Yeah, this is Florida we’re talking about. I’m surprised they haven’t already mandated that all meat must be made from animals killed as inhumanely as possible, then processed in facilities that match the conditions described in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.
3 Likes
The text of the proposed bill just says ““Cultivated meat” means any meat or food product produced from cultured animal cells.”
Sounds like IVF access could have another legal headache coming from the other direction.
3 Likes
it’s not really a lab. it’s more of a factory. Is that OK?
Sorry - forgot the /s !
Luckily, meth production is still mostly encouraged.
1 Like
Florida… As long as they remove this legislation once they’ve finished eating up all the Burmese pythons in the state, I’m fine with it.
I’m left wondering if the law is so poorly worded that it also outlaws IVF and sperm donation. Or perhaps it could be intentional.
Aside from all the principled reasons why this seems like an ugly combination of performative-in-a-shabby way, hypocritical; etc. it seems pretty bold to be trying to make hay out of an issue when it’s so far from anything remotely resembling commercial viability; much less cost-competitiveness.
Even in places where the technique is markedly more mature (engineered yeasts and e. coli and the like) the only culinary applications(mostly alcohol and various stages on the cheese continuum; along with non-alcohol fermented goods) are viable only because the metabolic activity of microbes, rather than them or their structure, is the point of the exercise; and commonly also with a great deal of careful sterilizing and/or microbial strains derived from wild types at some point that are still reasonably robust.
It can be made to work(still on a ‘metabolites only; don’t ask for tissue structure’) basis for significantly higher value products that can’t reasonably be obtained any other way(enzymes, recombinant antibodies) with much more delicate and specific engineered microbes; and there’s a limited amount of human tissue culture(basically flat sheets only with comparatively little internal structure until the patient grows into them) when we (metaphorically) stretch the foreskin supply to (literally) cover the demand with foreskin-isolated keratinocytes; but that, again, is a relatively high value product you can’t readily obtain by other means.
When it comes to bulk tissue culture, especially if you want internal structure, the situation is markedly less mature(and not for want of trying; the need for transplant organs, ideally genetically matched to recipients, provides a much more urgent and less cost sensitive source of demand than that for burgers).
I can see wanting to have regulation related to product health and safety in place before people start shoving things onto the market; rather than trying to claw it back afterwards(looking at you, history of hazardous chemical regulation…); but engaging in pure protectionism against a field that is nascent at best; potentially permanently on the back foot in terms of costs vs. animal husbandry(proper bioreactor operations and maintenance is just arduous and expensive; despite decades of use for high-value processes where it’s a Big Deal if you need to halt production to drain the tank and sterilize everything to hell because some microbe that is good at surviving has gotten into the mix with your microbe that does your bidding); while animals have at least a degree of self-preservation ability(bad things can definitely happen; and it’s not like large animal vets are just a conspiracy; but they at least have things like immune systems.) seems like cynical performance of the most obnoxious sort.
4 Likes
I think they just outlawed cheese.
1 Like
So another right taken from Floridians! What a screwed up state I live in.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
