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.

  • @andros_rex
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    47 months ago

    Korean bar near me has a dish with silkworm pupae and I am certainly curious. Mealworms and crickets haven’t been bad, but I usually only eat them to psych out Boy Scouts.

    • @[email protected]
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      fedilink
      17 months ago

      I’m imagining you going around grossing out actual children Boy Scouts by eating progressively weirder things in front of them

      • @andros_rex
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        37 months ago

        Also showing off my pet vinegaroon, Tortilla (RIP), who’d make the whole room smell like vinegar and looked like a monster. Dare them to pet the hissing cockroaches and tell them about the professor at my university who let a tick feed off of her for weeks to prove that species was able to parasitize humans.

        Most of my working life has been spent grossing out children, it’s pretty great.