The Luxury and Horror of Meat
Protein is a necessity, and there are a variety of means of getting protein in a diet. The most common and cheapest way is vegetable protein, the sort found in legumes. But eating bean paste isn't haute cotoure. Peasants and the poverty stricken subsist on beans and rice, rice and beans. These things are cheap and easily grown. The middle class is not going to happily subsist on a vegetarian diet, they want meat. Eating meat has always been a sign of wealth and success. Good hunters were praised, good farmers were simply doing what was expected of them, and 12,000 years later little has changed.
Mycoprotein: Synthetic Meat
With enough sugar water, darkness and warmth, fungal spores can turn vast amounts of blank material into fungal masses. These masses can have a fibrous texture, and can pass as processed chicken or pork products. The fungus has to be heat treated, otherwise the high RNA present in it will very quickly cause gout. This fake meat already exists in the modern petroleum age and is a popular vegetarian replacement for chicken. Once breaded and fried, it can be seasoned and otherwise treated like chicken. In the cosmic era, the mycoproteins can be cultured and raised to represent the major meat groups: chicken, pork, lamb, beef, and fish. Flavorings and colorings complete the faux meat. As can be expected, this fake meat is on the bland side, fat free, and an excess intake can still lead to gout and other excess RNA diseases. That being said, mycomeats are the most common form of protein consumed.
Seacology Farming: Minced Fish
Making faux fish is generally only done in inland arco food production centers. Real fish can be grown in seacology fisheries, especially small bodies fast growing fish like smelt, herring, and anchovies. These fish are then minced and either reconstituted to make minced fish patties, high protein, and fatty acid fish pastes, or are dried as genuine meat snacks. Most seacologies are heavy fish consumers, as are coastal regions.
Meat in the Slums: Running Chicken, Long Pork
Meat is hard to come by in the slums, the borderline ruins that surround the outer fringes of the great arcoplexes. Meat and protein are gained in a more opportunistic fashion. Running chicken is a common name for rats. A dirty secret in some of the worse arcoplex slums involve cannibalism. This isn't Soylent Green, though the idea has been floated and then rejected. There was simply no cost effective way to ensure that the protein supply wasn't tainted by drugs, and other hazardous substances. The most well known examples of this pragmatic cannibalism come from hellholes like Dhaka, Bangladesh or the Broken ground of Singapore. In these cases, some families will 'sell' the bodies of deceased family members in exchange for money. The unscrupulous meat packers then dress and clean the carcass and sell the meat elsewhere. Many a market with fresh meat, especially those in poor areas run the risk of selling human flesh. The thought of eating human meat has the same amount of stigma attached to it as eating at questionable asian restaurants does now, but replace missing cats and dogs with missing people and the unburied poor.