obtain tasty meats (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/28/meatball-mammoth-created-cultivated-meat-firm). Laboratory-production of mammoth meatballs has, of course, no animal welfare benefits. Extinct animals are, by definition, subjected to neither husbandry nor slaughter. Vow Foods' real unique selling point seems to be persuading rich folk to part with serious wads of cash, in order to experience exotic meats. Admitting you ate a 'simple' chicken dish, sounds so banal, when you could boast to your friends you feasted on mammoth! Animal welfare is clearly not the real point of thie exercise.