The future of sausage is upon us

Via Paul Krugman, it seems as though lab-grown meat is one step closer to becoming a reality:

SCIENTISTS have grown meat in the laboratory for the first time. Experts in Holland used cells from a live pig to replicate growth in a petri dish.

...

So far the scientists have not tasted it, but they believe the breakthrough could lead to sausages and other processed products being made from laboratory meat in as little as five years’ time.

I'm a huge proponent of lab-grown meat. Most people's initial reaction is one of disgust, but when you think about it meat grown in a petri dish can't possibly be more revolting than present day factory farm conditions. Moreover, you get the ethical bonus that there is no cruel treatment of animals (in fact, on this last point, I've often wondered why we don't try to genetically modify livestock to have essentially no brains, so as to alleviate animal suffering...this may seem horrifying at first, but how could it be more horrifying than torturing sentient creatures?).

But probably the biggest bonus is ecological: livestock, especially cattle, have a huge impact on the environment and on the climate change situation. Many people assume that when you talk about the carbon footprint of cows, you're mostly talking about cow farts, but that's only a part of the problem. First of all, most of the methane that cows are emitting come from burps, not farts. Second, though, a lot of the impact from cattle comes from the fact that feeding people cattle is a very inefficient way to use arable land, because you are using a whole bunch of arable land to grow crops to feed to cows instead of people. Or, if you're not giving feed to the cattle, you're burning down huge swaths of rainforest to create land that they can graze on--and, of course, the elimination of trees causes there to be more carbon in the atmosphere.

Anyway, it seems to me that a big win in the fight against climate change might be this ability to produce meat in an ecologically sustainable way--especially considering that beef is catching on in the developing world (in places like China).

(PS: I think envisioning things like sausage and gelatin and--I don't know, broth--rather than, say, a drumstick make the whole lab-meat idea far more palatable.)