Florida this month may be forcing the question of whether the people prefer cattle or capitalism. A bill in the state would ban lab-grown meat, an effort supported by beef suppliers who want to slow the production and demand for the alternative product. The alleged “ethical and health concerns” remain speculative and unclear. As Adam Smith noted “this is one of those cases in which the imagination is baffled by the facts.”
China’s government is making huge investments into cultivated meat as are companies in other nations. While allowing research to continue, this bill (if replicated) could drain the industry of necessary capital as it seeks to improve products and reach consumers in the United States. The industry has currently attracted billions in investment from venture capitalists.
The Chinese appear delighted and cited the bill as potentially giving them a market advantage.
HB 1071, sponsored by Rep. Danny Alvarez, R-Valrico, would ban and criminalize the sale of cultivated meat. It would make Florida the first state to implement such a law, but other states like Alabama, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Iowa have similar proposals.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have studied the safety of these products and allowed sales in the United States. Alvarez insists that legislators are simply “being proactive.”
The bill appears to have the support of the DeSantis Administration. Florida Department of Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, insists that “there are a lot of unanswered questions about the safety, ethics, and economic impact of synthetic meat. We support a ban until questions are answered.” For those who are strong market advocates, the move makes DeSantis look like a faux economic conservative who is all hat, no cattle capitalism.
The safety issues have been studied by the agencies and there is now compelling research on some hidden health threats. Beef producers have cited “contamination with heavy metals, microplastics and nanoplastics, allergens such as additives to improve the taste and texture of these products, chemical contaminants, toxic components, antibiotics and prions.” However, many of these risks are either shared with other products or capable of elimination through inspection and permitting.
It is entirely unclear how the replication of cells is “unethical.” However, it is the economic concerns that appear the real reason behind the legislation. The bill has the markings of classic market protectionism. The beef producers want less competition and politicians seem eager to accommodate.
Such protectionist measures rarely work beyond driving up costs for consumers and limiting product access. More importantly, it could put the country far behind China in developing this market.
I admit that my natural default is to allow the market to sort out the tastes and demands of consumers. Government intervention rarely changes market demand. It tends to only shift costs and wealth while the market continues to respond to demand. China will happily fill that demand. I was equally critical recently of the Biden Administration and companies resisting markets and consumer choices.
I am not particularly keen on trying cultivated meat. As my kids will attest, I am hopelessly habit bound and tend to resist such changes. (I just wait for my ties and furniture to come back into style). Yet, capitalism is a particularly hard habit to break given its proven success in generating wealth and progress in this and other countries.
Ronald Coase once observed in his famous hypothetical of a fight between a farmer and rancher that the choice was simply what people favored “cattle or crops.” The people of Florida may soon have to decide between cattle and capitalism.
Have we learned nothing from the Covid and subsequent vaccine debacle? #1 if China 🇨🇳 is involved, then block it. Trust the science? GFY! Who are the scientists? Who is funding them? Who will profit off of this in the private and public sectors?
Of course the cattle industry wants to protect their livelihood. But we should know by now to not ever just trust the government without getting those answers first. Because they are very likely to protect their own “livelihoods.”
Run a clinical trial using subjects taken from MSM luminaries like Karine Jean-Pierre, Jen Psaki, Joyless Reid, Nicole Wallace, Rachel Madcow, Jennifer Rubin, Joe Scarborough, Media Matters DNC paid trolls, et al for 5 years. If the trial results show non-inferior efficacy to regular meat, then make the genetically engineered faux meat available to California, Illinois, New York, and Blue States. What could possibly go wrong?
Or just let markets work.
…5+ years, at least.
We should be deeply concerned about the Chinese government.
Chinese businesses and product should have to compete in the free market just like everyone else.
Let people make their own choices – if you think it matters that something is made in china – do not buy it. But do not restrict others from doing so if they chose. If you can not be persuaded that factory meat is a wise choice – do not buy it. Do not restrict others.
We should be deeply concerned about the Chinese government.
As of August 2023, the CCP had only authorized a pilot program for this product in Shanghai. Yet they’re pushing to capitalize on markets everywhere else. Criminalizing using residents of a state as lab rats is not ‘real beef’ protectionism. It’s prudent, health and safety risk avoidance.
I prefer Soylent Green.
JP,
Have you seen what the average American eats?
I dont eat junk food.
Come clean about the mRNA jabs and maybe I’ll begin to build trust in government science again. In the meantime, it’s just a matter of ‘who gets the sop? : cattle farmers or vegan greenies?’ I’m okay with the cattle farmers getting it.
I completely agree. Distrusting government means – NOT allowing government to tell you what you can and can not eat.
If you are a hard sell on factory meat – I am with you entirely. But our lack of trust is a reason to let free markets work, not to allow untrustworthy governments to dictate to us.
I doubt this is a farmers vs. Vegans fight – though that would not change anything. Left wing food nuts tend to oppose pretty much everything.
I would expect eco terrorists to burn down meat factories.
Regardless, markets – you and I should decide, and we should be free to change our minds if and when WE determine that some new product is safer, cheaper, or better.
I do not care if the issue is gas stoves, EV’s or factory meat – government should stay out of it. That has never worked well in the past.
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture have studied the safety of these products and allowed sales in the United States.” Is that supposed to convince anyone? Our federal government agencies also declared that the Covid vaccines were safe and effective.
Obviously, as some other commentators already pointed out, lab meat serves the Green agenda, and very likely, unless massively rejected by the consumer, governments will start mandating lab meat to replace natural beef. The arrogance of the self-proclaimed elite is not only stunning but dangerous. People believe to be elite because they are rich (Gates), or a high ranking bureaucrat, etc., like Dr Fauci. Has anyone noticed how close his name resembles that of Dr. Faustus of Goethe’s novel? It appears they have all – like Faustus – sold their souls to Mephistopheles.
“Our federal government agencies also declared that the Covid vaccines were safe and effective.”
Yep, they are despite what you believe. Look at the peer reviews articles, not right wing rants.
https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-vaccine/art-20484859
Go ahead, make fun of the link to the Mayo Clinic. I’m sure your multiple PHds make you far more knowledgable.
70% of per reviewed papers turn out to be wrong
Bob,
I have a PhD and understand research. Do you?
Credentialism the last refuge of a person with no facts to bring to the table
Do you really think the Anti-GMO greens are going to favor factory meat ?
If this is a left right or an eco issue – the left is going to oppose both cattlemen and factory meat – but factory meat even more so.
If govenrment is free to tell you that you CANT buy factory meat, it is free to tell you you MUST buy factory meat.
Choice belongs with consumers. If as you say – they massively reject this – so be it.
There is no difference between government telling you you can not buy a gas stove and government telling you you can not buy factory meat.
If govenrment is free to tell you that you CANT buy factory meat, it is free to tell you you MUST buy factory meat.
John I aways respect your perspective, if not evey detail of your reasoning.
I compare this to the current “green” energy slow walking disaster. Government is spending $trillions subsidizing solar and wind generation of electricity. Then the next move is cities stepping in and zoning natural gas out to city new construction.
I can see the same happening in food. The govt is busy picking winners an losers. Subsidize products that cannot survive in the free marketn (lab grown fake meat) and then regulate out of favor, (packing houses) the production and marketing something as natural as Beef.
The other thing. No matter what, the elite will always have their wagyu beef, as the average man is forced to eat turkey flavored tofu
We already have a health/obesity crisis here in America. And ultra-processed food stuff is part of that crisis. Cultivated meat is ultra-processed food stuff.
I agree with the good professor, that the market should dictate what people want. A number of these alternative meat food stuff is already getting hit on their bottom line.
Upstate, just be careful that the desire to doesn’t become the obligation to. History warns us with how desires can become mandatory at a later date.
That goes both ways, which is why we must leave choice to markets – which is leaving our choices to OURSELVES.
There is no difference between govenrment telling you what you can not eat and government telling you what you must eat.
I do not hold a view on “factory meat”. Thus far I have found “Wild caught” fish to taste better than farm grown, but I do expect that fish farmers will ultimately resolve that – but until they do I choose wild caught fish.
Everything I know about factory meat tells me it is not near ready for my table. But that does not mean I am entitled to force my choice on others.
My ability to say NO to farmed fish, is inseparable from the ability to say YES.
Just keep government out of markets.
I would go much farther than Turley.
More recently Turley has been making chicago school economic arguments – Kudo’s to him for starting to understand free markets.
But the actual economic evicdence is that even govenrment regulation is inefficient ,wasteful, and accomplish nothing.
Free markets are far better at “regulating” goods. Our ability to make choices – such as to chose better workplace safety or better quality or safer products is a direct consequence of our standard of living. OSHA as an example today is pretty close to useless. There are virtually no workplaces in the US that are not far safer than OSHA requires – why ? Because for myrtiads of reasons workplace safety has become more important to business that it is to regulators. As standard of living rise – workers become more valueable. Harming even accidentally becomes more costly. Losing a skilled worker for even a few hours can cost a business thousands. Production lines that are striving to meet 6sigma 3:1000000 defect rates can not avoid the disruption of accidents of any kind.
Regardless, there is massive economic data from the past century – the real driver of all the things we demand that government must regulate – has been markets, not government
John, the government is able to manipulate the people into believing certain things to be accurate, and once the public is left with that information and laws are in place, it isn’t easy to reverse it. Today, the government is all about green and global warming (what they now call climate change to correct what they cannot prove). Free markets, we later learn, aren’t all that free, and sometimes, our run to grasp the free market falls into the hands of those who wish to control the marketplace. That doesn’t happen in a pure libertarian society, but we aren’t a pure libertarian society, and no pure libertarian society has ever existed.
Sometimes, we have to go against our purist beliefs; otherwise, a Biden gets elected instead of a Trump, and that is a disaster Trump cannot wholly cure if he had three terms.
Moreover, jumping on a new food source such as this has a lot of unknowns, just like the Covid vaccine had and has a lot of unknowns. The ignorant drive to jab every living creature, including babies that didn’t get Covid, was crazy from the beginning but retrospectively crazy presently. Yet people still jump on vaccinating their very young ones because there is a marketplace failure of ideas and knowledge.
I am not saying yes or no, as I don’t know enough about this particular topic, but I can see the ugly hand of the government secretly pushing for things it should be neutral about. In any event, this bill is on the state level, and we have 50 of them to run experiments.
The only objection I have is that this is something that starts with allowing a new entrant into the market to then slowly turn into force from the other side of the argument. I can see the acceptability of this to the anti-carnivores, because it doesn’t result in the killing of animals for food. But I would not be surprised if several years down the road, some jurisdiction passes a law that makes it illegal to consume meat produced directly from animals. Or a scenario where the meat-butchering industry gets captured by radical vegans that believe it is their life’s duty to prevent the further killing of animals for food, and they voluntarily decide to not produce any more meat for human consumption. Then everyone who buys their meat at a grocery store would have to learn animal butchery on their own.
Kevin,
Oh, if you could only see what goes on at a industrial meat packing plant. You would never buy meat from a grocery store ever again.
Look up ‘fecal soup.’
There is a reason why the EU does not want American meat imports.
Why do those on the right here seem to universally think this is being driven by the left ?
Do you really think that people who will not buy artificial fur and who oppose GMO foods are going to adopt Factory grown genetically engieered meat ?
Do you really think the person who wants fair trade, no GMO, gluten free, organic, Kashi is going to rush out and buy factory meat ?
Just because you oppose something – do not assume that those on the opposite side of politics favor it.
Just leave this to free markets – it will work out fine. And better still people will get to make their own choices.
“Why do those on the right here seem to universally think this is being driven by the left ?”
I think it is being driven by bureaucratic apparatchiks who are determined to control every aspect of our lives. Once the market is manupulated by regulation and tax policy, so that cattle ranchers are driven almost entirely out of business, and the only real market is for vat-grown meat from one or two companies that enjoy a government guaranteed stranglehold, that corporatist oligarchy would be free to manipulate that market to reduce or eliminate even factory meat in favor of vegetable based products.
“Just leave this to free markets”
Just where in Hell do you see any truly free markets? There are none in the US, and I am unaware of any existing elsewhere on Earth. Are you an extraterrestrial visitor, come to show us the error of our collectivist ways? If so, you have evidently been doing a very poor job of it. In case you care to question my credentials as a free market proponent, not so very many years ago, I was a follower of Ayn Rand, and called myself an Objectivist. While I have come to realize that Rand had her own flaws, to this day I think that there were far more concepts in her philosophy that were correct, than were erroneous. I’m confident she would have told you that when a market is subject to near totalitarian regulation, and nearly all of its businessmen bear a much stronger resemblence to James Taggart than to Henry Rearden, trusting that market to behave rationally to maximize value is a hopeless fantasy.
82nd abn. 1968 says.
Eat Beans nd rice.
Notice: Joe fed hamas while they misseled up.
Joe fed yeman, they misseled up.
Can we see anything from space,? ?drones?
Give Kiev their nukes back. WAR over.
Send Airborne to Gaza , save the civilians.
500 murdered in nyc 2023!
So Level half the buildings ?
To Find the bad guys?
Who’s in charge?
Most of the commentators on this site tend to lean right, free market and all, until they don’t like the.free market then they complain and pass laws preventing the free market because it upsets their sensabilities.
Sheeeeeeeeeeeesh
If you don’t like it, don’t buy it. But I see several commentators know that this stuff is bad, because? Now perhaps they are brilliant scientists with extensive knowledge, but I doubt it.
Just like books in a library. If you don’t like it, don’t check it out and tell your perfectly obedient kids not to check it out. Quite putting your morality on the rest of us. Hypocrits.
@Bob
There is no quality data to affirm that this product is even healthy to eat long term. There is a difference, there is more than simple economics at play; caution is not hypocrisy, though I don’t disagree, rightly or wrongly, profit margins drive industries.
It’s actually more ironic to me that the same people who decry the proliferation of GMOs will fall right in line with something like this, or with unproven medicines. That seems to me to be a much clearer example of hypocrisy, even if unconscious. I would rather not have the terms of my well-being dictated by sleepwalking people, thanks.
Why do you presume the anti-GMO crowd supports factory meat ?
I completely support your right to make your own choice.
I completely oppose it if you seek to restrict those of others.
There is more than simple economics at play – because free markets are NOT simple, they are incredibly good at factoring in all the issues that you raise.
You say we should be cautious – most will be.
You say we do not know the long term impacts. But that can be determined with a very high degree of certainty, and regardless you are free to make your own choices. If as an example it is scientifically impossible to tell factory meat from ranch produced meat – then the long term effects will be the same. Regardless – with free markets, you can make your own choice, and in the long run your choice may benefit YOU or harm YOU. But the benefits/harms of YOUR choices will be confined to YOU.
I have no problems with “unproven products”. I also have no problem with people chosing not to by them.
James, there may be “no quality data to affirm that this product is even healthy to eat long term”, but there is equally no “quality data” saying that it isn’t. Why would you presume that something new is unsafe until proven safe, rather than the other way around? The burden of proof should be on whoever wants to regulate or restrict something, not on whoever wants to leave it free. The so-called “precautionary principle” is pure authoritarianism, and anti-human. It’s really rooted in a superstitious belief that “nature” is good and man and all his works are evil, so anything “natural” should be presumed safe and anything artificial should be presumed harmful.
Also, even if you had reason to believe it’s not healthy to eat long term, how is that your business? We know sugar is not healthy to eat long term, or even short term; does that make it your business if I want to eat it?!!! Do you have a right to forcibly prevent people from marketing it to me?!!! If sugar were newly discovered, would that give you such a right?!! How? If you think sugar, or GMO corn, or vat meat are bad for people, feel free to try to educate them, but it remains their decision and only their decision (a) whether to believe you, and (b) if they do believe you, whether to refrain from it or eat it anyway.
Also, anyone who is against GMO crops is also against this. It’s the exact same mindset that seeks to ban things on spec.
Iowan, what is your point? Banning horse meat was completely unjustified, an exercise of raw power over other human beings, and yet you seem to use it as an excuse to justify banning even more things. The fact that there are muggings doesn’t justify you mugging someone too.
Bob. Want to eat some horse meat?
Tough. The feds passed a law banning the slaughter of horses for meat.
As already pointed out. The problem is government subsidized creation, like subsidized EV production, then regulating ICE vehicles out of the market
Yup, leave the markets alone, they will get us where we actually want eventually.
I have a friend with a Tesla, it is an amazing car. I would recomend it to my wife.
Bit it will not work for me. I frequently take long trips by car for business, and the complexities and delays with charging would make many of my projects unfeasible. But that could change in a few years.
Let the market work it out. We may end up with 100% EV’s in a few decade or 30%. Or maybe with NG fueld vehicles or hydrogen, or …
or some mix.
Free markets work. Over time people who are radically opposed to something new – change their minds, and sometimes they do not.
If something is actually a good idea it will become popular int he long run.
I would note this is even true in highly regulated markets – it just takes longer.
Aside from your peon to science I agree with you.
Too many of those on the right here who claim to support free markets are also certain that Factory meat is a left wing plot – which is highly unlikely. I would as more expect the left to regulate factory meat out of existance than the right.
As to your worship of science – science is a journey of discovery, it is not a religious authority.
All cutting edge science was conducted by the lunatics of their times.
There are many brilliant scientists with extensive knowledge that are totally wrong.
Again science is about learning, not presuming you know. Any scientists that claims almost anything with certainty – is almost certainly wrong.
The lesson we should have learned from covid is that science is FAR FROM infallible, and that it does not often speak with one voice.
That trust is something that must be earned.
If there was another pandemic tomorow – who would you trust ? Those scientists who got everything wrong ? Or those people – many of whom were scientists, who were censored and supressed but got most things right ?
Want to slow the growth of the alternative “beef” market? Just have people taste it.
Which is how that should work.
When the World Economic Forum serves this at every meal at their meetings and requires everyone to clean their plate (like our parents used to do) then I might consider trying it. But until then, when I yell “where’s the beef” I better get a steak and not a wafer. If Florida wants the to ban the cultured beef, so be it. It’s part of federalism and the experiments of each sovereign state. I don’t think we are quite yet to the time Of Soylent Green. At least I have not seen any flyers of the ghost of Charlton Heston screaming “Soylent Green is People”
There is no difference between government banning factory meat and government mandating it.
There is no difference between banning factory meat and banning gas stoves.
If you do not like factory meat – do not eat it.
Let people choose. Everything will work out fine. Who knows in a decade you could be eating factory meat because it tastes better, is safer, is healthier and is cheaper. Or it could have gone the way of the Edsel.
Markets will work it out.
WE are the markets.
“Alvarez insists that legislators are simply [rent-seeking].”
Now it’s an accurate statement.
Stay the hell out of the appliance, car, beef, et al. markets. Let producers produce, and customers choose.
amen
To the greenies end.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b2aH9tu4s30&pp=ygUNc295bGVudCBncmVlbg%3D%3D
I have no ethical concerns regarding the artificial cultivation of cattle cells, nor regarding the testing of the resulting product(s) by a human audience to determine suitability for consumption. But I must question whether Turley is merely naive, or being deliberately disingenuous. Can he really not see that the next step after the declaration that the market testing of cultivated beef was a success (that declaration is a foregone conclusion, no matter what the actual results) will be government action to mandate market share for cultivated beef and restrict the raising of beef cattle and the marketing of the natural product, in the claimed interests of reducing atmospheric CO2? I cannot believe that he is so obtuse that he cannot see the obvious parallels between this initiative and the mandates for EVs.
If you support FL banning factory meat, you have no argument to preclude mandating factory meat in the future.
Absolutely we should be concerned about the possibilities you raise – and we certainly should not trust the left.
But we lose both the moral fight and the entire argument when we act as we fear the left will.
I understand why Florida is seeking to pass the Real Beef Bill. The main driver is to protect Real Beed vs Imitation Plant Beef, which Gates, Davos/World Economic Growd, Biden Admin Soros, Global elites are pushing. Just look at Ireland and the Netherlands, they want the Real Beef herads reduced significantly to force people to eat bugs and Imitation Beef. Just like Covid Vaccines, we really do not know the long term health effects of Imitation Beef or bugs. The Global elite want us to eat this junk beef as they dine on their real Beef. therefore I support Florida to pass such a bill, I expect Texas and other Beef states will follow. This will causes financial losses for Billy Gates, Al Gore and elite friends.
Note sorry for my misspellings/type errors
You do not thwart governemnt from telling you how to live, by empowering government to tell you how to live.
If you want to thwart the elites – say NO to government bans and mandates.
They’re readying the axolotl tanks. Ob/gyns beware.
What is old, is new again. This is from the 40’s concerning the butter wars in Iowa. I vaguely remember my parents talking about families at war with each other over margarine. One of the laws required Margarine had to be white, no yellow coloring.
Anyway the below lays out the top down problem of the people being lectured to.
From 30,0000 feet. I don’t care about lab meat. However I do care about tax $’s feeding the research and development.
One keenly interested group included Iowa’s dairy and butter producers, who were essentially financial supporters of Iowa State’s economists since their taxes passed through state channels to pay the economists’ salaries. To them, the fact that these economists would turn around and publish their conclusion that American consumers should directly purchase less dairy and butter products during wartime was viewed as the ultimate betrayal that could affect their livelihood.
https://www.promarket.org/2021/05/23/iowa-butter-margarine-schultzs-academic-freedom/
I disagree with Professor Turley regarding the ethical concerns inherent in the cultivation of cells, particularly for human consumption. When men try to play God, Satan tends to step in. I believe that I read somewhere that current legislation does not require the states who do allow this stuff to be sold to label it. So people simply won’t be permitted to know what they’re eating, which is morally and ethically wrong by any objective standards. However, considering that these are the same people who demanded that everybody get a shot where the ingredients list read “Left intentionally blank,” it should come as no surprise that they want people to just shut up and eat the fake meat, or the real bugs as the case may be. Furthermore, our WEF overlords are going around saying that they want the world to move to a plant-based diet by 2025 (!!!) and yet now they want to force us to eat their lab-grown science experiment. My grandmother worked for 4H back in the 30’s on up to her retirement and her job was to go around and teach farm women to stretch their dollar and their resources further. Welcome to the Great American Casserole. Seems to me that a figure like my grandmother is sorely needed in today’s world.
The good news at least at this point is that you cannot grow a steak in a vat. It’s all ground “beef”.
“. . . ethical concerns inherent in the cultivation of cells . . .”
Say goodbye to modern biology, infection diagnosis, cures for crippling diseases, testing for new drugs, DNA testing, the production of new vaccines and therapeutics, disease-resistant and more abundant agriculture, . . .
If the religious right, with its mindless appeals to “Satan,” are trying to portray themselves as the party of anti-science, they’re doing a great job.
The entire thrust of judeo christianity is free will. You do not thwart Satan or honor god, by restricting the freedom of individuals.
I highly doubt that Satan is orchestrating a campaign to force us all to eat factory meat. Though I have little doubt the devil seeks to deprive people of free will.
When man tries to “play god” by giving people choices they never had before – I am pretty sure Satan loses.
When man tries to “play god” by dictating everyone’s choices – pretty sure that Satan wins.
You are absolutely totally completely free to tell us all that something is sinful, an abomination in gods sight.
Just as others are free to tell you that you are wrong.
Mathew says that when christ comes to judge us he will choose those who fed others to be with him in the kingdom of god,
there is no disqualification for factory meat.
I wish Florida (and Texas) would pass a similar bill on Farm Grown and Imported Shrimp
You conflate farm raised with lab created
I do not care – leave the free market alone.
You’d think that Bill Gates understood the importance of free markets but he also seems intent on mandates for his pet projects (e.g., bugs for dinner, universal vaccines).
If Bill gates can figure out how to get people to choose to eat bugs in the free market – I am fine with that.
I oppose those right and left that seek to ban products from the market or require specific products on the market.
I do not expect to eat bugs, factory meat, or drive an EV anytime soon.
But I do not presume that will never happen, and I do npt care if it does – so long as it is a free choice.