States Are Lining Up to Outlaw Lab-Grown Meat

[Prodyson]

lab grown mean doesn't contain any growth hormones or antibiotics.

https://thehumaneleague.org/article/lab-grown-meat

https://thehumaneleague.org/our-mission

WHAT IS LAB-GROWN MEAT, AND HOW IS CULTURED MEAT MADE?​

This is helpful, but it definitely focuses on the how it avoids a lot if the risks associates with farmed meat. However, it doesn’t talk about any potential risks of lab grown mean independent of farmed meat. What specifically caught my eye was the process of introducing the cells to bioreactors and a nutrient bath.

I’m not very familiar with bioreactors and how they work so I did some quick googling and did find that there are SOME risks relates to contamination issues and the chemicals used. I’d want them to dive more into how to avoid those risks. Now all in all, it still may be a net positive, but I’d want to see it researched and in writing first.

 

[bnew]

This is helpful, but it definitely focuses on the how it avoids a lot if the risks associates with farmed meat. However, it doesn’t talk about any potential risks of lab grown mean independent of farmed meat. What specifically caught my eye was the process of introducing the cells to bioreactors and a nutrient bath.

I’m not very familiar with bioreactors and how they work so I did some quick googling and did find that there are SOME risks relates to contamination issues and the chemicals used. I’d want them to dive more into how to avoid those risks. Now all in all, it still may be a net positive, but I’d want to see it researched and in writing first.

bioreactors is a decades old tech that keeps improving and nutrient baths help the cells grow like they would in a live animal.

Bioreactor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A bioreactor refers to any manufactured device or system that supports a biologically active environment.[1] In one case, a bioreactor is a vessel in which a chemical process is carried out which involves organisms or biochemically active substances derived from such organisms. This process can either be aerobic or anaerobic. These bioreactors are commonly cylindrical, ranging in size from litres to cubic metres, and are often made of stainless steel.[citation needed] It may also refer to a device or system designed to grow cells or tissues in the context of cell culture.[2] These devices are being developed for use in tissue engineering or biochemical/bioprocess engineering.[citation needed]

General structure of a continuous stirred-tank type bioreactor

On the basis of mode of operation, a bioreactor may be classified as batch, fed batch or continuous (e.g. a continuous stirred-tank reactor model). An example of a continuous bioreactor is the chemostat.[citation needed]

Organisms or biochemically active substances growing in bioreactors may be submerged in liquid medium or may be anchored to the surface of a solid medium. Submerged cultures may be suspended or immobilized. Suspension bioreactors may support a wider variety of organisms, since special attachment surfaces are not needed, and can operate at a much larger scale than immobilized cultures. However, in a continuously operated process the organisms will be removed from the reactor with the effluent. Immobilization is a general term describing a wide variety of methods for cell or particle attachment or entrapment.[3] It can be applied to basically all types of biocatalysis including enzymes, cellular organelles, animal and plant cells and organs.[4][5] Immobilization is useful for continuously operated processes, since the organisms will not be removed with the reactor effluent, but is limited in scale because the microbes are only present on the surfaces of the vessel.

Large scale immobilized cell bioreactors are:

• moving media, also known as moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR)
• packed bed
• fibrous bed
• membrane

---

an old article:
JUNE 1, 2011

When Will Scientists Grow Meat in a Petri Dish?

A handful of scientists aim to satisfy the world's growing appetite for steak without wrecking the planet. The first step: grab a petri dish

www.scientificamerican.com

snippet:
Cost is another barrier. The culture used to grow stem cells of any kind is very expensive. With currently available media, it might cost $50,000 to produce a pound of meat, according to Roelen, and the most efficient nutrient bath is derived from fetal calf or horse serum taken from slaughtered animals. In recent years scientists have developed their own recipes for “chemically defined media” that include no animal products. By using recombinant-DNA technology, they have also been able to get plant cells to produce animal proteins that could be used to grow the meat. But both these types of media are, for now, prohibitively expensive. An algae-based medium may eventually work best because algae can produce the proteins and amino acids necessary to sustain cell life, but that, too, is costly—at least for now.

 

[Buckeye Fever]

Y'all ok with this, but y'all clown trannies.

Make it make sense

 

[Prodyson]

bioreactors is a decades old tech that keeps improving and nutrient baths help the cells grow like they would in a live animal.

Bioreactor - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

A bioreactor refers to any manufactured device or system that supports a biologically active environment.[1] In one case, a bioreactor is a vessel in which a chemical process is carried out which involves organisms or biochemically active substances derived from such organisms. This process can either be aerobic or anaerobic. These bioreactors are commonly cylindrical, ranging in size from litres to cubic metres, and are often made of stainless steel.[citation needed] It may also refer to a device or system designed to grow cells or tissues in the context of cell culture.[2] These devices are being developed for use in tissue engineering or biochemical/bioprocess engineering.[citation needed]

General structure of a continuous stirred-tank type bioreactor

On the basis of mode of operation, a bioreactor may be classified as batch, fed batch or continuous (e.g. a continuous stirred-tank reactor model). An example of a continuous bioreactor is the chemostat.[citation needed]

Organisms or biochemically active substances growing in bioreactors may be submerged in liquid medium or may be anchored to the surface of a solid medium. Submerged cultures may be suspended or immobilized. Suspension bioreactors may support a wider variety of organisms, since special attachment surfaces are not needed, and can operate at a much larger scale than immobilized cultures. However, in a continuously operated process the organisms will be removed from the reactor with the effluent. Immobilization is a general term describing a wide variety of methods for cell or particle attachment or entrapment.[3] It can be applied to basically all types of biocatalysis including enzymes, cellular organelles, animal and plant cells and organs.[4][5] Immobilization is useful for continuously operated processes, since the organisms will not be removed with the reactor effluent, but is limited in scale because the microbes are only present on the surfaces of the vessel.

Large scale immobilized cell bioreactors are:

• moving media, also known as moving bed biofilm reactor (MBBR)
• packed bed
• fibrous bed
• membrane

---

an old article:
JUNE 1, 2011

When Will Scientists Grow Meat in a Petri Dish?

A handful of scientists aim to satisfy the world's growing appetite for steak without wrecking the planet. The first step: grab a petri dish

www.scientificamerican.com

snippet:
Cost is another barrier. The culture used to grow stem cells of any kind is very expensive. With currently available media, it might cost $50,000 to produce a pound of meat, according to Roelen, and the most efficient nutrient bath is derived from fetal calf or horse serum taken from slaughtered animals. In recent years scientists have developed their own recipes for “chemically defined media” that include no animal products. By using recombinant-DNA technology, they have also been able to get plant cells to produce animal proteins that could be used to grow the meat. But both these types of media are, for now, prohibitively expensive. An algae-based medium may eventually work best because algae can produce the proteins and amino acids necessary to sustain cell life, but that, too, is costly—at least for now.

I already looked up what a bioreactor is and already read much of the same information you posted. I was just saying that not knowing prompted me to look for more details because it was stated in a way that assumes we know how it works and the implications.

Thus, when I looked it up there were risks mentioned related to contamination and the safety of the chemicals used in the process of creating the meat. Those are things I’d like to see addressed more clearly.

 

[bnew]

Cultivated Meat for $6 Per Pound? This New Study Shows It's Possible

A breakthrough study explores how continuous manufacturing can solve the scalability challenges of cultivated chicken and bring prices down to $6 per lb.

www.greenqueen.com.hk

Cultivated Chicken for $6 Per Pound? This New Study Shows It’s Possible​

Cell-Based NewsFuture FoodsResearch & Scientific Studies


By Anay Mridul

Published on Aug 22, 2024
Last updated Aug 22, 2024

Courtesy: Believer Meats

4 Mins Read

A breakthrough study explores how continuous manufacturing can solve the scalability challenges of cultivated chicken and bring prices down to $6 per lb.​

If you speak to anybody from the cultivated meat sector – be it a startup founder, an investor, or a think tank expert – most of them will likely tell you that scalability and costs are the two biggest bottlenecks of the industry’s progress.

As it stands, there’s simply not enough infrastructure to make cultivated meat in batches that will drive costs closer to conventional meat. According to McKinsey, startups in this space would need over 17 times the fermentation capacity that currently exists in the global pharmaceutical industry to meet the growth demands of the industry.

The consulting giant further states that it’ll take until at least 2030 for these proteins to reach price parity, and this is despite companies having brought down costs by 99% in less than a decade. One investor told Reuters that these products need to reach manufacturing costs of $2.92 per pound to be price-competitive with conventional meat.

Now, a new study by Israel’s Believer Meats and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI) demonstrates how cultivated meat can be produced in a manner that is cost-effective, describing it as a potential “breakthrough” for the industry.

Published in the Nature Food journal, the research is based on a technology called tangential flow filtration (TFF) – an efficient way to separate and purify biomolecules – for the continuous manufacturing of cultivated meat. It can potentially bring down the cost of producing cultivated chicken to $6.20 per pound, in line with the retail price of conventional organic chicken.

For context, the only cultivated meat currently found in supermarkets, Good Meat’s chicken, has a retail price equivalent to over $20 per pound – and cultivated cells only make up 3% of the product.

Empirical study paves the way for accessible cultivated meat​

Courtesy: Nahmias Lab

Believer Meats founder Yaakov Nahmias and researchers from HUJI took inspiration from how Ford’s automated assembly line transformed the auto industry in the early 20th century.

They leveraged a new bioreactor assembly method (enabled by the TFF technique) to allow biomass expansion of 130 billion cells per litre, with a yield of 43% weight per volume. This process of cultivated the chicken cells was carried out continuously for over 20 days, leading to daily harvests of the biomass.

The study also introduced an animal-free culture medium that cost only $0.63 per litre, supporting the long-term, high-density culture of chicken cells. Culture media represent the bulk of the costs of cultivated meat production, and can cost hundreds of dollars.

Using this empirical data, the researchers conducted a techno-economic analysis of a hypothetical 50,000-litre production facility, which resulted in the aforementioned $6.20 per lb figure for cultivated chicken.

“Empirical data is the bedrock for any cost model of scaled cultivated meat production, and this study is the first to provide real-world empirical evidence for key factors that influence the cost of production, such as media cost, metabolic efficiency, and achievable yields in a scalable bioprocess design,” said Elliot Swartz, principal cultivated meat scientist at alternative protein think tank the Good Food Institute.

“Our findings show that continuous manufacturing enables cultivated meat production at a fraction of current costs, without resorting to genetic modification or mega-factories,” said Nahmias. “This technology brings us closer to making cultivated meat a viable and sustainable alternative to traditional animal farming.”

Cost-cutting efforts are front of mind for cultivated meat producers​

Courtesy: Believer Meats

The study’s authors acknowledged that various other factors would affect the final price of cultivated meat, but added that their research underscored the potential of continuous manufacturing to slash production costs and make these proteins more accessible to consumers.

The research has also presented solutions like a novel filter stack perfusion that can reduce factory costs, aside from the animal-free medium that can lower raw material costs and the continuous manufacturing that increases factory capacity. The analysis of the 50,000-litre facility resulted in a projected annual production of 2.14 million kg of cultivated chicken at price parity with USDA Organic chicken.

Many companies have been making efforts to decrease the cost of culture media, including pet food producers Meatly and BioCraft Pet Nutrition. The former has created a protein-free medium to get costs to just £1 ($1.30), while the latter has developed a plant-based medium that could bring market prices down to $2-2.50 per lb.

“This important study provides numerous data points that demonstrate the economic feasibility of cultivated meat. The study confirms early theoretical calculations that serum-free media can be produced at costs well below $1/L without forfeiting productivity, which is a key factor for cultivated meat achieving cost-competitiveness.”

Fellow Israeli company Ever After Foods has also developed a bioreactor platform that offers a 90% reduction in cultivated meat prices for its B2B clients. And researchers in Finland have posited stem cell metabolism as a way to produce these proteins without expensive growth factors.

Believer Meats, meanwhile, is currently building what it claims would be the world’s largest cultivated meat facility. Located in North Carolina, the 200,000 sq ft plant would be able to churn out at least 10,000 tonnes of product a year, and will help apply this continuous manufacturing research in practice on a large scale.

 

[bnew]

Gov. Pillen targets ‘fake meat’ in new executive order, seeks total ban on sales in 2025 • Nebraska Examiner

Gov. Jim Pillen announced new regulations and future legislation to crackdown on "fake" or "lab-grown" meat.

nebraskaexaminer.com

Gov. Pillen targets ‘fake meat’ in new executive order, seeks total ban on sales in 2025​

​

‘We’re being proactive and making sure that silly things aren’t happening, because they are happening on the Coasts,’ Pillen says​

By:​

Gov. Jim Pillen, center, hosts a news conference at Oak Barn Beef in West Point announcing new regulations and future legislation to crackdown on “fake” or “lab-grown” meat in Nebraska on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. Behind him are, from left: Hannah Klitz, co-owner and co-operator of the family led Oak Barn Beef; Jeanne Reigle of Madison, a livestock producer and 2024 legislative candidate; and Director Sherry Vinton of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

WEST POINT, Nebraska — Gov. Jim Pillen and the Nebraska Department of Agriculture announced new regulations Thursday against “lab-grown meat” or “fake meat,” with Pillen eyeing 2025 legislation to prohibit the sale of such products within the state.

On top of new regulations, standards and the potential legislation, Pillen signed an executive order Thursday that prohibits state agencies from procuring lab-grown or other meat alternatives. The order also requires entities that contract with the State of Nebraska to promise not to discriminate against natural products in favor of laboratory or cultivated meat producers.

“We’re being proactive and making sure that silly things aren’t happening, because they are happening on the Coasts,” Pillen said, speaking at Oak Barn Beef, a local family beef operation. “If we sit back and wait until the grocery stores are full, that’s not the way we want to lead.”

Labeling regulations​

Director Sherry Vinton of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture at a news conference in West Point. Aug. 29, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

Nebraska Agriculture Director Sherry Vinton said her agency will be launching new labeling regulations “simply to protect consumers from being misled.”

Similar to recent regulations in Iowa, manufactured protein or lab-grown meat would be required to be clearly and distinctly separated from “natural, real meat” under the future regulations and be labeled as such with a conspicuous and prominent label, Vinton said.

Standards will also be developed to determine when manufactured food, cell-grown or lab-grown meat is being falsely advertised or misbranded, she said.

Pillen’s family owns a major hog operation in Nebraska. He and University of Nebraska-Lincoln officials have highlighted that the livestock industry contributes more than $6 billion to the state’s economy each year.

Banning ‘fake meat’ sales​

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (left) joins Attorney General Mike Hilgers at a news conference. May 13, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

In May, Florida and Alabama became the first states to outlaw the sale of meat alternatives, and Pillen seeks to hold true to a promise he made that month that Nebraska would join the list.

When Nebraska sued California and the federal government over new emissions rules in May, Pillen said the Cornhusker State can “play that game, too,” when it comes to state regulations.

“The fake-meat, petri-dish-meat folks, they’re not going to have a place in Nebraska, just mark that down on your calendar,” Pillen told reporters May 13. “It’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and fight and defend Nebraska, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Pillen said Thursday he will ask lawmakers to propose and prioritize such legislation.

“We can etch it in stone so nobody has a chance,” Pillen said. “If there are Nebraskans that want to buy lab-grown meat, good for them, they’re just not going to do it in Nebraska.”

‘Putting us out of business’​

Jeanne Reigle of Madison, a livestock producer and 2024 legislative candidate, joins Gov. Jim Pillen for a news conference in West Point. Aug. 29, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

Jeanne Reigle, a livestock producer southeast of Madison, and a 2024 legislative candidate, also spoke at Thursday’s news conference. She said that, like Pillen, she has been “very appalled about the so-called ‘smart people’ that think they know more than we know, who’ve been doing this for generations in the ag industry.”

She pointed to three common arguments in favor of meat alternatives: less greenhouse gas emissions, the absence of pathogens and lack of cruelty to animals.

Reigle said the ag producers take care to prevent greenhouse gas emissions, pathogens and animal cruelty. She also said that the energy it takes to run bioreactors producing such alternatives “probably” far outweighs gas emissions in traditional ag, that there are “several failure points” in the lab to introduce bacteria and that the proponents haven’t seen the true cruelty-free process producers utilize in Nebraska.

The only way that “fake meat” will go from a niche market to a mass market, Reigle said, is if the government subsidizes the process. She said that would mean “putting us out of business.”

“With that in mind, the thing that keeps me up at night and scares me thinking about the future of our children, our grandchildren, is that the government could get involved and have more control over this new so-called ‘food,’” Reigle said.

Order heads to secretary of state​

Gov. Jim Pillen holds up a newly signed executive order to crackdown on “fake” or “lab-grown” meat within Nebraska agencies and contractors with the State of Nebraska in West Point. Aug. 29, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

The governor directed much of his criticism, as he has in the past, on Bill Gates and other people from “the Coasts” who have advocated for alternative meats.

“There’s a guy that made some money in building computers,” Pillen said, pointing to Bill Gates. “He needs to stay in the computer space and knock this stuff off thinking that he’s going to promote lab-grown meat. He’s lost his brains.”

Pillen described the new efforts as “a big deal” as Nebraska enters “a full-blown attack on lab-grown meats and fake meat.” He campaigned on the promise to tackle fake meat and dairy in 2022 and said Thursday he should have embraced the changes on his “second day.”

Secretary of State Bob Evnen received and signed the executive order Thursday afternoon, so it took effect right away.

https://nebraskaexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/EO-24-09-Prohibition-on-the-Procurement-of-Lab-Grown-Meat.pdf

 

[Gloxina]

Gov. Pillen targets ‘fake meat’ in new executive order, seeks total ban on sales in 2025 • Nebraska Examiner

Gov. Jim Pillen announced new regulations and future legislation to crackdown on "fake" or "lab-grown" meat.

nebraskaexaminer.com

Gov. Pillen targets ‘fake meat’ in new executive order, seeks total ban on sales in 2025​

​

‘We’re being proactive and making sure that silly things aren’t happening, because they are happening on the Coasts,’ Pillen says​

By:​

Gov. Jim Pillen, center, hosts a news conference at Oak Barn Beef in West Point announcing new regulations and future legislation to crackdown on “fake” or “lab-grown” meat in Nebraska on Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. Behind him are, from left: Hannah Klitz, co-owner and co-operator of the family led Oak Barn Beef; Jeanne Reigle of Madison, a livestock producer and 2024 legislative candidate; and Director Sherry Vinton of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

WEST POINT, Nebraska — Gov. Jim Pillen and the Nebraska Department of Agriculture announced new regulations Thursday against “lab-grown meat” or “fake meat,” with Pillen eyeing 2025 legislation to prohibit the sale of such products within the state.

On top of new regulations, standards and the potential legislation, Pillen signed an executive order Thursday that prohibits state agencies from procuring lab-grown or other meat alternatives. The order also requires entities that contract with the State of Nebraska to promise not to discriminate against natural products in favor of laboratory or cultivated meat producers.

“We’re being proactive and making sure that silly things aren’t happening, because they are happening on the Coasts,” Pillen said, speaking at Oak Barn Beef, a local family beef operation. “If we sit back and wait until the grocery stores are full, that’s not the way we want to lead.”

Labeling regulations​

Director Sherry Vinton of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture at a news conference in West Point. Aug. 29, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

Nebraska Agriculture Director Sherry Vinton said her agency will be launching new labeling regulations “simply to protect consumers from being misled.”

Similar to recent regulations in Iowa, manufactured protein or lab-grown meat would be required to be clearly and distinctly separated from “natural, real meat” under the future regulations and be labeled as such with a conspicuous and prominent label, Vinton said.

Standards will also be developed to determine when manufactured food, cell-grown or lab-grown meat is being falsely advertised or misbranded, she said.

Pillen’s family owns a major hog operation in Nebraska. He and University of Nebraska-Lincoln officials have highlighted that the livestock industry contributes more than $6 billion to the state’s economy each year.

Banning ‘fake meat’ sales​

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (left) joins Attorney General Mike Hilgers at a news conference. May 13, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

In May, Florida and Alabama became the first states to outlaw the sale of meat alternatives, and Pillen seeks to hold true to a promise he made that month that Nebraska would join the list.

When Nebraska sued California and the federal government over new emissions rules in May, Pillen said the Cornhusker State can “play that game, too,” when it comes to state regulations.

“The fake-meat, petri-dish-meat folks, they’re not going to have a place in Nebraska, just mark that down on your calendar,” Pillen told reporters May 13. “It’s time for us to roll up our sleeves and fight and defend Nebraska, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Pillen said Thursday he will ask lawmakers to propose and prioritize such legislation.

“We can etch it in stone so nobody has a chance,” Pillen said. “If there are Nebraskans that want to buy lab-grown meat, good for them, they’re just not going to do it in Nebraska.”

‘Putting us out of business’​

Jeanne Reigle of Madison, a livestock producer and 2024 legislative candidate, joins Gov. Jim Pillen for a news conference in West Point. Aug. 29, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

Jeanne Reigle, a livestock producer southeast of Madison, and a 2024 legislative candidate, also spoke at Thursday’s news conference. She said that, like Pillen, she has been “very appalled about the so-called ‘smart people’ that think they know more than we know, who’ve been doing this for generations in the ag industry.”

She pointed to three common arguments in favor of meat alternatives: less greenhouse gas emissions, the absence of pathogens and lack of cruelty to animals.

Reigle said the ag producers take care to prevent greenhouse gas emissions, pathogens and animal cruelty. She also said that the energy it takes to run bioreactors producing such alternatives “probably” far outweighs gas emissions in traditional ag, that there are “several failure points” in the lab to introduce bacteria and that the proponents haven’t seen the true cruelty-free process producers utilize in Nebraska.

The only way that “fake meat” will go from a niche market to a mass market, Reigle said, is if the government subsidizes the process. She said that would mean “putting us out of business.”

“With that in mind, the thing that keeps me up at night and scares me thinking about the future of our children, our grandchildren, is that the government could get involved and have more control over this new so-called ‘food,’” Reigle said.

Order heads to secretary of state​

Gov. Jim Pillen holds up a newly signed executive order to crackdown on “fake” or “lab-grown” meat within Nebraska agencies and contractors with the State of Nebraska in West Point. Aug. 29, 2024. (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner)

The governor directed much of his criticism, as he has in the past, on Bill Gates and other people from “the Coasts” who have advocated for alternative meats.

“There’s a guy that made some money in building computers,” Pillen said, pointing to Bill Gates. “He needs to stay in the computer space and knock this stuff off thinking that he’s going to promote lab-grown meat. He’s lost his brains.”

Pillen described the new efforts as “a big deal” as Nebraska enters “a full-blown attack on lab-grown meats and fake meat.” He campaigned on the promise to tackle fake meat and dairy in 2022 and said Thursday he should have embraced the changes on his “second day.”

Secretary of State Bob Evnen received and signed the executive order Thursday afternoon, so it took effect right away.

https://nebraskaexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/EO-24-09-Prohibition-on-the-Procurement-of-Lab-Grown-Meat.pdf

I agree. I ain’t eating that crap

 

[bnew]

Spoiler: text

The only way that “fake meat” will go from a niche market to a mass market, [Jeanne Reigle, a livestock producer southeast of Madison, and a 2024 legislative candidate] said, is if the government subsidizes the process. She said that would mean “putting us out of business.

From the comment section:

"We pay about $2 billion per year in subsidies to livestock producers. Livestock producers say, if cultured meat were also to receive government subsidies, livestock producers would go out of business. That is, if it were a fair playing field, cultivated meat would be so desirable that the market could not support livestock production.

Why, then, are we paying $2 billion a year to prop up an industry that can only exist if it and none of its competitors receives perpetual government assistance?"

Ah yes, the Free Market. If cattle industry is panicking so hard, it confirms the massive potential for lab-grown meat to completely overhaul the market. Imagine buying one kg of pure organic meat for only 50 cents...

Asian countries like Japan, China, Taiwan and Singapore are planning to invest the hell in this new tech. They don't have enough land to provide cheap red meat for most of their population, so they have an existential obligation to switch to lab grown meat.

And American lands are getting poorer and poorer. Soon, real meat will be so expensive and small labs will be able to produce such cheaper grown meat indoors (even illegally), that fat incumbents shall lose their market rather quickly, doesn't matter how many billions in subsidies they get.

 

[bnew]

I agree. I ain’t eating that crap

you can choose not to eat it if it isn't banned.

i don't eat seafood and nor am I calling for it to be banned or approve a proposed ban except in cases of over fishing.

 

[bnew]

Proposal to ban lab-grown meat in Nebraska gets pushback from ranchers and farm groups

A bill to ban the sale of so-called lab-grown meat might seem like a no-brainer in Nebraska, where beef is king.

apnews.com

Proposal to ban lab-grown meat in Nebraska gets pushback from ranchers and farm groups​

By MARGERY A. BECK

Updated 1:23 PM EST, February 21, 2025

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — The prospect of banning the sale of so-called lab-grown meat might seem like a no-brainer in Nebraska, where beef is king, but some of the proposal’s staunchest opposition has come from ranchers and farming groups who say they can compete without the government’s help.

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen — one of the largest pork producers in the country — is behind the push to ban cultivated meat, saying he wants to protect ranchers and meat producers. The Republican governor signed an executive order last August to keep state agencies and contractors from procuring lab-created meat, even though it could be years before such products are on store shelves.

A number of ranchers and meat industry groups are pushing back on the governor’s plan.

Dan Morgan is a fourth-generation cattle rancher from central Nebraska who supplies high-end beef to all 50 states and six countries. He welcomes companies seeking to produce lab-grown meat to “jump into the pool” and try to compete with his Waygu beef. Stifling competition in a free market should be anathema in a Republican-dominated state like Nebraska, he said.

“It sounds like a bunch of right-wing Republicans echoing a bunch of left-wing Democrats,” he said, adding that the government should be limited to regulating the new product’s labels and inspecting its facilities to ensure food safety.

“After that, it’s up to the consumer to make the decision about what they buy and eat.”

Nebraska is among about a dozen states that have introduced measures to ban the manufacture, sale or distribution of lab-grown products, according to an Associated Press analysis using the bill-tracking software Plural. Two states — Florida and Alabama — have already enacted such bans.

The target of the bills is “cell-cultivated” or “cell-cultured” meat, which is grown from the cells of animals in bioreactor steel tanks. The cells are bathed for weeks in nutrients, prompting them to grow and divide, turning them into skeletal muscle, fat and connective tissues.

The push to ban cultivated meat comes well before the innovation could be considered an industry. While more than two dozen companies are working to develop such meat products, only two — Upside Foods and Good Meat, both based in California — have been approved by the federal government to sell cultivated chicken in the U.S. Even then, none of the companies are close to mass producing and selling the products on store shelves.

In recent weeks, supporters of the Nebraska bill have shifted their arguments from industry protection to questions of safety surrounding cell-cultured meat. That includes its sponsor, state Sen. Barry DeKay, a Nebraska rancher, and Sherry Vinton, the director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture. Both testified in support of the bill at a committee hearing earlier this week, calling cultured meat “synthetic food” and voicing concern about possible health implications from eating it.

But it’s been no secret that the push for a ban is rooted in shielding Nebraska’s traditional meat industry. Nebraska tops all other states for beef production and beef exports, according to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture.

Pillen named the ban among his top priorities during his State of the State address last month.

“The backers of these products are cut from the same cloth as the anti-farmer activists who want to put our agriculture producers out of business, and we need to recognize them as such,” he said.

The Association for Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation, a trade group for the emerging cultured meat industry, disputes Pillen’s insistence that it’s a threat to the traditional meat industry, noting studies that show global demand for meat-based protein will double by 2050.

“We’re really a complementary component here,” said Suzi Gerber, executive director of the association. “So it’s a little bit mystifying to me why any individual stakeholder would see this as a threat.”

Several farm organizations, including Nebraska Farm Bureau, Nebraska Cattlemen and the Nebraska Pork Producers, agree they’re not worried about competition from the emerging industry. Those groups prefer a sister bill that would only require they be clearly labeled as lab-grown products to separate them from traditional meat. More than a dozen states have also issued similar labeling bills, and some — like Colorado — have seen ban efforts abandoned in favor of labeling measures.

Paul Sherman is an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is representing Upside Foods in its lawsuit challenging the Florida ban. He said it’s no surprise most of the proposed bans are being pushed by those with connections to traditional agriculture.

“I think it certainly shows that the purpose of these laws isn’t about protecting public health and safety,” he said. “It’s about protecting traditional agriculture from economic competition. And that is not a legitimate use of government power.”

___​

This story was first published on Feb. 20, 2025. It was updated on Feb. 21, 2025 to correct that the Association for Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation is a trade group for the cultured meat industry. This story also restores attribution in the 7th paragraph to the bill-tracking software Plural.