Nebraska recently became the sixth state to ban fake meat and because of the nation’s new-found interest in highly processed food this seems to be a good step in the right direction.
Neb. Gov. Jim Pillen, a hog farmer, on Tuesday signed LB246 into law, banning the production, sale, promotion and distribution of cultivated meat in Nebraska.
I think the ban for Nebraska, the second-largest cattle-producing state behind Texas, and, according to the Nebraska Department of Agriculture, takes in $31.6 billion, is not only is good for the ag industry but for the economic health of the state.
I, personally, don’t care if people want to eat fake meat but I don’t think it’s a healthy replacement for the real thing. I also don’t think enough research has been done on these products and their impact on people’s health.
Although I respect Nebraska’s right to ban fake meat, I was pleased to see the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association’s Gene Copenhaver’s op-ed — that was published in The Fence Post’s April 21 issue — on the organization’s belief in the free market and letting consumers choose what they want to eat.
They believe, and I think rightly so, that given a choice consumers will eat real meat, not only because of it’s nutritional value, but because it tastes so much better than fake meat.
What the NCBA wants is a level playing field, especially when it comes to the federal government, when it comes to competing with the fake meat industry.
“We are not afraid of competing with these plant-based and lab-grown imitators, because we are 100% confident in our product. But that competition has to be fair, and the federal government can’t go putting their finger on the scale to tilt the free market in favor of dying fake meat companies,” Copenhaver, a Virginia rancher and president-elect of the NCBA, wrote.
To that end, the NCBA is lobbying to make sure that fake meat labels are clear and that these products are produced in a lab and not on a farm or ranch.
I haven’t eaten much fake meat because it’s really expensive and I don’t know what it’s made of, but the few times I have partaken of plant-based meat the experience was not pleasant. This is why beef producers are concerned about their product being confused with fake meat.
Other real meat industries should be prepared to face imposters in the marketplace, as well. According to an article in Alt-Meat, a Toronto-based alt-seafood maker New School Foods has developed a plant-based salmon filet.
“The company’s patented production process relies on directional freezing to create natural, edible scaffolding that replicates muscle fibers without high-heat treatment as well as a patent-pending injection process that recreates connective tissue,” according to the article.
Sounds delicious? Not.
Also, in the seafood space, a Tokyo-based seafood producer Maruha Nichiro Corp. and Singapore-based biotech firm UMAMI Bioworks, are cooking up cultivated tuna.
It’s clear to me that the seafood industry should come together with the beef industry to make sure that fake meat and seafood products are properly labeled.
