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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

#231

Post by Steltek »

jacquesm wrote: post #91
sokoloff wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We could have equally banned internal combustion engines to protect the steam engine and buggy whip industries or phase change refrigeration to protect the jobs of the ice delivery companies.

Not quite a ban on ICEs but nevertheless analog attempts were made: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_flag_traffic_laws These laws didn't last long, fortunately, and ostensibly they were to protect cattle, horses and carriage riders but clearly the idea was to slow the car down to the speed of a pedestrian effectively hobbling it to the point that driving a car didn't make sense.

Early cars were immediately killing innocent people in the streets and there was totally justified outrage. We've just become numb to the idea that it's okay to be cut down in the street because cars are just too gosh darn convenient.

Today in the US, cars are the number one cause of death for children and lag only firearms for accidental death overall. Excusing the daily human slaughter by saying, "Well, they're not _designed_ to kill people like guns are" is not a cunning retort.

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

#232

Post by __void »

nemo44x wrote: post #153
fineIllregister wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unnatural You keep using that word, but you haven't explained what makes it unnatural. There are people who eat insects right now, and I'm willing to bet people have been eating insects as long as there have been people. It seems more "natural" to me than drinking another aninals lactations. I don't want to eat insects, but you've offered no explanation why it is insufficient to list the ingredients (which is alrea…

I’m referring to lab grown meat as unnatural. Insects are just plain gross to me. Although they are natural. But shouldn’t be called “flour”. It’s not.

> But shouldn’t be called “flour”. It’s not.

the definition of flour is "ground substances," see also bone flour, fossilized flour, stone flour...

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

#233

Post by giraffe_lady »

lormayna wrote: post #229

I am Italian, so I can provide a bit of context to better understand this decision. The right-wing government won the election with few key promises: reject the immigrants coming by the sea with a naval block, a sort of victimhood against UE that want to "fight" Italian habits (like forcing us to eat worms instead of pasta), and penalize Italian companies (like force Italy to liberalize sectors like taxi licenses or…

Sorry which wing?

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

#234

Post by lormayna »

kfk wrote: post #34

I 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…

> also help and financial support from US and EU

Poland had and still having an huge financial support from UE as well.

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

#235

Post by goldfeld »

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.

[flagged]

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

#236

Post by zpeti »

9dev wrote: post #132
zpeti wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but Italy produces some of my favourite foods, I find it ridiculous to call this a doomed industry. Italy has basically developed some of the best foods for humanity through hundreds of years of craftsmanship, from parmesan to mozarella to pasta, or crudo ham. If anything this should be protected just from a heritage perspective, like you protect an ancient castle or temple. This might mean that food is mor…

> We don't have to burn everything good and old to the ground to make way for tech bros of HN creating fake meat. No. But maybe we can become a species smart enough to avoid the suffering of other beings just for the joy of eating something that tastes nice.

Can you please explain this to the lions of the sahara? They relish the suffering of other species for the joy of things that taste nice.

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

#237

Post by kodah »

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, NIMBYs are populists as well. Populism doesn't have a favored side of the spectrum.

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

#238

Post by bratbag »

eimrine wrote: post #170
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 t…

How is allowing it, forcing you?

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

#239

Post by illiarian »

blululu wrote: post #215
illiarian wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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... > T…

This is a total false equivalence. Crossing two apples falls within the same neighborhood. Crisper blasts it to another continent. There is a reason you don’t need to harden classic seeds produced from fruit for 6+ generations. This is like comparing a jetliner to a bicycle. Sure they both travel - great. same thing, same speed limits, same regulations. As for GMO’s letting us forgo pesticides? When is that going to…

> This is a total false equivalence. Crossing two apples falls within the same neighborhood. Crisper blasts it to another continent.

Of course it doesn't. There's a reason I picked corn specifically. Because it's such a mutant, scientists still struggle to unravel all the mixed stff that eneded up there.

And, of course, none of the stuff you eat would ever evolve naturally in nature.

> As for GMO’s letting us forgo pesticides? When is that going to happen?

I didn't said forego entirely.

Some studies suggest that even with the very few crops that are allowed to be modified, farmers already use less pesticides: https://allianceforscience.org/blog/2020/07/new-study-gmo-cr...

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

#240

Post by illiarian »

golemotron wrote: post #221
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…

> For some reason we demand significantly stricter controls over anything "lab-grown" than on anything "natural". The reason is simple. We haven't co-evolved with lab-grown food for several billion years, or had transmitted cultural experience with it for tens of thousands of years. The recent discovery that artificial sweeteners have unforeseen health effects (hyper-clotting / glucose intolerance) should point out t…

> We haven't co-evolved with lab-grown food for several billion years, or had transmitted cultural experience with it for tens of thousands of years.

Trust me, you haven't co-evolved with a single plant you pick up at the supermarket today.

None of the hybrids you eat evolved naturally.

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