Islamic scholars consulted by a leading producer of cultivated meat say that the newfangled protein — which is grown from animal cells and doesn’t require animals to be slaughtered — can be halal, or permissible under Muslim law.
And the Jewish Orthodox Union this month certified a strain of lab-grown chicken as kosher for the first time, “marking a significant step forward for the food technology’s acceptance under Jewish dietary law,” as the Times of Israel put it.
Okay but this isn’t an example of zealots being weird, and food taboos in general are usually based on cultural hygiene. For example, poorly run pig pens are typically filthy disease vectors so it’s not strange that a society would ban them as meat animals.
Basic food safety has nothing to do with religion