Question: Do you think one day you will acidentally make a hybrid meat?

Ruth Hamill answered on 9 Nov 2015:

It could be said that most meat is kind of a hybrid in that it is crossbred. Most of the meat we eat such as pork and beef comes from a breed cross e.g. Angus x Holstein Friesian. Also in tropical countries, people cross 2 very different subspecies of cattle – tropical adapted Bos indicus, with Eurasian Bos taurus, because the indicus are very well adapted to tropical heat, parasites etc, but the taurus are desirable in terms of growth, muscling and meat quality. However, genuinely hybrid meat from a cross between 2 different species is very much a niche market I think. Hybrids can sometimes be stronger and more robust than the parental species due to a phenomenon known as hybrid vigour but they can also be infertile. They can occur between closely related species, such as cattle and buffalo, yak and cattle, sheep and goat. I think it would be quite hard to create by accident though, unless a farmer has 2 species that are cross-compatible in adjacent fields – and a gap in the fence.