The basic commercial questions facing these products are (1) price; (2) taste and (3) texture/mouth feel. If they can compete with 99 cent burgers that will be great. If they are more expensive and “almost as good” then they will be a niche product for yuppie vegetarians.

For fun, take a look at Fred Pohl’s classic SF novel, “The Space Merchants,” which describes a blob of genetically engineered chicken white-meat protein that fills an entire warehouse and is fed by the injection of a nutrient solution. The trade name is “Chicken Little” and chunks of it are cut off in huge cubes, then carved down into retail-sized pieces.

Another take on the food of the future, this one being neither vegetable nor, in the pure sense, animal.

— David Grace