Florida Bans Lab-Grown Meat - Slashdot

Posted by msmash

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  Ron DeSantis is positioning himself for a Presidential run in 2028. All his political moves should be viewed with that in mind.

  He has no idea whether lab-grown meat is good or bad but he knows this will appeal to a certain section of the Republican base.

  • Re:

    Ya, but in many ways, and ironically here, Ron himself is all hat, no cattle.:-)

    • • Re:

        Technically, the Florida Congress passed it, he just signed it. Change the political make up of either and Florida changes -- probably for the better.

        • Re:

          Pretty well known in Florida that with Republicans having the trifecta it's pretty much rubber stamps all around.

          Florida while always being close will likely be red for a few more cycles at least. Shifting demographics should be in favor of making things closer but the Florida Democratic party is very ineffective in my opinion.

      • Re: Running for President in 2028

        Which states are "suffering greatly"?

      • Re:

        What does this have to do with lab grown meat?

  • Re:

    I don't know who modded this offtopic, this bill sounds 100% like "let's make up an issue to win so we can be winners."

  • Re:

    You might call it... red meat for his potential voters

  • Re:

    Nah, Ron had his chance, he'll never get the hype cycle he had this cycle as he's had 6 years of being in the press around Florida. His campaign fizzled out not just because of Trump but because DeSantis is really just a goober and that was obvious once he got on a national stage.

    In 2028 he will have been a private citizen for 2 years unless he runs for the House again as both FL Senate seats are Republican and neither of them are going to retire soon. Ron's stuck, he can't run to the right of Trump and r

  • Here in the land of the free, we don't like people to have choices. So, here is yet another law taking a choice away from the consumer, and dressing it up as some noble fight against an evil government.

    This is just protectionism for the rich and powerful meat industry. They can stay comfortable in their cartel without fear of a new tech disrupting their business model now, and we have to go without an option that we might prefer, once it materializes.

  • Re:

    The writing is on the wall for Beef, Pork and Chicken

    Beef, primarily because of the extensive waste of land and Greenhouse gas emissions. Pork and Chicken aren't far behind, but will likely be phased out longer since "bacon" and "chicken" are basically the only food children and adults with taste palettes of children will eat.

    Fish is unlikely to ever become a lab-grown meat, because it's literately more cost effective to build an aquarium and farm the fish, what will likely happen is "fish farms" will be pr

    • Re:

      That's the whole point of lab-grown meat: real meat grown from cells, as opposed to the plant-based substitutes now on the market. If the cost can be brought down, I can see it succeeding even in its present form, which because it has no bones is like ground beef.

  • His political career is done

    He can't run for governor again in 2026 because of constitutionally mandated term limits that he would need the voters to sign off on at 66% to repeal. So he's going to not be in any political office in 2026.
    
    He pissed off and shit on a ton of his own people when he was trying to secure the nomination for this year. In particular he had 300 million dollars in federal funding that he blocked in order to punish people who voted against allowing him to run while remaining governor.
    
    DeSantis is a scary ass

  • Re:

    Ron, a fellow Republican wants to know: Why not let consumers make up their own minds? Back in the Goldwater-Reagan days, before conspiracy theorists and the abortion Taliban, we used to let the free market decide such things.

  • • Re:

      Saying that they have "no rights" is flatly unconstitutional. Saying they had no right to stay, or not right not to be arrested would be reasonable. But the first is a stronger political statement.

    • Re:

      What a random thing to bring up that he supported some insignificant law. Not really helping your case since all states have laws about this already

      • Re:

        Florida already had laws too. The law in question just increases the penalties and opens the door for landlords to say a lease agreement is fake so that they can have tenants evicted and arrested.

        • Re:

          Well that sounds like something that'll get abused. Leave it to Florida to always do the wrong thing I guess

    • • Re:

• My first thought was, "what a dumbass", then I started thinking about aspertame, and realized, wait and see might be better. Not sure this law is needed now, but man made food products usually end up in the "causes cancer" category pretty quickly after launch. I'm not sure I'd be the first to try this new dish.

  • One of the selling points of lab meat is you shouldn't need all the stuff farm animals get dosed with to make them healthier despite the conditions in which they're raised, and to make them grow bigger and faster.

    The reduced environmental impact and ability to produce the meat in urban centers is nice, too.

    • Re:

      You can buy farmed goods without those extras as well, you just have to pay for the reduced efficiency. If everyone did that you would have to grow more instead of bigger and faster.

    • One of the selling points of lab meat is you shouldn't need all the stuff farm animals get dosed with to make them healthier despite the conditions in which they're raised, and to make them grow bigger and faster.

      Instead, you just get stuff that was added to the lab meat to make those grow bigger and faster, which are new and different chemicals that no one studied and hence assumed safe (until 40 years later and found to cause cancel).

      Or did you assume there won't be any chemicals one can add to the lab process that could make the meat grow bigger and faster?

    • • Re:

        There are homeless people in Florida too you know.

  • then I started thinking about aspertame

    That's the problem. You are "thinking" about Aspartame based on idiotic Facebook memes but have done nothing to seek out reliable information. If you had, you wouldn't be using it as an example of a dangerous additive.

    and realized, wait and see might be better.

    Wait and see what? The results from the research that Florida is funding to study the health of vat meat? That won't happen because no research is being funded.

    There is no reason to believe that vat meat is less healthy than "real" meat, and that isn't the reason for this ban.

    The ban is stupid, and that is the point. DeSantis wants to run for president in 2028 and feels he needs to out-stupid the other candidates. He wants to go overboard in demonstrating his opposition to the green tea and soy latte-drinking, vegan urban intellectual elite. His strategy might work. But political posturing is all this is.

    man made food products usually end up in the "causes cancer" category pretty quickly

    Get off of Facebook.

    • The ban is stupid, and that is the point. DeSantis wants to run for president in 2028 and feels he needs to out-stupid the other candidates.

      Yup. The message here isn't about meat or insects. Those are merely the delivery mechanisms to get the message to your brain. The message is in two parts. (A) The bogeymen ("global elites", whoever they are) are coming; and (B) DeSantis is the only one who can stop them. Whether it's global elites coming for your meat, leftists coming for your gas stoves, or drag queens coming for your children, the Republicans are your only hope. Only they can save you from all the horrors they've pulled out of their collective ass.

  • Re:

    If you live in Florida, Alabama, Arizona, or Tennessee, you don't get to "wait and see." The choice has already been made for you, long before any data has even become available. You can't have lab-grown meat, even if you want it.

    This is what it looks like when your country is a "beacon of freedom" to the rest of the world.

  • Re:

    I have no problem at all with them making it and offering it for sale. I have a MASSIVE problem with them calling it meat. Meat is the flesh of animals. Call it anything other than meat and I'm OK with it. But marketing it as meat is just fucking lying. Its already rampant even with frozen dinners. Pressed and formed meat like substance that they somehow still allow to be called beef or pork or whatever. If it is has other ingredients in it other than spices, such as fillers or meat glue it is not just beef

  • Re:

    The original margarine is a better example where "those who know better" made a "heart-healthy" replacement for cow-based butter. Turns out making it out of trans-fats made it far more dangerous than butter.

  • Re:

    That sounds like a good idea. One for the FDA/USDA and most definitely not something some moron politician should be involved in.

    There's a difference between cultured meat and coming up with new chemical compounds for fake foods.

    You literally cannot be. This stuff is actively sold in some places of the world already.

  • • Re:

      Do you mean actual lab-grown meat or meat substitutes, like (Impossible|Beyond) Burger, etc...? 'Cause I believe you're correct on the latter that they're, at least, not as healthy(ier) than they claim all around.

    • Re:

      To be fair those were like the cranks who are saying "CO2 is just plant food" right now. Cigarettes were well-known to be harmful by mainstream medicine well before WW2.

    • Re:

      Please cite your sources for these test results. Facebook posts and Fox News do not count.

      • Re:

        Dare to read a “nutritional” label, or try and pronounce the ingredients on a package of lab-grown meat.

        You know you’re blinded by political ignorance when the food label from the manufacturer is viewed as some kind of right-wing conspiracy and not simple fact. You can’t even find a nutritionist who will say lab meat is better for you. If there’s a conspiracy here, it’s yours.

    • Re:

      Just because the cigarette industry pictured doctors recommending smoking in its advertising didn't mean that *all* doctors, or even most thought smoking was healthy for you. This was largely in the 30s and 40s when they took advantage of a positive attitude toward science and particular medical science. They began to pull back from this after 1950 when evidence was mounting for the link between smoking and cancer, for fear of pushback from the medical community.

• oh, he said this "fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals"

  • Re:

    In fact though, the bill was promoted mainly by the cattle industry, not as a reaction to some mythical culture wars.

  • Re:

    The "global elite" are doing quite well with the food system as it is.

    When a change comes along to disrupt entrenched interests, you can bet those interests will try to pin it on shadowy "global elites" as a scare tactic.

    If the guys who've bought all the agricultural industry and land aren't global elites, I don't know who is. Funny those are the same guys trying to scare everyone away from artificial meat.

  • • Re:

      Is the television not good enough to make people incapable of independent thought? Seems like a lot of effort to go through to for such a marginal improvement over the existing tech.

    • Re:

      We could grasp the fact that the Medial Industrial Complex is every bit as powerful as the Military Industrial Complex in America and understand that no matter what the food alternative is, the goal of making you less healthy isn't some kind of Simpsons conspiracy.

      Or, we could just ask why society half-assed that "elite" food conspiracy and didn't just go full tilt Soylent Green.

    • Re:

      My favourite part about this conspiracy is that it is most often pedalled by people who buy pre-packaged processed instant food from the supermarket and have never even heard of the word "farmers market". My second favourite part about it is that regardless of how healthy you think you are, your "global elite" famers are doing all sorts of shit to your food before you get it, spraying it with chemicals, feeding it drugs, heck even watching it with chlorine, etc. etc.

      If the global elite wanted to control you

    • • Re: nazi said what?

        You can be first to eat a caterpillar steak or whatever

        • Re:

          Nah. People have been eating bugs ever since before they were people. Making a dietary staple when there were alternatives would be something new, though.

          OTOH, shirmp and crayfish can be thought of as essentially large bugs. And there are those that recommend fresh termites. (Mostly, admittedly, Chimps, but a few of those who study them.)

          • Re:

            True. In my last life when I was a bird, I ate bugs.

            --
            I just love mermaids. I was a mermaid in my past life. -- Ella Henderson

        • Re: nazi said what?

          I was in Mexico City a few weeks back and had a pizza type dish that was loaded with nicely fried crickets. Among the more tasty (and filling) meals I have had in quite awhile.

          • Re:

            I had a casserole recently with an enormous amount of insect parts, but that's a failure of the FDA inspection, and the incredible number of insect parts per million allowed in certain foods.

            Some of use don't want insects, but respect your rights to enjoy them.

            But there's no freedom of choice in this legislation, just political posturing, the need for domination rather than live-and-let-live.

  • • Re:

      Take your meds, Rhonda

    • Re:

      Something something free market economy? Nobody has to buy it, but banning has consequences.

      • Re:

        Banning cigarette ads had consequences too. Stop pretending consequences are always a bad thing and maybe instead read the various ingredients representing a “nutritional” label on that stuff they’re wanting to call “meat”, from the industry wanting to ban owning cows. And eventually will attack the right to own personal farms for the same reason too. Yeah. I agree. Banning DOES have consequences.

    • Re:

      In what way? Be specific now. And try to stay on topic, god knows why you even brought up the things you did in the rest of your post. Are you his personal press secretary? Gunning for a job at Fox and Friends?

    • Re:

      So why hasn't he protected the state from Jewish space lasers, or chemtrails? Why isn't he passing out tin foil hats already?

    • He would be perfectly in his role banning some food invoking health concerns, or the need to protect his State's cattle economy. But the argument he invokes about a global conspiracy is insane. The guy is either talking in incredible bad faith, or ripe for the padded room.
      Besides, the head of one of the richest States within the world's richest country complaining about a global elite conspiracy is hilarious. This guy literally IS the global elite. Also complaining about other people's unspecified "authoritarian goals" while literally banning things is a "Mote and the Beam" re-enactment.

    • Re:

      He's trying to protect his political future by convincing paranoid boomers that many, many different things are coming to end their way of life or actual life, like trans people, books, public health officials, people different from them, etc, and then selling himself as a big tough warrior who will fight the horrible "woke" (i.e., people who don't tell n-word jokes) mob. Also, that elite-hating man of the people got degrees from both Yale and Harvard, so you know he's just a down-to-earth good old boy.

    • Re:

      Nothing about this meat is fake. It's actual animal protein. You don't even know what you're talking about.

• Why does DeSantis hate the free market? If lab grown meat is so disgusting then consumers won't buy it and the problem takes care of itself.

  • Re:

    The second part is obviously true, but you can't confuse him with facts and logic. Guessing he loves business, property and sales taxes more -- noting that FL doesn't have personal income taxes. According to Cattle in Florida [floridabeef.org] there are a *bunch* of ranchers in Florida, presumably on a lot of land.

  • Re:

    Republicans haven't been pro free-market or fiscal conservatives for decades now. They've realized they can get more votes from uneducated (and usually poor) people with scare tactics. You don't have to prove you are right to get those votes, because your voter is not discerning.

  • It's a common misconception

    That the right wing are in favor of small government. Nothing could be further from the truth.
    
    The core value of the right wing is obedience. You obey people above you because they're better than you and in exchange for that people below you obey you. It's all about obedience. This goes all the way back to the origins of the right wing when they were monarchists sitting in the literal right wing of the French assembly.
    
    Once you understand that everything the right wing does makes sense. Especially how

  • Re:

    Because no one actually cares about markets.

    The left cares about creating equality. You think Communist revolutionaries (the ideological ones, not the power grabbers) cared about economic theory? They thought they were having a revolution in favour of equality (spoiler alert: didn't work out so well). The anti-free market stuff was because markets allowed a lot of power to accumulate with the rich, but the modern left as figured out that it's far better to work with and regulate free markets than to try and

  • • Re:

      Wall street owns the bi-partisan consensus. A candidate they like is going to win either way. Wall street doesn't care about who uses what bathroom, or how easy it is to get an abortion, or how big the clip is on your AK-47. Wall street isn't making Trump win, but wall street really doesn't care if he does or not. He's just as good for them as any of the other "electable" candidates.

    • Re:

      There's a lot of mythology around who Trump voters are. Part of it is that statistics can be confusing, especially if you're prone to jump to conclusions. Yes Trump wins the voters without a college degree, and people without college degrees tend to make less money, but we can't leap to the conculsion that Trump voters are poor. In fact, data shows Trump lost the $50k and under income group solidly in both 2016 and 2020. In 2016 he won every income group greater than $50k, although only *strongly* in

• We will save our ranchers -- and the supporting industries.

  I don't know much about the beef industry in Florida, but Cattle in Florida [floridabeef.org] notes:

  • Re:

    In the end, it all comes down to the corn lobby. Quick Gewgle Foo shows 40 percent of US corn is used as cattle feed. Ethanol MOVE OVER!

    • Re:

      Mythbusters: Plausible.

  • Re:

    That would mean Florida produces around 3-4% of the US beef and has 7% or so of the US population. Not even enough beef to come close to feeding their own population, so they must be a net importer of beef. And assuming that the Florida beef mostly uses corn from outside the state, even more of the money for beef leaves the state.

  • Re:

    From what? You think Lab grown meat which is expected to have an absolute minimum at scale price of *checks notes* $10-20 / lb is going to be a threat to your ranchers currently selling meat wholesale at $3 / lb?

  • Re:

    California has over 5 million head of cattle. We have real cowboys over here, not like those eastern wannabes.

• ugh (Score:2, Insightful)

  Ah yes the global elites, not like Harvard- and Yale-educated governor of a state. He's just plain simple folks.

  I am so sick of these dumbass conservative conspiracy theories.

• I ate a 'Beyond Burger' once and man oh man was I sick. Never again will I eat anything like that. Remember Olean chips with the warning on the bag about 'anal oil leakage'? I remember.

  • Re: Never been sicker than after eating Beyond mea

    I'm a vegetarian and I don't mess with these highly processed meat alternatives. I can do the ones that are made from beans, tofu and veggies. But, Beyond and Impossible are nearly indigestible.

    • Re:

      As a non-vegetarian, who eats some meals without meat, the idea of vegetarian meat-like stuff seems weird. I'd far rather have a bowl of lentils than a burger made from lentils trying to be meat. A LOT of fake meat really tastes bad. The old style Garden Burger was just fine, tasted ok, no need to go beyond that. The early fake meat hotdogs were abominations that gave an aftertaste that lasted for many hours. Are there vegetarians that want to taste meat? What's wrong with traditional meat less diets?

  • Re:

    Beyond Burger isn't very good. Or healthy. Impossible Burger tastes better. But Impossible burger isn't healthy either. But neither are covered by this ban, because Beyond and Impossible meats are not meat. The ban is on lab grown meat, not vegetable matter trying to taste like meat. The lab grown meat will likely taste better but it's much harder to make.

  • Re:

    Not the same thing. Impossible burgers are just highly processed veggies.

    Lab grown meat is virtually indistinguishable from the real thing. It's real cow cells growing and dividing. There's just no cow brain connected to it said cow meat.

    • Re:

      That does sound kind-a spooky, I suppose. I mean, that's what they do in StarTrek so maybe it's ok... but it does SOUND spooky.

  • If you give my brother a fruit smoothie

    That's made with soy stuff of any kind he's going to be sick as a dog for about 2 or 3 days. On the other hand he can eat tofu no problem same goes for edamame.
    
    Meanwhile we've both been eating beyond Burger is for months now. And you can buy a bag of sugar-free gummy bears that have a 30% chance of putting you on the toilet for months on end.
    
    A lot of people have problems with certain foods. It's not surprising there's some people who can't eat what's in beyond meats food or the impossible Burger.

• "Florida is fighting back against the global elite's plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs to achieve their authoritarian goals," DeSantis said. "We will save our beef."

  Come on, nobody with an above-room-temperature IQ takes this statement seriously. And we've already seen that DeSantis has zero appeal outside of Florida. So why not let them play their silly little games there? It's comedy gold!

  • Re:

    It panders to his Qult base. Of course it all falls apart when you ask simple questions.

    Specifically who are the "global elite"? What goals do they have? How does eating lab grown meat accomplish these goals? If the "global elite" really wanted to interfere with the food supply then why not just buy up all the cattle ranches? Nobody would ever know. Instead it's a conspiracy theory based on one research paper that noted how farming insects has a smaller carbon footprint than farming cattle. The media repor

    • Re:

      You can pry my steak out of my cold, dead teeth.

    • Re:

      I was curious, so I looked it up. The paper is Oonincx et al.

      So the global elite is this guy:

      https://scholar.google.com/cit... [google.com]

  • Re:

    You shouldn't take DeSantis literally, but certainly should take him seriously.

    He is a Trump mini-me, but more competent at getting stuff done, and that is dangerous.

    DeSantis would've won the Republican nomination if Trump was hit by a bus.

    There were some primary elections where he came in third to Trump and Haley, but polls showed that most of the Trump votes would've gone to DeSantis if Trump wasn't on the ballot. In 2028, Trump likely won't be on the ballot.

    People laughed at Trump in 2016.

    • Re:

      DeSantis is competent when backed up by a like minded legislature. He may end up like Trump though, so sure that literally everyone in the world loves him to death that he's unable to deal with the necessary back and forth negotiatoin skills needed for actual governing with a divided electorate.

    • Re:

      See, here's the thing - as weird as this may sound (about Trump), I don't think DeSantis has Trump's oratorical ability or people skills. He's basically a follower, not a leader.

    • Re:

      In 2028, Trump likely won't be on the planet.

• They allow 'beef' pumped full for hormones , steroids , water and other chemicals to be sold.

  Guess they have to do something with all those unadopted children now abortions or banned or the state will have to pay to raise them.

• If those quotes were attributed to some random politician I had never heard of, I would assume it was simply a satirical story.. but it's Ron DeSantis...
  
  I have no desire to eat lab grown meat and I'm sure most Americans are the same way. However if taste/texture improves so it's not distinguishable AND it's cheaper.. you can bet a significant portion of Americans will change their minds. Our society prefers cheap over quality.
  
  I'd probably never eat a lab grown steak... but lab grown ground beef or g

• You've gotta feel bad for Desantis. He's the governor of Florida, a state with 22 million people, which would be the 16th largest economy if it were independent, but he still doesn't consider himself to be part of the "global elite." It must be a pretty small club.

  • Re:

    He's trying to act like Trump but it's so incredible awkward that it just makes everyone cringe. He's about as soft as a roll Charmin.

    • Re:

      If there is such a thing as the "global elite", then Trump is absolutely 100% one of the members of it. Maybe not a founding member, though he is old enough to be one.

      • Re:

        He's a legacy. The only way you can be more "global elite" than a multi-billionaire New York real estate mogul denounced for profiteering by Eisenhower is to be that guy's playboy son.

• They demand affirmation as as his campaign fleshes out expect similarly targeted legislation.

• I thought Impossible Meat, Beyond Meat, and the other vegetable-based simulated meats were the ultimate in processed foods. They contain excessive amounts of salt plus chemical flavorings. However, lab-grown meat exceeds them all.

  Doctors warn us to avoid eating processed foods. Real meats from steers, pigs, lambs, chickens, et cetera are far less processed than meat simulations.

  My brother once asked: "If we are not supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat?"

• Authoritarian meat? The whole thing sounds like an Impossible Nothingburger.

• The left has been going on about GMO food for years, now the right is doing their version with lab grown meat. Not sure what they are so afraid of, it isn't like it is in any position to surpass natural meat anytime soon. It is anti business also.

• Well, on sale in Singapore if you can afford it, looks to be expensive.
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
  Personally I love quail and a nice slab of meat sounds great - Bring it on!

• • Re:

    Is there a reason they want to remove the choice?

    Because (a) they're the government; (b) they have more guns than you; and (c) pick up that can.

  • Re:

    He has to pretend to be a stupid asshole to win Republican votes.

  • Re:

    Because the cattle ranchers lobbied for the ban.

  • Re:

    Removing lab grown meat removes campaign contributions from the cattle industry. Anyhow, he is just echoing the former alleged president who also sees a global conspiracy to feed people. They aren't sure just how lab grown meat will be used to control people, they don't have to be sure. The spectre of it is enough to frighten the faithful. The paranoid have everything to fear.

• • Re:

    FWIW, if we didn't eat chickens there wouldn't be so many of them.