From Philip Belben, Nettlebridge, Somerset, UK
Helen Senior is right to say we need a new name for “lab-grown meat”, but I disagree that existing terms are “unscientific” or that “synthetic foodstuffs” would be a better term (Letters, 14 May). These foods are grown from animal cells cultured in a facility (currently a laboratory, but in future, probably a factory). They are therefore arguably “animal flesh”, but hardly “synthetic”.
New inventions often face this problem. When a new term is needed, either a new word is coined, like automobile or flashlight, or an existing word is co-opted, like car or torch. If confusion arises with other uses of the word, a qualifier is added: motor car, or electric torch. This is what is currently being done with “lab-grown meat” – and it is the accuracy of “lab-grown” that is questionable, not the word “meat”.
