- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- nottheonion@lemmy.world
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has banned lab-grown meat, saying he will “save our beef” from the “global elite” and its “authoritarian plans”.
“Florida is fighting back against the global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish or bugs,” Mr DeSantis said in a statement.
The first-in-the-nation law prohibits anyone from selling or distributing lab-grown meat in Florida.
Similar efforts are under way in Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee.
Lab-grown or “cultivated” meat was first cleared for consumption in the US in 2022.
The process of making cultivated meat involves extracting cells from an animal, which are then fed with nutrients such as proteins, sugars and fats. The end product is genetically indistinguishable from traditionally produced meat.
Studies have suggested that eating cultivated meat can cut carbon emissions and water usage, and free up land for nature, compared to eating traditionally produced meat.
I’m absolutely not sold on the lower ecological footprint, the same hubub was made about vertical farming and that was either highly expensive or came with a gigantic footprint.
But I sure hope it pans out.
Vertical farm viability scales almost inversely with electricity costs. And the latter trends lower and lower as time goes by. So I’m pretty confident that it’s coming.
I used to build large scale hydroponic farms over a decade ago and they are super efficient at using resources