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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

#251

Post by kmlx »

goldfeld wrote: post #235
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]

> Why not stuff our stomachs with even more lab stuff?

more? everything is genetically modified in order to support the current (and future) population levels: https://www.fda.gov/food/agricultural-biotechnology/gmo-crop...

and crops themselves have been selectively grown for the past 30 000 years: https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/crops_evol...

> I say, good for Italy and France's children that those peoples have any conscience at all

it's run of the mill populism, not conscience. there is no conscience in denying science.

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

#252

Post by kmlx »

Kalium wrote: post #249
goldfeld wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b... Given that this is also current news, I think that might cast this in a slightly different light. Much of the heritage is modern myth-making, rather than centuries-old recipes known only to a handful of families. The feeling of heritage is real, but the history invented. It seems to be national identity and the politics of nationalism in a food-based dis…

that's a great article.

> Everything I, an Italian, thought I knew about Italian food is wrong

> From panettone to tiramisu, many ‘classics’ are in fact recent inventions, as Alberto Grandi has shown

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

#253

Post by samtho »

goldfeld wrote: post #235
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]

> Yes, just as ridiculous as anyone who would have been against the 80s push to take fat out of dairy and pour in the lab sugar!

> Why not stuff our stomachs with even more lab stuff? Why not, in any case reducing actual meat consumptions is an atrocious regulatory suggestion, the robofairrmingoverlords can do whatever with the urban sheep in america.

Your argument is nothing more than the Naturalistic Fallacy. In a single broad stroke, you've implied that everything lab-made or somehow engineered is bad because it is unnatural. We are able to feed large population due in large part to fertilizers we have developed and GMO (i.e. selective breeding, but faster) crops and we have developed vaccines that have all but eradicated Smallpox and Polio off the face the earth. Yet you cite as evidence the obvious issues with the fat/sugar balance of foods in the 80s, which has been largely attributed to the sugar cane lobby, as "human-made = bad" going as far to claim a wild conspiracy.

This is not skepticism - this is FUD.

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

#254

Post by paxys »

goldfeld wrote: post #235
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]

I assume you'll also be in favor of banning all medication then? Or is "lab stuff" only bad when there is paid propaganda against it?

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

#255

Post by orangepurple »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #223
stametseater wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is termed "populist" when it enacts something counter to a deeply unpopular progressive agenda, such as replacing Italian food with bugs and lab-grown abominations.

To me it seems to be when it's irrational reactionary overreach. If it's deeply unpopular why is it so threatening and why does it need to be banned before it even becomes a real thing? Won't the market quickly show that "bugs and lab-grown abominations" can't stand?

You seem to forget that brainwashing and propaganda are a thing

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

#256

Post by goldfeld »

Kalium wrote: post #249
goldfeld wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

https://www.ft.com/content/6ac009d5-dbfd-4a86-839e-28bb44b2b... Given that this is also current news, I think that might cast this in a slightly different light. Much of the heritage is modern myth-making, rather than centuries-old recipes known only to a handful of families. The feeling of heritage is real, but the history invented. It seems to be national identity and the politics of nationalism in a food-based dis…

It's true that it is always about politics, and lately, populism, all over the world (not that I feel too bad about some leftist populism being able to outvote fascists, as in my country of late, the weapons race of voting almost require a degree of over-appealing to win, since even middle classes are so brain-poor today).

Still, the population can have true feelings, if not the politicians, and they have to find the cold hearted suits who will defend their interest, for whatever distorted motives the suits might accrue, so it's a question of ends, not means, sadly. We're on a post-morality world who gives a shitty shit about some classical philosophu unless a youtuber can explain it in under three minutes. After all, maybe AI citizens will be more civic minded, ahem.

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

#257

Post by kmlx »

lm28469 wrote: post #68
9dev wrote: post #46

Earlier 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 know it's hard to believe for a lot of people on HN but not every country wants to become yet another soulless cog of the globalized world

are you referring to Italy? a country where producers sell products all around the planet? where immigrants are almost 10% of the population? whose economy is tightly integrated into the globalised world?

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

#258

Post by whateveracct »

Imagine a hypothetical world where lab-grown meat and real meat taste the same and cost the same (externalities and animal cruelty accounted for)

Which is better? On the one hand, there is no death and killing with lab grown meat. On the other hand, there is less life as well. Is it better for all those cows and chickens to never live at all than live and be killed for food? I'm not sure.

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

#259

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

orangepurple wrote: post #255
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me it seems to be when it's irrational reactionary overreach. If it's deeply unpopular why is it so threatening and why does it need to be banned before it even becomes a real thing? Won't the market quickly show that "bugs and lab-grown abominations" can't stand?

You seem to forget that brainwashing and propaganda are a thing

I didn't forget that. Isn't that another strike against populism? Or is the idea here that the change in diet will still succeed due to nefarious brainwashing, implying that the majority of the people will succumb, but that this is contrary to the REAL will of the people? The will of the majority of the people should be listened to now because they are clearly not brainwashed when they have an idea I agree with, but will be at some indeterminate point in the future when it's something I don't like?

That seems ideologically inconsistent but terribly convenient.

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

#260

Post by goldfeld »

andsoitis wrote: post #204
pella wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This feels like a GPT comment, but I’ll bite: > 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 Why?

"important to ensure", "complex array", I've been working with GPT a lot and this GPT-speak is so blatantly weasel worded. Maybe GPT doesn't know any better because the world is so weasel worded into being, with trendspeak and buzzfeeding, poor thing.
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