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

bbc.co.uk

381–390 of 474 posts

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

#381

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Netherlands. Very dense cities surrounded by farm land. One of my friends is an engineer for food manufacturing equipment. Another for payment processing, and another as a bike mechanic, and another builds gaming rigs (think sim rigs). I don’t think I know anyone who works in tourism.

are there really hours worth of travel in the netherlands? or perhaps you meant travel by bike

> are there really hours worth of travel in the netherlands?

By car, yeah. By bike? You're crazy -- but totally doable.

If you wanted to hit all the major population centers (Maastricht, Nijmegen, Enschede, Groningen, Amsterdam, Den Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Eindhoven), you'd be driving for about 10-12 hours ... with lots of boring farmland in between.

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

#382
post #348

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Food is tasty and no amount of your religious preaching is going to change that.

No, I know that. A steak is one of the most delicious things I've ever eaten, for sure. But I still have self control, I don't have do do anything that feels good. I just don't want something sentient to die for my dinner, that's all it is.

Then you do you. I am not convinced that an animal killed for food is morally wrong, and I will continue to eat some meat, in moderation, and enjoy when people in my family hunt and fish and eat the things they get. I don't think we have to treat animals as equals to people.

That is all completely tangential to this atrocious law from an actually fascist government however. Banning animal-less meat is stupid, backwards, does nothing to protect the meat industry, and they shouldn't be artificially protected anyway. If animal-free meat companies can sell me a tasty steak for slightly cheaper then I will 100% purchase it and enjoy it, but I will likely still not be in favor of banning animal farming.

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

#383

As an Italian, I can tell you this is just a move to grab some votes from their supporters. Lab meat is nowhere close to mass production so there is no real impact of this ban right now. When (and if) lab-grown meat becomes commonplace and, hence, cheaper than regular meat then the ban will be reverted as it would have negative implications on the country economy.

I'm not saying this ban is right or not, but if you're gonna ban something, doesn't it make sense to do it as early as possible, in order to minimize the negative effects from the ban itself? If alcohol was to be banned today, we'll probably see protests and black markets appearing very quickly. But if alcohol was just invented yesterday and today a ban is implemented, the reaction would be much smaller. In that view…

If the ban itself is stupid, there is no justification or argument for banning it ASAP

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

#384
post #104
post #88

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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.

Omega fatty acids profiles of leafs and grains are entirely different. That ratio directly translates into the composition of cellular membranes of cows and eventually humans who eat them. Plus there are very different vitamin composition and even amino acids ratios are different.

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

#385

As an Italian, I can tell you this is just a move to grab some votes from their supporters. Lab meat is nowhere close to mass production so there is no real impact of this ban right now. When (and if) lab-grown meat becomes commonplace and, hence, cheaper than regular meat then the ban will be reverted as it would have negative implications on the country economy.

Lab grown red meat is actually closer than you think. Factories are being set up around the world. My guess is that in around a year, two years tops, you'd be able to see some general availability.

Yeah and I can get impossible burgers at every store and burger king, but are they competitive with regular meat? I would say no, and the companies are struggling.

I think the majority of people won't buy animal-free meat unless it is both tastier and cheaper than beef. Most people care about animals but not enough to commit to blowing out their budget.

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

#386
post #29

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Yeah, allowing Monsanto or other seed tyrants to operate with impunity is not indicative of protecting "food heritage." This is just another example of an old but still powerful industry attacking what it perceives as a threat. The same sort of thing happened to absinthe in France, and that campaign was so successful absinthe became taboo for over a century.

GMO banning is another example of protectionism masquerading as something else. The demonization of Monsanto is diagnostic of the derangement/dishonesty.

GMOs are awesome but monsanto is still a garbage company, just for literally everything else they do that isn't food and plant science.

I also think patents on plants and seeds are morally wrong and unjustified so that is an input to my opinion.

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

#387

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[flagged]

There is if no threat exists. Then it just becomes a ridiculous performance to suck in the gullible.

> no threat exists.

Because sensible Italian politicians with popular support nip the problem in the bud. Being proactive is generally considered a good thing

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

#388

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"Blood libel?" What in the actual f**? Well, if you're going to be antisemitic, then we're done here. Maybe consider getting some help.

I'm being the opposite of antisemitic. Perhaps you could cry "Godwin" and make sense.

Comparing people being fooled by propaganda to "Blood libel" is atrocious and just as stupid, hollow, and heartless as the american conservatives who said not being able to get a haircut during the pandemic was comparable to the holocaust.

Get a fucking break man. You can educate people that GMOs aren't on their own a danger and that there is a lot of misinformation about these things without being a miserable asshole.

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

#389

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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…

> there are a lot of things that make your life better at the expense of society has a whole There's no better example of this than the discussion on health insurance here on HN a few days ago, where people with health insurance were opposing universal healthcare because they'd have to "compete with the general public for treatment access". How do you fight it though? There's no incentive for anyone to willingly choo…

> How do you fight it though?

Elect whichever "populist" politician offends the progressive reformers the most.

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

#390

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That depends. If you live in Iowa, or Kansas there is a high chance your EV is charged entirely from wind power. Both states are exporting to other nearby states (which are also building more wind). Texas also has a lot of wind generation (more than the above two combined), but their population is larger so overall it comes out to less. CA has a lot of solar power (more deserts should), though I'm not sure how much.…

Im confused, every one is telling me I am wrong and downvoting me, but saying different things. Am I wrong because even if you charge the batteries with power that comes from nonrenewable energy, its still more efficient, and in that becomes different from nonrenewable power? Am I wrong because, in the U.S., its about 50/50 renewable/nonrenewable so the claim that your likely to charge your battery with nonrenewable…

> Am I wrong because even if you charge the batteries with power that comes from nonrenewable energy, its still more efficient, and in that becomes different from nonrenewable power?

this is an it depends.

The best combined cycle power plants are more efficient - even accounting for transmissions losses than an ICE. However there are a few power plants that are less efficient.

Coal is about equal efficiency to a ICE in the ideal cases for both. Running an ICE at ideal efficiency is unlikely though, while they manage coal to put close to ideal, though after transmission losses the difference isn't so great if you are doing highway driving (but city driving is vastly worse).

The worst case power plants are worse then city driving in an ICE. These power plants are typically mothballed, but they when there is an emergency. They are generally only used every 5 years, but they are a part of every power utilities emergency plans. As power demand goes up power gets less efficient in general, so Christmas season is going to be less efficient.

> Am I wrong because, in the U.S., its about 50/50 renewable/nonrenewable so the claim that your likely to charge your battery with nonrenewable energy is laughable?

This is wrong. US generation is about 20% renewable (as of last year) overall. Some areas have far more renewable than others (my utility claims >80% wind for me in marketing, but I cannot find and source that can be scientifically claimed). Some areas have far less. You may also count nuclear power as green even though it isn't renewable.

Most energy comes from non-renewables for sure. However that is overall and so your specific situation may be different.

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