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.
The cheese was disqualified because it used an ingredient that hadn’t been approved for human consumption.
Yeah, the ingredient is called Kokum butter, from the kokum fruit which seems like it has been consumed in various forms, mostly by people in India and south east Asia for a long time. (Including butter from the seeds) I hadn’t heard of it before.
Do you have a source? This is the first I’ve heard that claim. Seems a legit reason to disqualify something from a “food” competition, but I’d like to verify before judging.
It’s in the Boing Boing article linked in the comment I first responded to.
https://boingboing.net/2024/04/29/after-a-vegan-blue-cheese-won-the-good-food-award-panicked-dairy-cheese-makers-forced-the-foundation-to-disqualify-it.html
Thank you!
I did some digging and found this follow up article about the whole ordeal:
https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/sanfrancisco/news/vegan-fromager-cheesed-when-san-francisco-food-competition-revoke-award/
Takeaway: the rules got changed a week earlier, and the fake cheese company didn’t switch to their coco butter version of the blue cheese. (Coco butter is GRAS).
The rule change also shouldn’t have been necessary. ‘Food must be edible’ isn’t something that should have to be explicitely written down. Sure, it’s probably safe, but ‘probably’ isn’t really good enough for a food competition.
Eh. I get your sentiment, but there’s a pretty big difference between “edible” and having a certification from the FDA claiming “generally regarded as safe”
The better question is: why is kokum butter not GRAS? It’s sold everywhere. Has no one filed with the FDA?
I have never heard of kokum butter before, and certainly never seen it for sale, so ‘sold everywhere’ is a very regional thing. A quick search makes it look like it’s mostly applied topically rather than eaten?
Yeah, that might be the case. I’ve never purchased any, so I’m no expert. Wonder why it was used in the fake cheese to begin with.