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Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#161

Post by 9dev »

dubcanada wrote: post #148
9dev wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This whole insect flour debate is so braindead. We have billions of people to feed. Dried and shredded insects provide a great protein yield, can be produced incredibly efficient, and aren’t as destructive to the planet as lifestock. Many cultures have been consuming insects for ages. There is nothing unsafe, unnatural, or otherwise „bad“ about using insects for food - other than an embarrassing, unreflective revulsi…

I think there is an argument to be made about validity in names. Calling something flour that is actually not at all flour, stretches the meaning of the word. I can no longer go to the grocery store and assume my flour contains grains. I think things should be packaged properly and with proper descriptions. The same as I don't want to go to the store and buy Parmesan cheese only to find it's actually chemically alter…

You're absolutely right -- the annoying thing about the "insect flour" debate is that nobody in their right minds suggested wheat in ordinary flour will be replaced or diluted with insects, because that would not even work for baking!

It was media outlets that spun the story this way - but in reality, insect flour is just another ingredient you can use for cooking, but not baking.

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#162

Post by stametseater »

9dev wrote: post #63
nemo44x wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not Italian but think it’s a step in the right direction, but overreaches. I think they should make it law that synthetic meat can’t be called “meat” and that insect ‘flour’ can’t be called “flour”. And should have to be prefaced with “unnatural food product” or similar on all sides of packaging.

This whole insect flour debate is so braindead. We have billions of people to feed. Dried and shredded insects provide a great protein yield, can be produced incredibly efficient, and aren’t as destructive to the planet as lifestock. Many cultures have been consuming insects for ages. There is nothing unsafe, unnatural, or otherwise „bad“ about using insects for food - other than an embarrassing, unreflective revulsi…

> an embarrassing, unreflective revulsion.

You say that like those aren't the most important factors to consider in light of Italy's obvious economic and cultural interest in preserving the reputation of their culinary industry and heritage.

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#163

Post by stametseater »

9dev wrote: post #136
pjc50 wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty weird to describe "food" as a doomed industry.

Nobody described "food" as a doomed industry, but the practice of slaughtering animals for protein if better alternatives become available (which they definitely are not yet, not even long term).

[flagged]

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#164

Post by arlort »

fnmron wrote: post #53
awestroke wrote: post #14

Sounds like a law that is incompatible with EU.

Really, how? Where does that sound come from?

One of the EU pillars is free movement of goods, meaning that you generally can't prevent someone from a different country from selling goods in your country.

This means that the decree is either incompatible with EU law, or it is pointless as you'd just be killing your own domestic market while exposing yourself to other EU countries anyway

GP's mistake was assuming that this isn't pure virtue signalling, the decree is compatible with EU law because it applies only to italian producers

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#165

Post by burkaman »

nashashmi wrote: post #130
deergomoo wrote: post #13

This 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.

Man plans. God laughs. I'm calling Bs on the whole cow industry being bad for the planet because of their bodily functions. Any cows, any animals, any living creatures are never going to be bad for the planet. There is more resource consumption and harm in transferring the livestock as meat and farming livestock than there is in the methane gas. And lab grown meat is not going to change that.

It's not just their bodily functions (which are very significant despite your feelings), it's the enormous amount of land we clearcut and leave basically empty so they can graze.

Also, it's not about the planet, it's about us. The planet obviously will be fine, but a lot of humans won't be.

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#166

Post by illiarian »

blululu wrote: post #150
illiarian wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to fully understand its safety, nutritional content, and long-term health effects. This is the same "reasoning" that ultimately led to ban on most GMO foods like actual long-term tasty tomatos. For some reason we demand significantly stricter controls over anything "lab-grown" than on anything "natural". Note: I'm not calling for lax controls. I'm callling for controls that are not more stringent than those…

This is a pretty sensible policy. Things that are ‘natural’ typically have a much longer period of human and animal use. The amount of data that is latent in their extensive history offers much more certainty about their long term safety than a few short term studies. The real concern with GMOs is not about something like a genetic collapse but the fact that the technology is only really capable of enabling the use o…

> Things that are ‘natural’ typically have a much longer period of human and animal use.

Most of the hybrids you're consuming are nowhere to be found in nature. But since they are "natural" somehow they are absolved of most sins. And then boom and E. coli outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Germany_E._coli_O104:H4_o... or listeriosis outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_United_States_listeriosis...

> The real concern with GMOs is not about something like a genetic collapse but the fact that the technology is only really capable of enabling the use of more exotic pesticides and herbicides in food stocks.

That is not nearly the main concern. If anything, GMOs would allow us to forego most exotic pesticides and herbicides.

> I really don’t see the need to engage in a widespread experiment on pesticide use when targeted smaller scale studies would suffice.

What I "love" about discussions like this is that they immediately veer off territory that is only tenuously adjacent, at best.

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#167

Post by fnmron »

arlort wrote: post #164
fnmron wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, how? Where does that sound come from?

One of the EU pillars is free movement of goods, meaning that you generally can't prevent someone from a different country from selling goods in your country. This means that the decree is either incompatible with EU law, or it is pointless as you'd just be killing your own domestic market while exposing yourself to other EU countries anyway GP's mistake was assuming that this isn't pure virtue signalling, the decree…

So if netherlands legalizes marijuana then Greece can't outlaw it because EU law?

Seems pretty absurd!

States have the right to set standards on the market regardless of Brussels.

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#168

Post by bluGill »

dangwhy wrote: post #135
epolanski wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no "protection" of anything, this is populist vote-grabbing. Lab-grown meat isn't even a reality and won't be for like a decade at least on supermarket shelves. Also, that's not even the worse of the things introduced by our government yesterday, administrations do not need to publish a public contract for works up to 150k euros. Now every single administration can spend and gift corrupted money left and righ…

> populist vote-grabbing sorry but how is this different from just democracy ? we have democracy here in USA that allows NIMBY homeowners opposing any new development. Is that also just 'populist vote-grabbbing'

Yes. If you live in any form of democracy this is a real problem and you need to watch out for it. Make sure you watch out for it in yourself - there are a lot of things that make your life better at the expense of society has a whole. There are also a lot of unintended effects of things that should be good that can make them worse than the alternative that feels evil.

Democracy is still the best form of government I know of though. So if you don't live in one it is worth moving to one. Hopefully you can learn from the mistakes of those of us who have gone before and design protection for some more downside.

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#169

Post by simondw »

Retric wrote: post #104
_0w8t wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the same reasoning factory farms that feed cows with grain, not grass, should be banned, as it very significantly alter meat nutrition.

Grains are grasses: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poaceae The difference is we are feeding them grass seeds vs grass leaves.

That commonality doesn't seem sufficient (to me, a non-expert) to show that there is no difference in meat nutrition.

Re: Italy moves to ban lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

#170

Post by eimrine »

deergomoo wrote: post #13

This 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 and cost/energy/carbon efficient alternative to raising and killing animals, then it would be insane to not pursue that.

You the city people are so cocky in teaching me the village guy about how to live the life.

What if I do not want my meat addiction to be controlled by some big corps? For example, they may decide to put in their meat products something I do not want to be put. At least I can grow my food as I like it to be grown and I can kill it in the way I find reasonable (for example, I might like some products from blood and I might use a lot of animal fat). And last but not least, different parts of animal body has totally different taste which might be hard to simulate - that's why I'm sure that nothing will force me to stop holding cattle before end of my life.

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