I was alternately amused and in awe of the news recently that a start-up company, Perfect Day, got 1,000 people to spend $100 on packages of three pints of ice cream. (Actually, the list price for the limited run was $60 per three-pack, but that didn't include shipping.)

The astronomically pricey treats weren't in demand so much because of what they were — which was just ice cream, after all — but rather because of how they got here, being made with a dairy substitute that Perfect Day's entrepreneurs cultured in a laboratory.

This focus on dismantling foods down to the molecules that compose them also alternately fascinates and repels me. I'm a geek, and the idea of looking at food as a collection of elements that can be substituted or rearranged to the manipulator's liking is, well, super-cool. "Molecular gastronomy" strikes me as a bit of performance art but I may yet be moved to plunk down a small fortune for the experience.

At the same time, defining something as organic and in its way magical as an ear of sweet corn or a steak, or a pint of ice cream, with a chemical equation hints at dystopian future for food that THX 1138 would recognize.

Reviews of the Perfect Day ice cream concoction said it tasted like "the real thing" although the "dairy" included in the recipes was a milk substitute fermented in the lab with cow's milk DNA and something like yeast. I'm not vegan and I don't contend with lactose intolerance or other problem with dairy that Perfect Day's product is said to address, so I'm happy to go on paying $4.49 (on sale) for a pint of Ben & Jerry's and believe that's as outrageous a price as I'll ever pay for ice cream. A different segment of the population, on the other hand, would be happy to pay about anything for Perfect Day's pints.

And that's where we may be getting a glimpse into the future of cell-cultured meat.

In surveys, consumers have turned up their noses at the notion: In the most recent edition of the Power of Meat survey, more than half (55%) said they would "absolutely not" be interested in even trying lab-grown meat or poultry. This, although two-thirds of respondents were at least somewhat interested in trying a plant-based meat substitute product and three-quarters were interested in a blended product, such as a ground beef-and-mushroom burger. Pundits have declared consumers have no interest in an "unnatural" form of meat, and some have dubbed it "frankenfood."

But 1,000 people plunked down $100 each for three pints of ice cream made with a milk substitute in a laboratory using micro-organisms. Mark my words: They'll pay at least that much per ounce for a limited-edition run of cell-cultured beef patties. And if the reviews are as good, that will be the cell-cultured meat industry's perfect day.

Is cell-cultured meat a 'perfect' solution after all?

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