FDA at odds over labeling of cultured meat

[Techno-Druid]

(Source)

The FDA held a public meeting to talk about it, but no one could agree on what to call it.

On Thursday, in a small but packed auditorium, the FDA convened a public meeting about lab-grown meat—but you wouldn’t have known that if you were listening for those words. According to the FDA, it was actually about “foods produced using animal-cell culture technology.”

And according to the meeting’s various speakers, it was “clean meat,” or “artificial meat,” or “in vitro meat,” or “cell-culture products,” or “ cultured meat,” or “cultured tissue” (not meat!). This is a war of words, with each one chosen to evoke specific associations. And it is a war to define lab-grown meat as either the exciting future of food or a freak science experiment.

It comes at a critical moment. Well-funded start-ups such as Memphis Meats have been feeding their lab-grown chicken to curious tasters. Traditional-meat producers such as Tyson Foods and Cargill have invested money in lab-grown animal protein. The field has made enough progress that the FDA decided to convene a public meeting to discuss how lab-grown meat should be regulated.

Meat producers—particularly beef producers—question whether it should be called “meat” at all. That’s why Rhonda Miller, the former president of the American Meat Science Association, chose to call it “cultured tissue” in her presentation. “Meat scientists do not have enough information on cultured tissue to determine whether it should be called meat,” she said, pointing out that lab-grown meat companies haven’t exactly made samples available for study.

Maggie Nutter of the United States Cattlemen’s Association began her four minutes of public comment by introducing herself as a fourth-generation Montana rancher who is training her children and grandchildren to be fifth- and sixth-generation ranchers. It was an appeal to tradition—to the idea of family farms and pastoral ways.

If nostalgia for traditional foodways is one pole for the current food movement, the other is environmental and social responsibility. That’s why activists have leapt from the favored scientific term cultured meat (referring to the cell cultures in which it grows) to clean meat. Clean serves many roles here: It echoes clean energy. It’s a nod to the lack of animal slaughter. And it refers to the sterile conditions under which the meat cells grow. “We call this sector clean meat,” said Jessica Almy of the Good Food Institute at the FDA meeting. Her organization had previously run a survey that showed consumers were most likely to purchase a product labeled “clean” over “safe,” “pure,” “cultured,” or “meat 2.0.”

Clean meat, not surprisingly, riles up beef producers. Danielle Beck, a lobbyist for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA), told me on the phone last week that the term is inherently offensive to traditional-meat producers, as if real meat is somehow dirty. The NCBA has also called lab-grown meat “fake meat” and has said that the U.S. Department of Agriculture, not the FDA, should regulate the field.

Jack Bobo, the chief communications officer of the biotech company Intrexon, favors the term craft meat over clean meat. The dinner table isn’t the place for moralizing, he told me at Thursday’s meeting. Why not use a term that evokes craft breweries and hand-jarred pickles instead? The debate over what to call lab-grown meat is a debate over what values we deem most important in food.

The only speaker at the meeting who deliberately and repeatedly used the term lab-grown meat was Michael Hansen, a senior scientist for Consumers Union, the organization that also publishes Consumer Reports. Hansen noted that Consumer Reports conducted a survey in June asking respondents which of seven terms would be the most accurate label. At the bottom of the list were in vitro meat (8 percent), clean meat (9 percent), and cultured meat (11 percent).

At the top of the list was, at 35 percent, well, the term nobody else at the meeting wanted to utter: lab-grown meat. The war of words is on, but maybe it is already won.

I prefer the term cultured meat as it's pretty indicative of how the meat is grown (through cell-cultures), but the consumer side of me understands why many advocates would opt for clean meat though. In an age where words like GMO have become charged words, clean meat definitely evokes a better image.

The term clean meat is also somewhat accurate as conventional meat is prone to contamination under conditions the cultured variety wouldn't face in a sterile laboratory. Such as the report that found fecal bacteria in nearly 90% of the samples tested and a number of E. Coli outbreaks over the years linked to feces-contaminated meat and leafy greens contaminated with animal feces.

Whatever the term, it should still be referred to as meat, no matter what lobbyists attempt to discredit it through appeals to tradition or naturalistic fallacies.

[Darsithis]

It's meat, and meat I am excited for (hey, shut down those dirty minds) - this is a huge revolution in our environment and our costs in terms of feeding, medicating, and raising our livestock.

[Oakshana]

It's meat, and meat I am excited for (hey, shut down those dirty minds) - this is a huge revolution in our environment and our costs in terms of feeding, medicating, and raising our livestock.

That said... you KNOW there will be some activist vegans that will find SOMETHING to contest with this.

[Yat-Yas]

I love the idea of lab-grown meat or clean meat. It helps satisfy those concerned with the well-being of animals being slaughtered for food and also those, like myself, who love eating meat. The only issue I can think of is how this affects cattle ranches and similar professions. Hopefully those obsessed with the term "organic" will keep the rancher's livelihoods afloat.

[grexly75]

Call me old fashioned but I prefer my meat to be real, and not grown in a petri dish in some lab using who knows what..

[I Push Buttons]

Don't care what they call it as long as they label it so I know what products not to buy.

[grexly75]

I love the idea of lab-grown meat or clean meat. It helps satisfy those concerned with the well-being of animals being slaughtered for food and also those, like myself, who love eating meat. The only issue I can think of is how this affects cattle ranches and similar professions. Hopefully those obsessed with the term "organic" will keep the rancher's livelihoods afloat.

Also not to forget what do you do with all those animals that have been bred for that specific purpose..

[Sky High]

mmm if the ranchers were smart they would already be trying to market their product as "natural" meat. I see no reason how that can't at the very least be a niche market going into the future.

[Hilhen7]

My vote is for replicated meat.

[grexly75]

Don't care what they call it as long as they label it so I know what products not to buy.

Yeah won't catch me buying that sort of crap, and well in the end if I was forced to choose between lab meat or being a vegan I would go vegan..

[Elegiac]

Call me old fashioned but I prefer my meat to be real, and not grown in a petri dish in some lab using who knows what..

Real meat that is cleaned, treated, and exposed to who knows what. Right.

[Independent voter]

"Cultured meat-like protein product"

[grexly75]

Real meat that is cleaned, treated, and exposed to who knows what. Right.

Still better than that crap grown in a lab in a petri dish..

[Elegiac]

Still better than that crap grown in a lab in a petri dish..

Under sterile conditions? Lol.

[grexly75]

Under sterile conditions? Lol.

I prefer real meat from an animal, not from a fricken petri dish..

[Noomz]

(Source)

I prefer the term cultured meat as it's pretty indicative of how the meat is grown (through cell-cultures), but the consumer side of me understands why many advocates would opt for clean meat though. In an age where words like GMO have become charged words, clean meat definitely evokes a better image.

The term clean meat is also somewhat accurate as conventional meat is prone to contamination under conditions the cultured variety wouldn't face in a sterile laboratory. Such as the report that found fecal bacteria in nearly 90% of the samples tested and a number of E. Coli outbreaks over the years linked to feces-contaminated meat and leafy greens contaminated with animal feces.

Whatever the term, it should still be referred to as meat, no matter what lobbyists attempt to discredit it through appeals to tradition or naturalistic fallacies.

Just label it as tasteless. Because it is.

[schwarzkopf]

Artificial Meat is probably the most accurate term, like Artificial Sweeteners etc.

I mean technically it isn't even meat ... but for the sake of compromise call it Artificial Meat.

[grexly75]

Artificial Meat is probably the most accurate term, like Artificial Sweeteners etc.

I mean technically it isn't even meat ... but for the sake of compromise call it Artificial Meat.

The other thing is like artificial sweeteners, be interesting how it would/could affect peoples health.. Since we know that quite a few of the arty sweeteners are very bad to human health..

[Techno-Druid]

Artificial Meat is probably the most accurate term, like Artificial Sweeteners etc.

I mean technically it isn't even meat ... but for the sake of compromise call it Artificial Meat.

I think a more accurate term would be 'artificially-grown meat' rather than 'artificial meat'. Artificial implies a man-made copy which could more describe the process of 'feeding' cells to grow outside of the animal, but the cells themselves and the tissue the nutrient-fed cells grow into are still 100% cow or chicken or pig.

[Hilhen7]

I think a more accurate term would be 'artificially-grown meat' rather than 'artificial meat'. Artificial implies a man-made copy which could more describe the process of 'feeding' cells to grow outside of the animal, but the cells themselves and the tissue the nutrient-fed cells grow into are still 100% cow or chicken or pig.

So technically they could produce human meat as well?