This kind of move is unfair to all the historical careers that weren’t protected from technological evolution.
Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
81–90 of 474 posts
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#82BBC journos have a specific editorial style, and no doubt it influenced this headline, but this isn't to "protect food heritage". Food and drink accounts for a quarter of Italy's GDP. It's about money. Italy has a far-right government, which is extremely open to lobbying from that sector, and "heritage" is aligned with their nationalistic stance. Try to look a bit deeper.
You don't have to be "far right" or "nationalistic" to not want to destroy your economy
Yeah "think of the economy" gets to be a very common argument nowadays, almost like "think of the children". I remember it used for refusing any covid restrictions, or used against climate protection measures... I wonder, was it used also to justify keeping slavery?
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#83Less meat but better meat (yeah, provided it's not junk meat disguized in "heritage"-dress) , I can vote for that.
Only this isn’t less meat. It’s don’t change anything, I want to keep making money and not having to think.
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#84I don't know if banning lab grown meat can protect Italian food heritage or of their food heritage is at risk at all. But as someone living in the UK and loving Italian food, please do whatever to keep Italian food great.
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#85I was reading somewhere that Poland will overtake Italy in GDP pro capita in 10-20 years. True or not Poland is doing much better than Italy already. I think it’s interesting that a country that was 50 years under a dictatorship was able to take over on a country that has not only had freedom and democracy, but also help and financial support from US and EU. Italy is not hungry for growth and it keeps consuming whate…
Though the lab grown meat dream in itself represents nostalgia, protecting the past and no interest in change as well (you could very well switch to a more plant based diet)
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#86This seems no different than the ridiculous laws proposed in some US states recently that would ban EV sales to protect the oil and gas industries. I’m sorry that people could one day lose jobs over this, but if lab-grown meat is proven to be a safe and cost/energy/carbon efficient alternative to raising and killing animals, then it would be insane to not pursue that.
Not necessarily. The EV ban bills proposed in those US states are purely there just to irritate liberals.
The EU is extremely skeptic of any genetically-modified food, for a whole load of various reasons, and banning lab-grown meat is entirely in line with that. If you can't tolerate one extra disease-resistance gene in your food, you're not going to be happy with lab-grown meat either.
Furthermore, the EU has a very long list of foods that are only allowed to be grown in specific areas or in certain ways. While this is nominally because a lot of those foods are named after specific towns, in practice many of them do not have "generic" names, so these are ultimately de-facto trade bans on other people making those foods. Labs being able to grow "perfect" versions of those foods (as opposed to the generic competition being demonstrably worse) would upend this system.
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
If your economy is entirely dependent on a doomed industry, maybe, instead of artificially keeping it alive, focus on modernising that economy instead?
Every industry is doomed when developing countries can do the same for half the price... Which is exactly why Europe delocalised a lot of industries in the first place and is now mostly stuck with services, tourism and tech. And it's exactly what we should stop doing if we want to have anything of value left I know it's hard to believe for a lot of people on HN but not every country wants to become yet another soulle…
I have nothing but farm for hours just 10 minutes from house in the EU. There's a lot more than "services, tourism, and tech."
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#88This seems no different than the ridiculous laws proposed in some US states recently that would ban EV sales to protect the oil and gas industries. I’m sorry that people could one day lose jobs over this, but if lab-grown meat is proven to be a safe and cost/energy/carbon efficient alternative to raising and killing animals, then it would be insane to not pursue that.
> but if lab-grown meat is proven to be a safe We need to fully understand its safety, nutritional content, and long-term health effects. Our understanding of the full biochemical spectrum of our diets is still limited. Therefore, it's important to ensure that lab-grown meat adequately replicates the complex array of nutrients and other beneficial compounds found in conventionally produced meat. Long-term effects: Si…
By the same reasoning factory farms that feed cows with grain, not grass, should be banned, as it very significantly alter meat nutrition.
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder whether you’d say if tauromachy was about killing cute animals, or even humans. For the life of me, I cannot understand what is there to protect about killing other living beings for joy or taste.
We kill millions of babys for joy or taste A bull per month in a cultural ceremony feels like the least of the problems
Just because one thing is more bad doesn’t make the other good. We can both stop killing bulls for fun and take care of other issues too.
Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage
#90I was reading somewhere that Poland will overtake Italy in GDP pro capita in 10-20 years. True or not Poland is doing much better than Italy already. I think it’s interesting that a country that was 50 years under a dictatorship was able to take over on a country that has not only had freedom and democracy, but also help and financial support from US and EU. Italy is not hungry for growth and it keeps consuming whate…
Italy was a dictatorship not that far back, and the current government is in power primarily because fascist sympathies were never eradicated in the country.
So yes, you are indeed right.
-- an emigrated Italian.