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.
