Where's the beef with artificial meat?

It was Winston Churchill, no less, who first predicted this far-off future in which we will no longer eat animals. Writing in the Strand Magazine in 1931, the future Prime Minister said man would eventually realise the absurdity and inefficiency of breeding a whole chicken to eat only bits of it and would grow these parts separately instead. He predicted this would happen by the 1990s but sadly, as we know, it didn't. The good news, though, is we're about to take a step closer to Churchill's future.

It will happen on Monday, in London, when the world's first artificial meat is cooked and eaten in front of an invited audience. Scientists at the University of Maastricht have been working on the project for some time and now believe they've cracked it. The process works by removing stem cells from a cow then letting the cells grow and divide in the lab, encouraged by a mix of glucose and amino acids. Once ready, the artificial meat is minced into a burger.

The potential of the breakthrough is exciting for anyone who cares about animal welfare, although it may have to overcome resistance from meat eaters of all people. Some carnivores I spoke to about the idea thought it was the way forward and potentially a humane way for them to enjoy meat but most meat-eaters told me they were disgusted by the thought of artificial flesh. But is meat grown in a petri dish really more disgusting than animals being killed and skinned – more disgusting than viscera on the floor of an abattoir?

There are obstacles to be overcome for vegetarians too. Few people know yet what the artificial burger tastes like, but on the face of it, veggies could eat artificial flesh because it does not have a nervous system, cannot feel pain and therefore overcomes the principal objection most of us have to meat. On the other hand, Professor Mike Post, a member of the team at Maastricht, has suggested thaat even if artificial meat works, a small number of animals would still need to be killed to harvest the cells, which would cross a line for most veggies. If the cells could be harvested without harming the donor, we would then have the fascinating idea of meat that contradicts itself: meat that is morally good.

Even if this could not be achieved, the idea of artificial meat should be pursued because it has the potential to prevent the suffering and slaughter of millions of animals. Meat eaters will say that farmers would be forced to kill their animals and isn't it better for animals to exist as food than not exist at all? This misses two points. First, artificial meat would not replace real meat overnight, giving time for a phased introduction, and second, it is better to have a small population of animals treated well than a huge one treated badly.

Finally, we should not be afraid of the artificiality of synthetic meat – indeed, we should embrace it. For a start, what could be more artificial than what we're doing already by making processed food in factories and transferring it to plastic packaging?

More importantly, artificial does not mean bad. For example, so-called vertical farms – tall buildings used to grow food in controlled conditions – have already been pioneered in Japan. The yield in these buildings is much greater than a traditional farm and the environmental damage is much reduced.

The same could apply to the idea of artificial meat. Most obviously, we would no longer need vast farms to feed and slaughter animals which, apart from being morally questionable, is environmentally damaging. Without these farms, agricultural land could be returned to nature. We could shut abattoirs for good and open labs instead. We could embrace a future that's artificial, brightly-lit and clinical, but free at last of killing animals for food.