Well, that’s not completely accurate, but it is roughly along the lines of “The Hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy” in which the dilemma for vegetarians is solved by genetically engineering a creature who wants to be eaten or else feels pain.

In this NewScientist article: “Pain free animals could take suffering out of farming” there’s some discussion of how various findings could be used to lessen the discomfort of farmed animals. So not quite “animals that want to be eaten”, but animals that don’t so much care about pain.

I think the better solution is to step back from the ultra-packed in “factory farming” that seems to be the norm in the USA and parts of Europe and let the poor animals roam around a bit. I grew up in a rural area and I’d have to say any animals I came across appeared to have a pretty good existence:

• nice big open paddocks for the cows or long sheds for the chickens
• farmers keeping away predators and providing healthcare (sounds better than the deal most US citizens have currently)

With modern slaughtering techniques there’s an attempt to minimise the pain/discomfort at the end of the animal’s life, well, except for the barbaric Jewish and Muslim “halal” and “kosher” slaughter.
(Start religious rant)Those religious slaughter techniques are nearly as barbaric today as they were thousands of years back. Still not sure why animals have to continue to have their throats cut and bleed to death slowly today when they could just get the bolt gun to the head (as per the more humane “normal” slaughtering technique). All because some people think that their superstition needs extra suffering to appease some sky god.
(end rant)

I guess the ultimate would be growing meat in a vat though. I mean if it doesn’t have a brain or nervous system then it probably can’t really be in a state of pain as per any reasonable definition. Or perhaps we could reduce the number of farm animals via some sort of human recycling a la the movie “Soylent Green”.

Soylent green.. is PEOPLE!

After all if we’re going to say it’s ok to eat other animals, we should at least be fair about things right?