My mother’s oft-repeated advice is no doubt familiar to many: “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you.”

With all respect to my dear, departed Ma, she was wrong. The names we bestow define the bearer. Hence, the heated debate over cultural ownership of the term “meat.”

As a practical matter, anybody in publishing could tell you that trying to cordon off a term as generic as “meat” so that some groups can’t use it is impossible. Even as distinctive a pun as “Meatingplace” is in use around the globe, albeit usually for butcher shops and meat-centric bistros.

So the snappish exchanges recorded at the USDA-FDA emerging protein technologies confab in October are simply silly. “Lab-grown fake meat” accused representatives from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. "If meat is 'lab-grown' meat, then beer is 'lab-grown' beer," the cell-cultured proponents clapped back.

Personally, I’m going with the “if it walks like a duck” approach.

Plant-based meat analogues get a lot of mileage out of touting their plant origins, so I think they do not get to call their products “meat.” Or “beef” or “chicken” or the like. Let that plant-based flag fly and proudly label it a “meat substitute” or “plant-based protein” or “faux chicken” or “NotBeef” or other catchy moniker.

Then stock it at the retail store in the frozen vegetable department, not the meat case. You don’t get it both ways.

Lab-grown, cell-cultured animal protein, on the other hand, may very well be “meat” in my book. Inasmuch as there is no marketable consumer product yet developed, the discussion may be a bit premature; after all, we don’t yet know what biological or microbiological hurdles will present themselves as these products begin scaling up. But to me, if a test slide of live animal-derived meat cells and a test slide of lab-cultured animal protein cells are identical under a microscope, then it’s meat.

My thoughts here are the result of a focus group of one. And, I only am looking to address one of the many debates raging over these new technologies. The FDA and USDA have many constituents and scientific arguments to consider before deciding how to regulate this emerging industry, including how to label the products. Reportedly, neither agency is in a big hurry.

So this is really still just the beginning of the discussion. Not even all our Meatingplace editors agree with my take. Please add your 0.02 worth by emailing me your thoughts at lkeefe@meatingplace.com.

Quack, quack. It's a duck.

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