Meat is becoming increasingly politicized. That’s bad news for the fight against climate change.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law to ban cell-cultivated or “lab-grown” meat from the Sunshine State.
“Take your fake lab-grown meat elsewhere,” DeSantis said. “We’re not doing that in the state of Florida.”
Cell-cultivated meat is made by feeding animal cells a mix of nutrients to produce real meat without slaughtering an animal. It’s an emerging technology — billed as a solution to factory farming’s enormous carbon footprint and horrific animal treatment — and was approved last June by the US Food and Drug Administration and the US Department of Agriculture as safe to eat and legal to sell. But it remains far from commercial viability and is not available for sale anywhere in the US.
DeSantis banned the technology to protect Florida’s farmers and ranchers from future competition. But it was also a culture war win for the governor, as meat has become a hot topic in the right wing’s conspiracy-laden politics. The day DeSantis signed the bill, he posted a bizarre image on X accusing the World Economic Forum of an authoritarian plot to force people to eat cell-cultivated meat.
The ban, unsurprisingly, earned DeSantis praise from fellow Republicans. But in a rare moment of political unity, a Democratic member of Congress supported the ban, too: Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania.
“Pains me deeply to agree with Crash-and-Burn Ron, but I co-sign this,” Fetterman posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, last week about the Florida ban. “As a member of @SenateAgDems and as some dude who would never serve that slop to my kids, I stand with our American ranchers and farmers.”
(I’ve tried cell-cultivated chicken and it tastes like, well, chicken — not slop.)
This isn’t the first time Fetterman has spoken out against various forms of alternative meat. He’s also co-sponsored a slate of bills supported by factory farm trade groups. Those include bills to ban plant-based egg and dairy companies from using words like “egg” and “dairy,” and to set restrictions on what plant-based meat companies can write on their labels.
Fetterman’s office declined an on-the-record interview request for this story and didn’t respond to detailed questions.
