Originally published at: Italy bans cultivated meat to protect local industry | Boing Boing
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I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I know that the process of producing actual meat for human consumption is a huge contributor to climate change, and so is unsustainable at its current levels, and will be even less so as the human population continues to increase. So I applaud efforts to create alternatives. At the same time, I don’t think we have a good track record of creating safe, healthy synthetic foods. So I’d really rather keep these things out of the general market until we have some long term data and research on their safety. Also, I fucking hate plant-based meat substitutes. They’re mostly legume-based, and I hate all of them. I don’t like the taste and I hate the texture. I occasionally eat meatless meals, and I should do that more, both for my health and the environment, but when I do, I would rather just eat veggies and grains that look and taste like what they are, rather than trying to make them look and taste like something else. YMMV, of course, but that’s how I feel.
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Italy is banning meat grown from cells
Yet that’ll about account for it all, won’t it? “Italy is going vegetarian!!” (hey, someone tediously had to blather this)
I do worry about what kinds of flesh eating bacteria the shmeat industry will develop and spread. And viruses.
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It’s a reasonable worry, although you also have to look at what viruses the industrial meat farming industry has caused. Swine flu, bird flu. Covid may it may not have come from meat (although not farms).
(Naturally the solution to both is to cut down on both real and artificial meat.)
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Listeria has entered the room.
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I agree completely. A former partner of mine was vegan, so I found myself trying out a lot more foods that were not only meat-free but also dairy and egg-free, in actual vegan restaurants. I absolutely loathed the fake meats and cheeses, which were invariably utterly revolting in taste and texture. Everything seemed geared at copying a “normal” menu from a non-vegan restaurant. I thought I hated vegan food.
Then I tried a different vegan restaurant in Seattle while on a trip with said partner, and it was not only the best vegan food I’d ever had, but some of the best food period, and it was mostly because they didn’t try to be something they weren’t. Their flatbread pizza wasn’t covered in nauseating fake cheese and medallions of faux pepperoni, it was brushed with olive oil and spices and topped with roasted squash. The French Dip sandwich I got wasn’t full of rubbery strips of seitan, but delicious portobello mushroom caps. The chocolate dessert wasn’t a dense greasy coconut-oil based nightmare, but was the sort of thing you’d never even guess was vegan at all, with no weird, offputting textures or flavors (I’m still not sure how they pulled that one off). If I lived near that restaurant, I could eat vegan every day of my life and never even miss animal products.
Maybe we’re in the minority here- lots of vegans and vegetarians seem to love eating heavily-processed sludge made from soy or black beans. Personally, I hope synthetic meat is successful so the ethical and environmental drawbacks of eating meat are no longer an issue (or at least are easier to avoid contributing to), but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are issues with health, texture, cost and sustainability for decades to come. I think Italy trying to insulate from it is a bit like coal miners trying to push back against green energy. Yes, there are real jobs and real culture that are in peril in the coal and traditional meat-farming industries, but things change and nothing lasts forever. We should try to strive for better alternatives.
Meanwhile, though, vegetarianism and veganism would be healthier and probably more popular lifestyles if they focused on the strengths of vegetables rather than continually trying to emulate meat and cheese. Anyone can cook however they want at home, but the convenient, commercially-available meat-free options are often disappointing, especially to someone like myself who has a few specific vegetables they can’t stand which seem to be crammed into everything that isn’t faux meat, always. There’s no reason it has to be that way, but that’s the way the majority of meat-free options seem to do it.
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This is short sighted and disappointing given the benefits of lab grown meat
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They’re gearing for a future where Italian farmers will be the equivalents of Gucci and Valentino and Versace for the global commodity food industry.
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When I lived in NYC I was a vegetarian and both of my jobs had me all over the city. Along 125th st there are a slew of Caribbean restaurants that come from strictly vegan culinary traditions. Cheap, amazing food served with love and respect. And not a single fakin’ bacon dish on the menu.
See also: Indian “cab stands”. Some of the best food in Manhattan and gallon jars of hot-ass Mango Pickle on the counter.
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All (conventional) food is grown from cells. Unless you count rock salt as food. I wonder if they’re trying to cancel historical dishes such as Welsh rarebit.
Yeah, the contagion issues of the shmeat industry are - by necessity - going to be orders of magnitude less severe than what’s going on already in agriculture, or the culturing process won’t even work. Industrial meat farming is so unbelievably dirty, in every possible way. You’ve got animals being raised in close proximity in their own filth, being exposed to wild animal pathogens, being fed antibiotics that are the source of resistant pathogens… Cultured meat, on the other hand, has to be done in sterile conditions or you can’t grow anything to begin with (it’s a major issue that raises questions about whether the process will even work at scale), and if you get bacteria, flesh-eating or otherwise, contaminating the growth, the whole thing is ruined. (A sick animal is still likely to end up in the food supply, on the other hand.) Not to say there won’t be issues (assuming it’s even possible), but the very nature of the processes means the issues will pale in comparison to those that exist now.
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OTOH - it doesn’t take much to bring down a monoculture.
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Well, they’re clearly missing the opportunity to foster a cultivated meat industry, give it a fancy name, and then apply for source of origin protection for it!
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Yeah, although industrial farming is already a series of monocultures, and in the case of lab-grown meat, if something does bring it down, it all has to be thrown out.
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This is probably based on 70% culture warrior posing and 30% meat industry lobbyism.
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I wonder who primarily influenced the ban.
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and of course, florida says “hold ma beer” 
https://www.msn.com/en-us/foodanddrink/foodnews/new-bill-would-make-florida-the-first-state-to-ban-lab-grown-meat/ar-AA1kClaO
i guess msn doesn’t one box anymore?
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It sounds like… what’s that word… it starts with an F.
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Soylent Green?
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