I love animals and too keep chickens for eggs, but I don't think I could go without meat. Of course I'm pretty selective OF my meat and here in England I love that I can use a local place that humanely and kindly raises or hunts things, like I love game and grouse and quail and pheasant. I think if an animal has had a chance to live free, it's the best part of their life before coming to my plate.
And in many ways I think of us as animals as well and our closes friend, the dog, certainly has the 'hunter' sensibility. He'd eat his own kind if he felt the need, I suppose why dog and man have been such fast friends for so long.
I do HOPE we can get better rules about how we treat our food animals, though, because if it cost more then people would naturally eat less of it and we'd only need to kill fewer etc.
I'm not sure I want to eat anything that was made in a lab, myself. And quiet honestly, I believe soy is rather bad for you in excess. I have a vegetarian Niece who has to know be on medicine for thyroid and her doctors tell her it may have been caused by an excess of soy in her diet, as she turned vegetarian at age 12, and basically most of her food was soy based. So be careful with your soy intake :)
We have to find some sort of balance. There just isn't enough 'ethical' meat for the demand. Intensive farming is doing a lot of damage.
What is made is a lab now will be made in a factory tomorrow and I don't see it as much different to the heavily processed food many of us eat anyway. It is a good thing if it reduces animal cruelty and is more efficient.
Soya is just part of my diet.
It really is all so interesting and with the increase in population I am sure then just out of necessity diets shall have to change.
I greatly altered my diet about a year ago and now mainly eat veg with just protein in egg/milk/some meat form, but again I probably eat meat from what would have been one meal of my old diet spread out over the entire week now, so it is even better for my pocket book!
Carrying on as we have been in recent times is not an option. Humans have to adapt to growing populations in ways that give us a chance of survival. We only have this one planet to live on.