Italy want to ban lab-grown meat. Here’s why it’s a bad idea

Scientists recently created a meatball with the flesh of the long-extinct woolly mammoth. The meatball was the product of one of this century’s most promising technological advancements – cellular agriculture.

Sometimes called “lab-grown meat”, the process involves growing animal products from animal cells in a controlled laboratory environment. The process eliminates many of the environmental, animal welfare and human health concerns that are associated with industrial livestock systems today.

But laboratory-grown animal products are yet to really take off. Singapore and the US are so far the only two countries in which lab-grown food products can be sold legally to consumers. The European Food Safety Authority is still assessing the potential risks associated with cultured animal products.

And, on March 28, Italy’s minister of agriculture, Francesco Lollobrigida, announced that the country would become the first to ban lab-grown foods. The reason for the proposed ban is mainly to protect Italian farmers. But the government has also voiced concerns about the quality of synthetic foods and their threat to Italy’s proud culinary heritage.

However, lab-grown meat has the potential to offer a much more sustainable food source than traditional animal farming that could also help reduce the spread of disease.

How it’s grown

Scientists can grow muscle tissue synthetically by reproducing the process of cellular regeneration that occurs...

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