Italy's parliament approves ban on lab-grown food amid tensions

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to News@lemmy.world – 155 points –
Italy's parliament approves ban on lab-grown food amid tensions
reuters.com
31

Rather disappointing.

I'd be in favor of a law requiring the labeling of such products, but this seems to overreach; especially when applied to animal feed.

Successful lobbying by the meat industry, absolutely not in the public's best interest. Disgusting, really.

The proposal [prohibits] the use, sale, import and export of food and feed "from cell cultures or tissue derived from vertebrate animals".

Am I missing something, is it a translation issue, or did they just ban meat?

That's what you could argue, yes.

Since you can't get any "tissue" without deriving it from an animal.

Which would be the funnier solution... Well if you scientists and farmers can't get along, nobody gets meat! Good news everyone! You're all vegetarians now!

It's a translation issue. "Derivanti" in Italian is translated as "derived", but the Italian word implies a new type of tissue and the English word does not.

Have they perfected lab-grown ketchup, because that burger looks dry AF.

But seriously, just another boneheaded, corporate masquerading as populist move. This doesn't protect consumers or farmers, it protects profits.

That pic does look a little dry, but I'm very much looking forward to lab grown burgers. I hope and expect moves such as this are temporary, and as technology and understanding improve, we'll get our cruelty-free and (presumably) lower environmental impact burgers. (And I'd expect texture, juicyness, etc to improve over time.)

I am not a vegetarian but I enjoy many of the vegetarian choices for meat, from original gardenburgers through very nearly every other similar product I've tried. (I have not tried anything from Impossible except their sausage on a sandwich from dunkin donuts) But while they are nearly all very good for their own sake, none that I've run across have been true replacements for a burger.

Yeah, totally. Like any new product it will take some experimenting. I think I read it's exceptionally lean, but tender, more like veal minus the cruelty. I get why they went burger, but almost certain to have better uses (STEAK!).

Not a fan of most of the impossible stuff, still tastes too earthy, but I love seitan and good tofu used well.

Temporary or not, these sort of bans will delay the growth (pun not intended, but I'll take it) of these industries when time is of the essence. But Italy's government is not exactly forward thinking at the moment.

iirc, it's basically the most lean meat you can get because they haven't done the whole growing fat thing yet, just the muscle.

Temporary or not, these sort of bans will delay the growth (pun not intended, but I'll take it) of these industries when time is of the essence.

That is a great point!

Why?

Protecting industries who prefer to complain rather than actually evolve with the times

🤦🏻‍♂️

Downvote if you want but at least educate me on why I'm wrong on facepalming. I'm serious. I love a good discussion.

I think people are downvoting because a simple facepalm emoji is considered a low effort comment. If there's no substance to your comment, better not to comment at all.

Fair point. My intent was to encourage discussion and it was my mistake that an emoji would facilitate more discussion. Lesson learned 🤦🏻‍♂️

Or you could educate us on why you're face-palming. Use your words.

Okay. My point is that methane (from cow farts) is a significant source of greenhouse gasses. If we can get high quality food without ruining the planet or the enjoyment of food then why shouldn't we go for it?

We've been evolving with the times for quite a while. Maybe change for the sake of change isn't exactly the right thing either.

Lab grown food, sold to you by the same system who sold you intensive farming.

How is lab grown meat change for the sake of change? There's obvious benefits to it: no more need to breed beings just to eat them, less resource-intensive, frees up land, and I might be missing others

Is it really sustainable ? I'm just not sure it's a viable alternative to eating less meat and farming with sustainable and regenerative practices.

Thank God Italians will be protected from making their own choices about it.