On May 1, Florida became the first state to ban the sale and production of lab-grown meat. Alabama is set to become the second state, and several other state bans were proposed this year. Whether you support a ban or oppose it, it’s worth understanding why the third largest state in the country just criminalized its sale and more may follow.

The simple answer is: A lack of trust among voters and lack of transparency by some lab grown meat promoters. Lab grown meat companies also didn’t do themselves any favors by attempting to position their product as the “clean” version of natural farm-raised meat. Ironically, a UC Davis study found lab meat might have a 25 times greater environmental footprint than farm-raised meat. But the real damage was done once they started disparaging family farmers and saying they needed to be replaced for the sake of the planet. Can you blame farmers and ranchers for fighting back?

Let’s start with consumer sentiment.

Polling conducted in January by the Center for the Environment and Welfare, discovered:

66% of respondents said they had concerns about whether lab-grown meat is safe.
57% were concerned that lab-grown meat was unnatural.
54% were concerned that they didn’t know what was in it.
61% of respondents said they would not try lab-grown meat. Only 19% said they would.

Quite simply, there is a trust gap that lab-grown meat companies need to address. With poll numbers as poor as this, politicians seem to be jumping on the issue as a concern that appeals to parents, natural food advocates, and those who question the validity of government approvals.

Lab-grown meat companies use “immortalized” cells that have been modified to grow in perpetuity like a tumor. While immortalized cells have been used in medical research, they’ve never before been used as a food product. That naturally worries consumers when they learn about it.

Additionally, a variety of chemical growth factors can be used to stimulate growth of animal cells in the serum used in a bioreactor. Some of these growth factors have been linked to harmful health effects including cancer.

The exact chemicals used by a company are considered a trade secret. Regardless, the public wants more transparency to what exact chemicals these companies use to grow lab meat. According to the above polling, 86% of respondents think lab-grown meat companies should be required to disclose the chemicals they use in factory bioreactors.

Lab-grown meat advocates have pointed to approval from the FDA and USDA as evidence that these products are safe. But this clearly isn’t enough to satisfy consumer concern. Rightly or wrongly, some people lost trust for “government experts” during the pandemic.

Moreover, the approval process was reliant on data submitted by the companies themselves to federal regulators for analysis which some may view as a conflict of interest. And the submissions themselves raised questions, such as why some samples of lab-grown chicken contained 20 times more lead than natural chicken samples, and 8 times more cholesterol.

Worse, the federal agencies were reportedly given a 257-page complaint from a former scientist for one of the two companies approved in the US to sell lab-grown meat. The scientist said the document the feds signed off on was “the most embarrassing ‘scientific’ manuscript in the history of modern technological innovation.”

When we tried to get a copy of this complaint through an open records request, the government wouldn’t share it —or even confirm or deny its existence.

When you have a former scientist for lab-grown meat raising such strident objections, the public deserves to know what’s going on.

It wouldn’t surprise me if lab-grown meat companies try to overturn the Florida ban in the courts, but even if they succeed, grocery chains should proceed with caution. Lab-grown meat is a brand risk.

A large number of consumers don’t want to eat it, and attempts to force it on people–either through deceptive labeling, or attempts to “blend” it in with natural meat or plant-based imitations, run the risk of major backlash. Most consumers don’t want to be guinea pigs for weird food. And this is an issue with cross-cutting political support, as evidenced by Democratic US Sen. John Fetterman voicing support for Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signing a ban.

So why not take lab-grown meat off the table–figuratively and literally–until there’s science about its long-term health effects?

More study and transparency is needed and until then consumers and politicians on both sides of the aisle will continue to reject it.

What’s at the Heart of the Lab-Grown Meat Bans?

Join for free* to continue reading.