So it would be preferable to not create, raise, slaughter and eat animals if there was an alternative source of meat with the same nutritional and taste properties omnivores are used to.

There is textured vegetable protein. Ok, it's not molecule-equivalent to meat, but it's supposed to imitate the physical sensation of eating meat. It was invented fifty years ago. For anyone who wants to eat meat without eating meat, there's an answer. So is there any reason to chase after vat-meat?

How close the imitation is, I don't know. I'm not sure I've ever eaten TVP. But it has to be easier and cheaper to improve on the current product than to develop a way of growing bulk tissue in industrial quantities.