Would you be willing to eat lab-grown meat?

• Pinguino
• Panda burgers could be in our future.

The idea of building meat in a lab was a long running joke on at least one sitcom — Better Off Ted — but like all humor, this one seems to have been grounded in a bit of truth. The Guardian has an eye-opening piece on just how close humankind is to achieving a lab-grown hamburger. It turns out that one likely will be ready in the Netherlands this October, and it comes with a hefty price tag of more than $315,700 for its development. Animal stem cells are used as the building blocks for the meat, which might also help you realize your dream of eating a panda burger. What, that’s not your dream?

Let’s say for argument’s sake that the meat is safe, capable of being produced for widespread distribution, allowed into the country, and, like flat-screen televisions, the costs come down in a hurry. Are you taking a bite of a test tube burger?