Italy's minister of agriculture explains the decision: "With the law approved today, Italy is the first nation in the world to be safe from the social and economic risks of synthetic food." The OP adds that the new law "also prohibits the use of meat-related terms, like 'salami' or 'steak', for plant-based meat substitutes."
The unintended consequence of the new law is to ensure that Italy 100% misses out on the many promising social, economic, and environmental benefits of a transition to lab-based meats. The new law strikes me as very shortsighted. I hope Italy eventually comes to its senses and repeals it.
I think there are two things to consider here. One is a question: is Italy a player in this field and do they have research companies that have a vested interest in this? I don't know the answer to that question, but if they don't have much to lose in the short term it probably doesn't represent much of a lost opportunity.
Besides, it's Italy. It is about as politically stable as a jenga tower where all the easy pieces have already been removed. I'm not sure how robust such a ban might be if economic interests were to change.
The other is an observation: Italy has a lot of high value PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) products. Compare countries like Italy and France, which have many PDO products, to, for instance, the US, which has extremely few.
Of course, I haven't made a systematic study to map out how many PDO products countries have and cross-referenced that to how skeptical they are towards cultivated meat products, but it would surprise me if there was no correlation. This represents a guess on my part.
IMO Italy has lots of high value origin stuff because they value and care about tradition and realness and so on.
Go to Italy and you'll see real stonework. If you want to find a micrometer layer of gold on top of plastic, or not much more marble on top of concrete, then go do Saudi or UAE. Not Italy. The stone you find there is real, and so's the porchetta. So they get PDO designation for the stuff they care about, and abhor makebelieve alternatives for the same reason that they value the real porchetta.
I used to think the outrage Italians show when you mess with Italian dishes on Youtube was exaggerated. Then I worked with a couple of Italians from the north of Italy. Oh boy do they take food in general, and their national cuisine in particular, seriously :-)
The food I get in Italy is on average substantially better than the one I get in Vancouver, so that protection of food has some serious value.
when I arrived in Canada, I asked what is a canadian dish and I've been told poutine, nothing else. I was shocked, in Italy I can't count all traditional dishes, let alone know all of them
(I'm of Italian origin).
That being said, banning food is not a good idea, but I can see also a rationale for banning it. We'll see how it goes
Banning food is common enough practice. You may have heard the story about European eggs being banned in the US because they fall short of the hygienic requirements, while US eggs are banned in Europe because they fall short of the hygienic requirements? The story is true.
Much else too. You can't import "prosciutto di parma" into Italy, it's banned.
(Well, technically I suppose you could export the legal stuff and then reimport it.)
The unintended consequence of the new law is to ensure that Italy 100% misses out on the many promising social, economic, and environmental benefits of a transition to synthetic and plant-based food.
I'm glad I missed all the benefits of introduction of margarine because they couldn't use the word "butter" on packaging.
But it is exactly the same thing!? Labeling margarine as butter would be misrepresenting what it is just like labeling whatever meat replacement they have as salami would be wrong.
Funniest thing is that since I strongly dislike salami, you would never see me buying the "fake" if it is supposed to be anything like the real thing. But I'm might be tempted by an alternative product that they may call whatever they want.
The thing with the meat replacement stuff is that they want to cheat on naming to get people to "try" by mistake. But in reality, what prevents their adoption is that they are not very good (when it's not just outright nasty) on top of being extremely expensive. I really don't understand how they want people to switch to those stuff when they are not competitively priced when you adjust for nutrition per $ without even talking about taste. Either greed is unreal in this sector or the production of those things is actually a less efficient process than eating animals and the ecological argument is moot.
According to this article, this law bans "cultivated meat" which is cultured from animal-derived cells, and it bans labelling of plant-based products with names that use common meat products like "steak" or "salami".
The law does not ban plant-based meat-like alternatives. Italy will probably continue to increase its consumption of these products, and they'll just have to use names that aren't traditionally used in the meat industry in Italy.
they'll just have to use names that aren't traditionally used in the meat industry
and that's how it should be. because the alternative is confusing. as someone who also enjoys vegetarian food i really want to be clear if something is actually including meat or not without having to study the fine print.
I really wish we'd resist the trend to trying to create imitations of meat dishes hear and calling them "vegan" X. Vegetables, and even vegan meals, can be amazing on their own. They often become awful and disgusting when made to play dress-up as meat.
I mean, look at cuisine in India. The veg dishes, even the dairy-free dishes, are amazing without ever trying to turn them into meat-impostors. I say all of this as someone who loves a good steak. If you're going to serve me a veg dish, just serve me a veg dish. I can handle it.
These “meat-impostors” are popular with vegans who liked taste of meat and miss it. Turns out there are quite few of these. It might be stupid from point of view of non-vegans. The products might even be unlheathly but it doesnt matter. Hard to put this against them.
If plant-based foods are so good then sell them as so. Don't sell them as $adjective meat. If your whole business idea is based on misleading customers, perhaps it's not that good.
I’m French so I’m extremely in favor of naming things correctly. For example I’m cringing hard when I see Americans not understanding what the big deal is with « Champagne » vs « sparkling wine ».
However I think it makes sense to name new things based on what they look or feel like, as long as an adjective is there to clear any ambiguity.
For example no one has an issue with coconut milk, although it’s not milk? In my opinion if an almond milk is labeled as just « milk », yeah that’s a problem, it’s deceptive. If it’s labeled as « almond milk », seems pretty clear to me? Same for « vegetal steak » or « chickpea sausage » or whatever. Or even « turkey bacon » to stay in the meat products.
Some of these rulings are just out of spite, and not to protect consumers, and it’s not really a good thing.
See, this is deceptive because Champagne is more like a brand, not a type of product. The type of product is « sparkling wine », « méthode champenoise » or « méthode traditionnelle ». Using Champagne in the name is lying.
« Steak » is not a brand, neither is « milk » or « sausage ».
Another example would be « California Kobe steak », it doesn’t exist. « California wagyu » sure, go for it, but not Kobe.
Yeah, but because Champagne is such a success it's now the synonym for all sparkling wines. Mind you, I do use proper wording, I just don't understand what the fuss is all about.
The fuss is that if you call everything champagne, then champagne doesn’t exist anymore. It becomes impossible to know if you get the real stuff or not. This is very anti-consumer.
That’s not just a problem with « made in China » copycats, the US is a big offender too in this regard. I’d hate to be a consumer in the US because there’s no way to be sure about what you buy.
It is protectionism indeed, but not only. There’s 2 ways using the correct term is a good thing:
- first for the consumer. If everything is named « champagne », it stops existing. It means there’s no way to know if you’re getting champagne or a sparkling wine from somewhere else. As a consumer I want to know what I’m getting. Sparkling wine made with a soda stream is not champagne, yet it seems you would be enclined to allow it. It’s like a brand or a trademark, you can’t use the name « Channel » or « Microsoft », same thing goes for food products.
- for the producers, they have to follow strict rules to label their wine as Champagne, and they’re proud of their product. Would you add Picasso’s signature on a painting made in his style and expect it to be okay?
This industry is new and seemingly needs a little deception at first to get people to adopt their products faster. Time will solve this one, people will find an identifier that they like and in this case it won’t be Italian since they won’t be enjoying these for now.
The world doesn't have to be homogenous and probably shouldn't be. Nations have "brands" that mean something to their people and that have outsized economic value in trade. Further, heterogenous approaches to new technology is a powerful way for the human species to hedge its bets against unknowable long-term risks.
Italy can spend the next N decades branding themselves as the place to look for quality traditional meats that convey millennia of culinary heritage and husbandry practice and almost certainly come out far ahead economically vs rushing to void that implicit value in favor of factory-grown synthetic meats shipped in from some distant country.
And then, if the tides have turned after those N decades, they can consider hopping on the bandwagon then.
For a small nation with a strong and valuable brand for culinary goods, there's very very little to lose in this strategy. Excepting those peers that have a mature industrial stake in synthetic meats, you can expect to see similar discussions in France and elsewhere.
Why does that require a law? Why can't Italian companies that want to brand themselves as everything you're saying? Then if the tides have turned, Italian companies aren't prevented from swimming with them.
How do they miss out on the benefits? This reads as if you still can sell plant-based food, just not name it with typical meat-names. And considering how strong the food-culture (& and industry) in Italy is today, this is kinda understandable. For the loud voices, this is part of their identity at the moment.
Also, isn't Italian food already very focused on plants? So the benefit are probably far less than in the more unhealthy country anyway.
Yes, and they also outlawed using "meat-names" for meat-replacements. I just don't see how this will have a 100% lose on the benefits of plant-based food. Maybe it does influence the market, maybe not. But the plant-based food is till there. The loose will not be 100%
What they they lose out 100% at the moment is on artificial animal-meat. But I also don't see where those have actual benefits at the moment. Availability on market is zero to none at the moment, and how much impact this will really have on climate and environment is still unknown at this point.
While the western world is getting angry about change, China is out eating our lunch by moving into all these emerging technologies. I wouldn't be surprised if there's a conscious effort to push conservative extremism in western countries for this exact reason.
If I just look around in my country, new electric cars are quickly becoming mostly Chinese and most solar panels are Chinese. Meanwhile, a very large group just voted for a party that wants to stop pretty much every investment in renewables, while also pushing out migrants in an already very tight and quickly aging labor market.
In the long term, our own bigotry and climate denialism is going to severely bite us in the ass. Especially since we're already barely above sea level.
> Meanwhile, a very large group just voted for a party that wants to stop pretty much every investment in renewables, while also pushing out migrants in an already very tight and quickly aging labor market.
So, Netherlands, then?
> barely above sea level
Sounds like it.
From an American (sigh) living in the UK (sigh), you have my deepest sympathies.
Yes, but Italy is a parliamentary republic, the president has only a ceremonial/ guarantee role. Governments/parliaments last much less, maximum 5 years, but often way less
As an Italian, I despise them as any other reasonable person.
But this decision is not unreasonable.
Let the World eat it so we can gather data. We are Italians, we've never been early adopters of anything coming from outside our borders.
Especially food wise and except mobile phones.
It is also not unreasonable to label things for what they really are.
Almond juice is not milk as in "the white liquid food produced by the mammary glands of mammals" and plant based meat substitutes are not a steak or a burger, they are vegetable patties.
that's because you're talking about English, In Italian it absolutely is, we do not call them burgers but hamburger which means a patty of meat between two slices of bread or in a sliced bun. Or just the patty of meat. But being made of meat is the most important part.
in the original story of Amrita there was a sea of real milk involved.
> plant saps called "milk"
like coconut milk or oat milk of course. That doesn't mean it's not juice and that the name stayed for historical reasons. And because they actually look like milk. Almond juice doesn't look like milk, unless processed. That's why I mentioned almond milk in the first place.
I thought Italy was responsible for introducing the rest of Europe to all sorts of goods coming across the silk road for the first time. Italy was the most important center of trade in Europe for a long time.
Imagine having a traditional Bologna prosciutto crudo made from plant
it's not prosciutto crudo, it's a vegetable thing.
I agree with this ban that meat terms should be used for meat and not vegan alternatives. And as others pointed out, Italy is not only known for pizza, pasta and their wines, their meat is also protected in the same way their wine is. This has a side-effect of ensuring the traditional meat products will remain meat-based.
I'll take the bait. It's not so surprising to see "reactionary" politics when social 'progress' continues to become more and more demented. But I'll admit, fake meat is not even present on my list of problems.
Protect the local meat industry? Salami, Soppresata, Prosciutto, Pepperoni; damn left with their synthetic meat trying to poison us and destroy us economically
“Meat production accounts for 57 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions of the entire food production industry. It also results in widespread deforestation and loss of biodiversity, and each of these means that it significantly contributes to climate change.”
Now can you elaborate on how/why is lab-produced synthetic food based on plants better for our organism? won't they qualify as ultra-processed products, so you're pretty much trading your health for protecting the environment?
Ignoring that cultivated meats should be generally indistinguishable from their host, there are many ways that cultivated meats will be better for humanity
Animals tend to be parasitic hosts, which is where lots of our cooking temperature guidelines come from
Animal / human viral crossovers can make more deadly virus variants, so reducing that exposure is probably better for us
Cultivated meats should ultimately result in lower emissions, so if you’re anywhere near a coal fired plant, that will directly result in lower cancer rates
This should similarly have a positive impact on climate change
Funny thing is that you are much more likely to get food poisoning from salads than from anything else, including raw meat like you would find in a "tartare". But yes, cooking meat products at a certain temperature ensures safety because normally no bacteria should be able to survive those temperatures.
But at the same time, we also do it because it tastes better that way, it's pre-processed for digestion and we can come up with lots of creative ways to mix and match with other types of foods. Reducing it to a safety measure is extremely shortsighted.
In fact, I wish vegetable processing was held up to the same standard, because in the end you are much more likely to have trouble with this part of your food. If you have digestion problems, chances are it is most likely poorly processed beans/veggies or bacteria on raw veggies...
Foodborne parasites are not a major health problem in the developed world. A litany of ills stemming from ultra processed foods are. Your reply doesn't seem to have actually addressed the question raised in the previous comment.
Ultra-processed does not necessarily imply being unhealthy, and lab-grown meat isn't ultra-processed. Arguably, it is less processed than farm-grown meat.
And it doesn't involve the extreme suffering of animals, a point not even raised yet, but far more important than your health.
The atmosphere is almost the best example of a commons that we have. If a reason for cultivated meat is greenhouse gas emissions, then Italy misses out on virtually none of the benefits by banning it.
Sorry but i have to call you out here, because the list of sources is huge and it is even common sense, that meat consumption requires more resources.
I think you urgently need to esacpe the bullshito sphere in which this is disputed. It is sickening to read such ad hoc bs on evident and pressing issues.
How can they be disputed? It's a fact clear as a day that deforestation in many places is caused by people making room for farmland… that don't produce food for people but fodder for livestock. And livestock has a calorie conversion efficiency much lower than unity. So you need to cut more forest to feed the same number of people. It can also scarcely be disputed that cattle produce large amounts of methane, enough that it's a significant factor in total greenhouse emissions.
There's also no disputing the fact that turning uncultivated land into monocultural farmland is a great cause of biodiversity loss – it's essentially the definition of farmland!
If you mean the claim that the beef, pork, poultry, eggs and milk represents a huge emissions footprint, then no. That's not in dispute and it isn't particularly hard to prove that by looking at how much of the agricultural output goes into producing these protein sources.
And that's _before_ you consider the emissions from raising cattle, swine or poultry.
It is also useful to consider the scale of these industries. In terms of biomass, livestock represents more than 30 times the biomass of land based wildlife. In terms of creatures living on land, our food completely dominates the planet.
And if you wonder: I eat meat (in moderation) and I plan to continue doing so as part of a healthy, balanced diet. But that doesn't mean I'm unaware of the environmental cost of what I eat. If we're going to keep eating animal proteins we can't ignore this as the global population grows, and even more importantly, as more and more of the global population is moving up the wealth ladder (see Hans Rosling's talks and how the global population is moving out of the lower income categories).
Are you projecting your own need to have others think you are good? I can assure you I have no need to make strangers think I'm good.
The point I was making was that it is possible to know, and acknowledge, that you are doing something that has negative impact without having to deny reality. I don't think anything is gained by departing from what observed reality tells us and turning the discussion into a moral discussion. When something becomes a moral discussion it stops being about solving problems and it becomes a spectacle where assholes unashamedly pleasure themselves in public and expect applause. It solves nothing.
Not OP, but I think the effects of modern meat production are well known.
Especially when we apply higher standards on how to take care of farm animals, there's simply not enough room to fulfill "the meat needs" of an ever-growing population in the world.
On the other hand, plants are fine with being stacked and raised by artificial light sources and finely setup nutrient solutions and whatnot. So by changing our food (production) chains to more plant-based, industrialized systems we can reduce the space needed for food production and also the economical and ecological impact.
> plants are fine with being stacked and raised by artificial light sources and finely setup nutrient solutions and whatnot
We also don't even need to do that to produce plenty of plant protein for the world population. Current farming output is way more than enough to sustain us all several times over: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
IMHO fake meat is less appealing than regular plant-based options.
But if you want people to eat less meat, people need to stop pushing for full-on veganism. Taking away cheese, milk, and eggs is just way too much for many people. Focus on 'less meat, more veg' and you may have a more palatable message.
So lower quality than real meat, and higher cost? I only took economics yesterday, but wouldn't that be a net negative on those who go to sleep hungry(children) since costs are higher and a decline in demand for animal meat.
Costs are multitudes higher for synthetic meat right now. Some of these decision on paper may sound good, but ultimately will people be able to afford it with all of the environmentally friendly and sustainable boxes checked was my point.
Do you like the taste of fake meat?
> The unintended consequence of the new law is to ensure that Italy 100% misses out on the many promising social, economic, and environmental benefits of a transition to synthetic and plant-based food. The new law strikes me as very shortsighted.
Not sure how truthfully labelling products would mean all that. I think the consumer is smart enough to make choices for themselves, and the language of food labels only benefits, not harms, that.
Well, they appear to actually be banning the products. I personally have zero problem if they don't want the products to be labeled similarly to the "real" versions. There are already a ton of regulations in Europe about how food products are labeled.
Can you elaborate or is the first word just extra weight? Please no offense, it's an honest question: I find very interesting how most people, when they want to get a debatable point across, almost always throw exactly 3 profound and all-encompassing adjectives (rarely 2, 4 or 5).
Even ChatGPT has noticed the pattern and picks up this style. But if you break the sentences down, very often realize that 1 or even 2 of such adjectives are fillers.
>The unintended consequence of the new law is to ensure that Italy 100% misses out on the many promising social, economic, and environmental benefits of a transition to synthetic and plant-based food. The new law strikes me as very shortsighted.
Whatever they are doing with food laws in Italy, I am 100% ok with it. There's a reason why anything imported is strictly superior to the US made version. They are dead serious when it comes to quality and purity, and I appreciate that greatly.
It's not shortsighted. It's just a decision driven by some Italian lobbies (meat industry), scared about this innovation where they feel threatened. For the same reason they managed to forbid the use of some Italian meat-words applied to plant-based meat.
Or they don’t want to be a Guinea pig for something that (currently) has higher environmental impact than conventional meat[0].
I’ve less concern for the naming bans, however as someone allergic to soy, like when it’s stated up front. I’m not sure how forcing packaging of plant based goods to not use meaty words affects anyone negatively.
> The unintended consequence of the new law is to ensure that Italy 100% misses out on the many promising social, economic, and environmental benefits of a transition to synthetic and plant-based food.
Feel free to go ahead and test lab grown meat on yourself and report back in 30 years. Plastic was once considered safe, right? Smoking too?
Of course, we should all be drinking Soylent and eating pill-based food. Who cares about preserving a tradition of high-level cuisine that exists from time immemorial, when we can live like they did in bad science-fiction books from the 1960s or 1970s instead.
Europe has more stringent food safety requirements than the US...so yes, at least some of the laws are in place for safety reasons.
And who says protecting domestic food sovereignty is a bad thing?
My family is 3 generations of living in plantation housing...on stolen land in Hawaii. A big part of how colonialism works is controlling "the essentials". Food production, water, land rights, information, martial force, etc
It seems like the claim is there is some large consumer demand for these foodish items. If there is, then we can expect a huge black market for these foodish products to emerge in Italy. Policía de Italia better get ready for the deluge...Expect Mama Mia to throw away her heirloom cookbooks for the new meatish craze that's about to sweep through Italy.
The soylent Don will be the most powerful man in the country I tell you...Actually, that could be the real reason behind the ban on the foodish the Italians so desperately crave. Soylent Don wants to corner the market? Your multi-national corporations better make Soylent Don an offer he can't refuse before this gets out of hand...
I'm not necessarily against protecting your local food market, I think there are compelling reasons both for and against it. What I am against is politicians being dishonest about their motivations for imposing laws. If they want to protect your local farmers, they should say so. If the real reason is to protect local farmers, so amount of evidence regarding the safety will be convincing, because it was never about safety. This kind of behavior is detrimental to the public discourse.
I've never claimed there is a large demand, merely that those who wish to consume it should be allowed to, as long as there are no negative effects to the individual or society as a whole of course.
The vast majority of Italian culinary tradition stems from the late 19th century or after that. Dishes like carbonara are from the 50s. Pizza as we know it is from the US and was reintroduced to italy by American soldiers. Italians ate rice and beans, same as everyone else, before the
You are talking about a part of the world that literally has caves with paintings of early humans hunting animals for food. There are a lot of regions in this part of the world where the landscape has been completely shaped centuries of animal husbandry. There are stories centuries old about wolves decimating herds.
Coffee was found by a goat shepherd because his animals couldn't sleep after eating the coffee beans.
You are completely delusional about the story of food in the world. People can rely more on cereal/bean farming because of advancement in agriculture, mostly after the industrial revolution. Because before the invention of the tractor, much of farming was actually reliant on, you guess it, animals (horses, cows, donkeys, etc.).
The thing is that animals were mostly reserved for the richer and the poor would die much earlier, very often from malnourishment/undernourishment from all the physical work they had to.
You guys are fanatics, ready to throw away centuries of Europe history just to "be right". It's pure insanity.
You're a not forced to eat or do anything. That's the same argument religious people have against abortions, even though no one is forcing you to have one.
> That's the same argument religious people have against abortions
No, That's the same argument religious people have about dietary restrictions.
In Italy food is a religion.
If Jews can have Kashrut and Muslims can only eat halal food (basically everything, except pork and its by-products), we can say no to lab grown food.
Why not?
Is it really progress to blindly accept everything, even if it could mean to completely hijack your own cultural traditions, that are such an important part of everyone's daily life?
No Jew ever died by eating non-kosher food. It's just a cultural tradition. Nonetheless we respect them, at least I do.
Well Israel doesn't ban unkosher food and _many_ Muslim countries don't ban non-halal food. I think most people would say that the countries that do ban food at a state level are pretty authoritarian.
Individuals that that follow Judaism and Islam _choose_ to limit their _personal_ diets. It's not forced upon them by the state (mostly?). To follow your analogy, you and the rest of Italy can say no to lab grown food, nothing is stopping you from not buying lab grown food.
On this specific topic though, I think banning lab grown meat could be done in a _somewhat_ reasonable way, they just went about it the wrong way. They could have just said they are worried about safety, jobs done.
Bringing in farmers, their livelihoods and tradition seems unnecessarily inflammatory.
> If Jews can have Kashrut and Muslims can only eat halal food (basically everything, except pork and its by-products), we can say no to lab grown food.
As an agnostic person who believes church and state should be very separate, you make the perfect argument for why I think this law is stupid. If you don't want to drink alcohol, smoke, eat pork or lab grown meat, go ahead. But don't force others into your religious ways of doing through restrictive laws. Just don't buy that stuff at the grocery store.
As an Italian from Rome, I am not only an atheist, but I'm deeply fond of the Roman Republic constitution that predates the Italian Constitution against the pope and the Vatican ruling over the people of Rome.
nevertheless food is like a religion for Italians
And religious and non religious people treat it like that.
we constantly talk about it, to the point that sometimes even I am sick of it.
you may be forced to eat the synthetic food when it is the only kind of meat you can afford after most meat producers switched to the a production chain that produces synthetic meat for higher profit.
Time will tell if synthetic meat substitutes take off, if that's technically feasible and well received by consumers, but I welcome the possibility of looking beyond what red meat mass producing monopolies impose us.
The discussion of cheap, non nutritious food can take place pretty much anywhere today, sugary drinks, fast food, boutique organics with high markup values, labor, etc. but that's a matter of economics, whereas the move in Italy, although reasonable for their economy, is impacting a much earlier phase: R&D and P&D.
Considering a lot of the nutrition in meat products comes from the fact that animals go around in the world collecting valuable nutriments for us to consume in easy to obtain and concentrated form; I very much doubt any synthetic meat will have success. Unless it is half the price and just use it as filler with supplements. Nothing like what we call meat in the end...
We're going to have to wait and see. Eletric cars didn't make much economic sense 30 years ago, but we've come a long way. Maybe in 20-30 years they might taste/have nutrients somewhat similarly and have a smaller environmental footprint, cheaper, etc. Call me optmistic.
Like our current food supply isn't highly processed already [0]... This law has nothing to do with preserving tradition. It has to do with populist right wing politics that ban anything new. High level cuisine will always exist, even when affordable alternatives arise.
Unless literally all headlines around this subject are incorrect (which wouldn't be the first time), Italy banned cultivated meat:
> Italian MPs have voted to back a law banning the production, sale or import of cultivated meat or animal feed
My Italian isn't good enough to actually judge whether this is a case of mistranslation or misinterpretation, so if you have any more nuanced quotes please provide some.
The Italians have largely voted for a party that vowed to protect their culture. Perhaps the resulting laws are shitty for you, but likely not for the majority of Italians.
In order to signal virtue, the thing in question has to be considered virtuous, by the mainstream media intelligencia and generally the opponents as well. You cannot appear virtuous if what you stand for is contrary to the mainstream opinion of how moral behavior is supposed to look like.
By deciding to give preference to history and the thing that is currently considered immoral (eating meat) they actually do the reverse of virtue signaling.
And yes, that is a pro free market move, because the only thing they say is: you can call your alternative product whatever you want and you may sell it as well, but do not try to confuse customers with historical naming that do not represent what your product is.
Vegans/vegetarians are in general for an outright ban of those products, so basically authoritarian fascist behavior; but as always, it's the most tolerant called on his behavior and somehow it is found problematic that it is forbidden to lie on products packaging...
This is a problem with many dimensions and few equilibrium points. Libertarianism and nationalism are certainly incompatible, but that doesn't mean everybody needs to make their mind an pick one. They can accept both as valid equilibria, and rally for a gradient-descent into the closest one according to local politics.
Right now we find ourselves far from any equilibrium points: just an awkward heavily polarized in-between. I hope we can find the next equilibrium without a global civil war.
PS: Not sure if "you guys" goes for me, I'm merely an observer. I'm not even Italian.
Hilarious to me how proponents of synthetic/plant-based food always seem to gloss over the cultural aspects of food. It's such a spreadsheet-brain way of looking at the world.
> The unintended consequence of the new law is to ensure that Italy 100% misses out on the many promising social, economic, and environmental benefits of a transition to synthetic and plant-based food. The new law strikes me as very shortsighted. I hope Italy eventually comes to its senses and repeals it.
They seem to be avoiding the "unintended consequences" of consuming synthetic food. Perhaps they are thinking on the timeline of lifetimes & generations?
I'm Italian, and unfortunately, we currently have shortsighted politicians. They seem clueless about their actions, and rather than promoting progress and research in various fields, they are attempting to halt time or, in some areas, even regress. They are a group of illiterate fascists who don't even understand how they attained their positions. The advent of cultivated meat doesn't mean that our Italian traditions will be eradicated in its favor. Both can coexist, allowing people to decide what's best for themselves and the planet. For instance, Italy has a ban on GMOs, yet our intensive farming practices involve feeding chickens and other animals imported GMOs daily. So, what's the point of this ban? It's mere propaganda with no scientific basis, and it's ruining our country.
Extra fun fact: Lollobrigida (Italy's minister of agriculture) holds his position as a Minister, solely because he is the husband of the Prime Minister's sister, and that's the extent of his qualifications.
I am Italian as well and this law is bullcrap to divert the public attention from real problems. But I am happy to let other, "more innovative" countries be the lab rat on this.
Or the Tom Scott equivalent of the 2300's will post a funny video about the weird historical reason why you can't buy your favourite rhino patty in Italy.
Eat exactly these seven plants in just the right ratios to get roughly the amino acids your body needs before crossing 2400 calories. No room for error.
I'll join you when we've bred twice the protein quality & quantity we currently have in our plants.
Until then, I'll save money with my factory supplements,thanks.
>Eat exactly these seven plants in just the right ratios to get roughly the amino acids your body needs before crossing 2400 calories. No room for error.
I don't know what you're talking about. I'm 37 y-o, I've been vegetarian for 5+ years with a plant-based mediterranean diet (plus some cheese and eggs). Doctors say my health is great, and I've never been in better form. I bike a lot these days, and run a ultramarathon once a year.
I've read a few books about nutrition and find it pretty easy to meet my needs without supplements (except B12, one every two years but I'm not vegan so I could probably do without). I just had to reduce my caffeine intake to a more reasonable level, so I can absorb enough iron naturally.
Yes, the additional carbs required by a vegetarian diet that seeks sufficient protein are probably not a problem for an endurance athlete. Whole food vegetarian is probably even an optimal choice for an endurance athlete.
Is endurance athletics a good recommendation for everyone? Sorry, you're talking to a hiker who worries about the cardiovascular risk of prolonged higher intensity hobbies.
At this point, we all should point to personalized diets. I'm vegetarian for many years now, yet I started to have iron deficiency. B12 is perfectly fine. My wife is also vegetarian, her B12 and iron are fine.
You should keep an eye on your b12/iron/protein/whatever levels, but each individual requires a different approach.
I like taste and good good. I'm French, cook a lot, and have several friends who are chefs.
But I also know that taste is, biologically, a result of evolution. Kind of a tool to help us go eat the things that are good for us nutritionally. What taste great in our modern life isn't what we actually need (quality- and quantity-wise).
We crave sugar and salt. I, like most, also like the melanoidins produced by Maillard reaction (that BBQ feeling…). But is it good? The more I learn, the more I reduce my sugar and salt intake. Idem for meat, although it isn't just for health reasons (hello CO2).
I can cook better now, and my food taste better now that I know it's healthier that way. I do care about my taste buds, but they surely won't control my diet.
That's not really a high bar, though; I've always thought that Chicken McNuggets taste like something you'd get out of a Star Trek-style food replicator programmed by an AI who has a lot of data on chicken meat but has never actually tasted chicken.
I still like them, don't get me wrong. Sometimes I want to eat a machine's dream of chicken. But they're somehow already pretty far from actual chicken, even though that's what they're mostly made of.
Of course it's not a high bar, but I think that's the point. People eat lots of food for the taste, not for the highest quality of ingredients.
So, if we'd just call them "nuggets" from the beginning on and would have given no implication of the material they are/have been made of, nobody would say anything right now.
Only when you start replacing the little low-quality chicken meat with something that was grown with less ecological impact, people go wild, although the final product tastes the same.
I partially agree with Italy's decision, at least to the naming of food.
You didn't eat chicken nuggets made out of rice. You ate deep-fried rice balls trying to simulate the taste of chicken nuggets, and they might have tasted similar to chicken nuggets, but that is an incredibly low bar to set in terms of taste (mostly spices) and texture (terrible).
The nutrient profile wouldn't have had nearly the amount of protein, vitamins or other nutrients an actual chicken nugget would have had, either.
On the other hand, chicken nuggets made out of rice explains exactly what they were eating and what the food might have tasted like and how it might have been cooked. You didn't explain what's wrong with that beyond it sounding funny to you.
Quorn makes chik'n nuggets made of mycoprotein with similar nutrients to a chicken nugget, but with the added benefit of fiber and less saturated fat.
Including chicken nuggets in the name is useful for the exact purpose of helping the consumer scratch their itch for a food with something that approximates that food. Maybe they care about animal ethics, maybe they're allergic to chicken, maybe they want to reduce saturated fat despite eating something that tastes 95% like a chicken nugget.
Requiring them to label it "fried mushroom protein" doesn't help anyone and seems to be coming from an emotional/reactionary place rather than a place of helping consumers.
Half the protein, the nutrient profile is completely different (because it's mushroom and not chicken). No B12.
Where you getting your facts from man? It takes me actual time to refute your bullshit, the least you could do is provide evidence yourself.
Finally, Quorn is not rice is it, which is the original argument, so stop moving the goalposts and argue my original point if that's what you want to argue. If not, then you are contributing nothing of value and wasting everyone's time.
Lets not pretend that McDonald's chicken nuggets are some natural unprocessed thing that humans have been eating for centuries. If I want a chicken mcnugget, I'm expecting a frankenfood. And if I can get them without needing to subject actual chickens to the horrors usually involved in factory farming, then so much the better.
To each his own. I don't like that at all, knowing what this taste is the result of.
As for spices: I do use spices and herbs, but not hot ones. The "piquant" ones tend to ruin your taste over time. Spices make a good trick but it's better to learn to cook with good good. Reducing meat from a diet can free so budget to buy what would otherwise be expensive ingredients. There are less popular than chicken nuggets but they are definitely more nutritious and more environment friendly.
I'm part of a local co-op (called AMAP in French) so it's easy for to get high quality, and very varied foods: we select a few farmers who will work all year round for the coop members, and they grow our vegetables and fruits (but also make wholegrain bread, eggs, etc). Most of my foods comes from these family farmers. It's 100% local (the farm is right outside the city), organic, cheaper than retail goods, freshly produced. Plants are usually harvested weekly, in the afternoon just for our evening distribution.
Economies of scale will be a significant hurdle. Id imagine that there would have to be countries producing at a massive scale for your hypothetical to become reality.
Is there any reason to believe this will happen or is it just pure hopium? Like what are the odds the new thing will be the same, cheaper, less cruel, and better for the environment?
We can't even make non-meat meat that's as cheap as meat and you didn't even have to grow or feed the cow.
I tried following the footnote to see where they got their numbers and the link is dead. I can’t find anybody that has numbers that look reliable for subsidies to the meat industry. Can anybody point me to some?
Yeah, you're right. I suppose I can charitably interpret that number as removing the subsidies that also assist other farmers, but that makes the number far less useful for comparison.
Switzerland and South Korea have exceptionally expensive beef prices, sometimes 300% > US prices, but I'm hesitant to bring them up. I suspect that's more attributable to the availability of farmland and food prices in general than to the absence of subsidy for meat production.
As for the same and less cruel, going by the marketing material on Upside Foods it looks like its probably about same and unless you consider growing cells in a vat torture its less cruel.
Have no idea about cost. I don't have much of an ethical problem with killing and eating humanely and sustainably raised and cared for animals for a reasonable degree of those things, factory farming and assembly line slaughterhouses are not that. Better for the environment seems a no brainer given the ecological costs of the amount of meat we eat. I can't imagine it will be the same as in no difference at all, or undetectable, maybe it will even always be more delicious, but I think it's reasonable to think that for lots and lots of dishes with meat in it, it would pass a blind taste test.
Raw steak, maybe not. Beef stew or chicken curry or a burger - def...
the same reason that coke is cheaper than water sometimes: Because in the long run it's better for a company to sell and addict you to cheaply made processed food
I don't think so, at least not if that timeframe overlaps with the current regime. This is something like an ID pol issue for the conservatives in power in Italy (and FL).
yeah sorry, just because some university researchers and VC backed silicon valley startups are into synthetic meat because they've crunched the numbers and think it'll make them billions and also tug at the collective guilt because of climate change, will not throw away thousands of years of human tradition.
Way to cap a nascent industry before it even finishes being born.
We have no idea what cultivated meat can taste like, how healthy it can be, and how cheap it can become. Right now there is a handful of research-based companies trying to make the thing, and none really succeeded at anything.
Factory farmed meat is cancer too. I'd say, save the animals, and give a little toxicity to all the proles who haven't gone unprocessed plant-based yet.
> Once cultivated meat is significantly cheaper [than real meat]?
Is there any real chance of that in the next, say, 100 years?
I would imagine the bio engineering that evolution arrived at for converting nutrients to meat+organs+bone is quite close to optimal for its purpose. If so, getting anywhere near, even if you get rid of the organs + bones*, would need a looooong time. Especially since you'd be converting cheap workers taking care of animals with bio-engineers tending meat vats in pretty good sterility.
*which anyway is probably not fully desirable if you expect the full taste of real meat
100 years is a very very long time. 100 years ago, a little over half of all homes in the US still didn’t have electricity. 100 years ago, around 2/3 of homes didn’t have a telephone.
I would absolutely take the bet that we would have cheaper cultivated meat within 100 years, barring an extinction level event…
When you look at steak in m-w, you might be surprised to learn that one of the definitions for steak is: a thick slice or piece of a non-meat food especially when prepared or served in the manner of a beef steak.
When was this entry added? Pretty sure they added this definition because they were pressured by vegan groups to include a non-meat definition. Steak is historically meat based, nothing will change that. A plant-based steak is not a steak.
Dictionaries add definitions based on common usage, and in common usage, « xxx steak » can definitely refer to a plant based steak. If I say « soy steak », you definitely know what it refers to, and it’s not ambiguous with « steak » alone.
Same with coconut milk, would you be confused with cow milk with some coconut bits in it? No.
I'm not sure looking at the dictionary helps your argument since The OED, Collins and the Etymology dictionaries state the meat definition as the primary and some don't even have the more modern variations.
Also, shouldn't you be looking at the Italian dictionary. I think there is a very heavy cultural slant to this that you're ignoring that is informed by the inflexibility of non-english languages.
> Im actually ok with this. Vegetarian food should stop pretending to be something its not and be willing to stand on its own feet as what it is.
I concur -- food labels should be accurate, not deceptive. Food industry does not have a lot of credibility at the moment, and deceptive labelling wont help with that.
“Meat-related” is the kicker for me. It’s not like they’re saying, “this is steak”. They’re saying, “this is intended to imitate the texture and flavor you may expect from steak”. As a person making efforts to become vegetarian, this is very useful information for me. I’m not becoming vegetarian because I think meat tastes bad. Steaks are absolutely delicious. The problem is I feel guilt when I eat it now because I can’t shut out the process by which it arrived on my plate. Having hints about what a vegetarian option is attempting to emulate (since I would eat those things if there was a humane way to do so) should not be considered malicious behavior.
This... basically doesn't matter. Italy is known for its food culture and they take it very seriously. If you don't believe me, try ordering a latte after noon.
Cultivated meat is now in the realm of semi-feasible science fiction. In theory there's a Jose Andres restaurant where I could try it, in practice its very expensive and there's so little supply that very few people can even get that tasting menu.
If it works out and winds up taking off, bans are reversible. Italy will never give up its red cows but who knows.
On the other hand, everything I've read about cultivation is its an incredibly interesting science project. The texture is still weird, the price is still astronomical, despite an astounding quantity of resources poured into this you're just not going to be grilling lab-burgers any time in the foreseeable future.
If the goal is to make meat sustainable, the fastest way to cut percentage points are to roll back American burger portions to what they were in the 1980s, and start a falafel craze.
Another poor decision from my governament, pushing Italy further beyond the curve of innovation and scientific research, banning an entire industry sector before it's even born.
Lucky for us, it's an useless law: if Europe choose to allow those products to be sold (which is currently not allowed), Italy must oblige.
The only actual consequence of this law, aside from prohibiting some names for meatless foods, is denying the birth of a whole industry sector.
I didn't care much about it, but now that it's going to be banned, I feel like I should try it while I can. Where can I get some of this cultured meat in France?
There's a pretty good episode from recent (4 years-ish) South Park: “Let Them Eat Goo”(1), where Cartman only desired to "eat the same garbage" he always has, and since the “goo” is definitely garbage, he does not care that it is more sustainable or ethical.
This is just for show. There is no genuine lab meat yet, and Italy certainly wasn't doing much to pursue it anyway. So for the time being not much is really lost, but perhaps some political points are gained.
Once lab meat becomes widely available and affordable, there will likely be a different government, a different public opinion, and a new law to allow it.
I wonder how they feel about oat milk , soy milk and almond milk. These could also be categorised as "synthetic" similar to plant based meats. However Without these, my lactose intolerant coffee addicted personality would literally explode.
Good for Italy. They have perhaps one of the richest food/cooking cultures in the world. Fake meat is an affront to that. Not only is it expensive and gross, but insanely processed with a mile long list of ingredients. Ground beef usually has one ingredient: beef. I've gotten a good chuckle over the years seeing it disappear from shelves and menus. I'm sure you can still find it in abundance at Whole Foods in SF or Portland Oregon, but now I routinely see maybe 1-2 items and the stock is always full. People wouldn't even touch it during covid when everything was flying off the shelf.
> The measure also prohibits the use of meat-related terms, like ‘salami’ or ‘steak’, for plant-based meat substitutes.
I mostly agree with this. Consumer protection laws should avoid this confusion in New Zealand, but they don't. For example the word beef is used for non-beef products - and they are stocked in the fridge section for beef. I guess it gets more pedantic if it is cultured cells. The product label should clearly indicate whether something came from a cow or not - without deception (similar to GMO labeling - which is about what buyer's think not what I think). The key is avoiding consumer confusion. Is a vege burger, or chicken bacon confusing? Steak is harder - Tuna steak, steak pie, steak sauce.
Outright banning safe products is authoritarian (not equivalent to right-wing - see Stalin) - and farmers should not get government priority over consumers.
Something like Beyond Meat Beyond Beef seems highly misleading to me (titles and brand names matter - I don't want to read fine print nor should I have to memorize every product detail). Impossible Chicken Nuggets have (Plant Based) in the same font but lighter colour which seems deceptive to me personally (although presumably legal).
Hopefully our government can find the good compromise between consumers desire for plant-based foods, and meat industry abuse of consumer protection laws.
Has there been unambiguous, conclusive proof that plant-based meat is safe or at least as safe as naturally derived meat?
Noone likes big state but at the very least we should avoid making the same mistakes we have been making for decades with pesticides, forever chemicals etc before we declare victory for growing a burger patty.
The problem with this is that "unambiguous, conclusive proof" is an ill-defined benchmark.
That's before getting into the question of food allergies or intolerances. I stopped eating meat 8 or so years ago, and I love seitan, but that would be wildly unhealthy for a person with a gluten allergy to consume. On the other hand my meat eating sister is allergic to chicken, and has been told by her doctor to cut down on red meat, so seitan is safer for her than animal products.
Has there been unambiguous, conclusive proof that animal-based meat is safe or that plant-based meat is unsafe?
This is a very loaded and pointless question. Those products are sold for years already, they are tested enough to say that they won't kill you immediately. Everything else is pointless until you have some relevant clue to a real threat. But just as a reminder: we know that animal-based meat is unhealthy and can cause cancer. Still legal to sell, because at the level of normal consumption, it doesn't matter.
I am all for alternatives but they need to be tested properly. I think you are letting emotion take away reason.
"They are tested enough to say that they won't kill you immediately" so the pass test is eating something and not dropping dead?
"we know that animal-based meat is unhealthy and can cause cancer". A large study and a study of studies published last month showed that the claim that red mean can cause cancer is incorrect. And, in any case, if you read my original comment you will see that I specify that plant-based meat should be shown to be "at least as safe" as actual meat.
> I think you are letting emotion take away reason.
I could say the same for you.
> so the pass test is eating something and not dropping dead?
Basically yes, that's how all industry has always been working. In reality, it's of course a bit more complicated. But if you don't die from something today, then nobody can say why you died in 20 years because of something did today.
> A large study and a study of studies published last month showed that the claim that red mean can cause cancer is incorrect.
Source? But I doubt this is relevant. This is an endless circle of claims from all side with many different perspectives.
> I specify that plant-based meat should be shown to be "at least as safe" as actual meat.
Yes, and it's still up to you to prove that there can be unsafe. Plant-based products are nothing new. If you have a problem with them, find some better claim then your gut-feeling.
This decision avoids confusion. To see how ridiculous this sounds try the naming convention in the opposite direction: Meat-based spinach - tastes like the real thing.
I understand this apparently altruistic reason: rather than educate people to avoid massacres, you'd replace everyone with mannequins. So they're free to massacre mannequins. If we are to become saints because we made synthetic goo to save cows, I'd say we are still pretty lazy because we learned nothing about the ethics of killing other suffering beings like us on this planet. (Being provocative: of course there is already empathy in that reasoning, but the root cause is still out there; our lack of empathy and greed.)
I believe cultivated meat does come with the necessary risks (imagine the kind of hotbed of viruses and resistant bacteria a piece of living flesh with no immune system can become!) and caveats (spiritual and ethical considerations that haven't been pondered, like "is this meat connected to a living soul" or "is this meat kosher/halal"), but the "we have to protect the farmers" defence is plain idiotic. The profits of the meat industry should never be a reason to work towards ending animal suffering.
In fifty to a hundred years this guy could be a Disney villain.
I was recently at Costco waiting for my tire to be repaired, and saw a canister of "plant based" protein in the returns cart. The customer's reason for return: "tasted like sand".
Proteins are composed of amino acids. Some amino acids are more important than others. Glycine is the simplest amino acid, and also has anti-stress properties. Other amino acids are excitatory.
The main protein sources for the latest round of "plant based" protein products are pea protein and brown rice protein. Soybeans were used decades ago, but fell out of fashion on account of soy's phytoestrogen load.
The process of separating seed protein from the starch is not incredibly complex. But someone said that seed protein is folded up for storage, and is not especially useful to our bodies anyways. Native Americans knew to boil their corn seeds in wood ash (alkaline material) - Nixtamalization - which I understands unfolds the proteins to make them more useful to humans. All corn tortillas are made with 'trace of lime', which means that corn has been properly boiled in a alkaline solution to be more edible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization
The most abundant amino acid in gelatin is glycine. Second-place is proline. I don't grok the biochemistry, but I think it reasonable to propose that glycine is a much more reasonable foundation for the body's protein sources than the excitatory amino acids. The richest amino acid in the plant based protein powders I've looked at is glutamic acid.
"Glycine is an inhibitory neurotransmitter in the central nervous system, especially in the spinal cord, brainstem, and retina. When glycine receptors are activated, chloride enters the neuron via ionotropic receptors, causing an inhibitory postsynaptic potential (IPSP)." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycine#As_a_neurotransmitter (emphasis added)
Interesting comment. Unlike the idiotic vegans who downvoted you to death.
I will read more about this. It does match my experience of my stress level rising quite a lot when I go through period of no or very little meat meals (based on beans, quinoa and stuff like that).
I think the whole plant-based diet is some sort of religious belief for moral superiority or something. The people who enforce those diets seem to not suffer too much because they tend to avoid using their brain and have rather low physical activity in my opinion. I personally have a very hard time sustaining a high level of physical activity and keeping my brain functioning on a mostly plant-based diet...
Ultimately protectionism has many negative externalities. At best you are amortizing the pain of your economy becoming uncompetitive, at worst you are permanently kneecapping your future competitiveness.
Yeah but it also means you are not feeding your people chickenfeed. And since people with money will always seek real food, fakes being for the workers, it will keep their farming industry healthy running.
The American perspective, which prioritizes fostering innovation, contrasts sharply with the approach in many European governments, where there seems to be a prevailing tendency to legislate and impose restrictions. This difference in mindset is a key factor in why the United States is making more rapid economic advances compared to Europe.
Non-substantiated cause-effect relation. Switzerland and Sweden are both ranked more innovative than the US, despite stronger legal restrictions (food-wise or otherwise).
The unintended consequence of the new law is to ensure that Italy 100% misses out on the many promising social, economic, and environmental benefits of a transition to lab-based meats. The new law strikes me as very shortsighted. I hope Italy eventually comes to its senses and repeals it.
Sigh.