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."<p>The unintended consequence of the new law is to ensure that Italy 100% misses out on the many promising social, economic, and environmental <i>benefits</i> of a transition to lab-based meats. The new law strikes me as <i>very</i> shortsighted. I hope Italy eventually comes to its senses and repeals it.<p>Sigh.
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.<p>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.
This is a bit extreme, but will ultimately solve itself.<p>Once cultivated meat is significantly cheaper and tastes as good as real meat, the world will move to it, and Italy will eventually follow suit.
Seems stupid. As long as its safe, people should be able to eat it if they want.<p>> The measure also prohibits the use of meat-related terms, like ‘salami’ or ‘steak’, for plant-based meat substitutes<p>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.
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.<p>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.<p>If it works out and winds up taking off, bans are reversible. Italy will never give up its red cows but who knows.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>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.<p>1: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Them_Eat_Goo" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Them_Eat_Goo</a>
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.<p>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.<p>Are there no lactose intolerant people in Italy?
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.<p>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.<p>Outright banning safe products is authoritarian (not equivalent to right-wing - see Stalin) - and farmers should not get government priority over consumers.<p>But should a burger pizza be meat or not? <a href="https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/sacl/about/news/how-plant-based-meat-is-stretching-new-zealands-cultural-and-legal-boundaries" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.wgtn.ac.nz/sacl/about/news/how-plant-based-meat-...</a><p>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).<p>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?<p>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.
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.<p>It's confusing, what am I really eating here?
This is super dumb. I am very much hoping synthetic meat will replace "traditional" meat (mainly due to ethical reasons, aka less animal suffering)
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.<p>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".<p>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.<p>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.<p>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. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nixtamalization</a><p>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.<p>"[Glutamic acid is] the most abundant <i>excitatory</i> neurotransmitter in the vertebrate nervous system." - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutamic_acid" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glutamic_acid</a> (emphasis added)<p>"Glycine is an <i>inhibitory</i> 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)." - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycine#As_a_neurotransmitter" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycine#As_a_neurotransmitter</a> (emphasis added)<p>I recently blogged to tell people to make soup from their turkey carcass: <a href="https://radialappliance.teslabox.com/2023/11/cayce-approved-protein-sources/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://radialappliance.teslabox.com/2023/11/cayce-approved-...</a><p>I, for one, welcome Italy's defense of traditional food wisdom.
Good. Italy has a very strong food culture and I'm glad someone will resist the cultural imperialism of spreadsheet brains.<p>There's some things that tech cannot and should not solve.
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.