"Meat"??

Hello foodies,

Short post today...  long day at work.

I am an enthusiastic and devoted lover of meat in most of its forms (for all that I have written almost entirely of fish, protein-wise).  In summer, when the veggie selection is diverse and of very high quality, I tend to focus more on what I can do with them rather than rhapsodizing about what I am inspired to do with meat.  But today, when I read an article about a recent taste test, I had to speak about real meat.

A co-founder of google funded a project to grow meat in a lab.  And Monday, in the Netherlands, the product of that research was officially tasted by humans.  Apparently the reviews weren't bad, but the concensus was it wasn't quite beef, although it was grown from muscle fibres from organically raised cows.  Some colouring was required to simulate the look of beef.  The picture of the uncooked patty in a petrie dish was that it wasn't quite right, but it was close.  It had a thready look - not from the grind, as ground beef usually would, but presumably from the process.

My first reaction:  ewwww.  My second...  Also ewwww.  Then when I got over the weirds, I had several, more cogent, thoughts.

1. This reminded me of an early episode of the glorious TV series Better Off Ted, when Lem and Phil, the science geniuses, grew meat in the lab.  Did Sergey Brin get his idea from this show?  The project was initiated after the show aired, I believe.
2. Wouldn't lab grown meat be lacking in diversity, flavour and texture?  Meat near to, or cooked on, the bone tastes different than meat from further away from the bone.  Working muscles have a coarser texture, but often better flavour than the more tender cuts.  The fat marbling the marks a good cut of virtually any meat is absent.  Doesn't that mean that most of the flavour is also absent? 
3. As an avid reader of dystopian fiction, a hallmark of many of these futuristic worlds is a lab grown meat replacement.  Of uniform taste(lessness) and texture, it is never presented as a good thing.
4. How does this fit into a world where there is growing opposition to genetically modified crops?  Is lab grown meat more acceptable to the anti-GM vegetable crusaders?  In my experience, there is some overlap in this population.
5. I can't see demand for this every being large enough to warrant the refinement necessary to go into mass production.  True meat lovers aren't going to go there, because we know how meat gets it magnificent flavour, and a lab won't be able to replicate it.  True vegetarians also aren't going to go there because, lab grown or not, it is still meant - an animal product, however adulterated and sanitized.
6. Finally, maybe this is shark week talking, but what is wrong with being an apex predator?