It was a few months ago when the Governor. Ron De Santis first announced his support for preventing lab-grown “cultured” meat from being manufactured or sold in Florida. “You need meat, okay. And we are going to have meat in Florida,” said the Republican governor. saying, and added: “We are not going to have fake meat. That does not work”.
I wasn’t talking about soy or plant-based meat substitutes. Rather, as The Tampa Bay Times says reported, cultured meat “involves a process of taking a small number of cultured cells from animals and growing them in controlled environments to produce food. “Industry officials have argued that the cultured meat process has been closely examined by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ensure its safety.”
This week, as an NBC affiliate in Miami reportedDeSantis banned it anyway.
In keeping with his usual high-minded approach to policymaking, the far-right Republican aggregate At the bill signing, “Global elites want to control our behavior. …Florida is saying no.”
In the future, selling or manufacturing meat grown in the Sunshine State will be a second-degree misdemeanor. (The local report aggregate“The measure does not ban cultured meat research due to concerns that such a ban could affect the space industry, which is studying cultured meats for long-duration space travel.”)
To be clear, DeSantis and Republican lawmakers have taken bold steps to address a problem that doesn’t really exist, at least not in any meaningful way, since it will be a while before lab-grown meats are common in the United States. restaurants and/or grocery stores.
That said, some companies have gotten approval to sell lab grown chickenand related products are under development. Those products will not be available to consumers in the Sunshine State, where it will be illegal to sell that type of meat.
What’s more, it’s not just Florida: Republicans in Alabama, Arizona and Tennessee are considering similar state bans.
Returning to our previous coverageI do not claim to be an expert on the subject, although I generally understand that the leading private companies in this area have high hopes for the future of the industry. Cultured meat is not yet competing with its traditional rivals, but it has the potential to make a positive difference when it comes to environmental impact and animal welfare.
If Republicans wanted to implement new government regulations related to labeling, that would probably be a reasonable approach to informing consumers. If Republican officials wanted to impose limits on government subsidies for companies working with cultured meats, it would at least be worthy of a public conversation.
But Republican proposals in some states focus instead on imposing state-level bans on an industry that barely exists. For all the talk about the Republican Party and its free-market principles, this is the latest example of how the party prefers government restrictions and bans over consumer choices.
We’re used to thinking about the Republican Party’s culture war that includes issues like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Evidently, lab-grown meats are making their way onto the same list.
The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell recently asked in a column, “What happened to the Republicans who wanted the free market to choose winners and losers? Where is the limited government party?”
They don’t have to be rhetorical questions.
This post updates our Related Previous Coverage.
This article was originally published in MSNBC.com