{"id":29035,"date":"2024-06-30T06:07:50","date_gmt":"2024-06-30T11:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=29035"},"modified":"2024-06-30T06:07:57","modified_gmt":"2024-06-30T11:07:57","slug":"lab-grown-meat-maker-hosts-miami-tasting-party-as-florida-ban-goes-into-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=29035","title":{"rendered":"‘Lab-grown’ meat maker hosts Miami tasting party as Florida ban goes into effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

MIAMI — As Florida’s ban on “lab-grown\u201d meat<\/u><\/a> is set to go into effect next week, one manufacturer hosted a last hurrah \u2014 at least for now \u2014 with a cultivated meat-tasting party in Miami.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

California-based Upside Foods hosted dozens of guests Thursday evening at a rooftop reception in the city’s Wynwood neighborhood, known for its street art, breweries, nightclubs and trendy restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is delicious meat,\u201d Upside Foods CEO and founder Uma Valeti said. \u201cAnd we just fundamentally believe that people should have a choice to choose what they want to put on their plate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The U.S. approved<\/u><\/a> the sale of what’s now being called \u201ccell-cultivated\u201d or \u201ccell-cultured\u201d meat for the first time in June 2023, allowing Upside Foods and another California company, Good Meat, to sell cultivated chicken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, Florida and Alabama banned<\/u><\/a> the sale of cultivated meat and seafood, which is grown from animal cells<\/u><\/a>. Other states and federal lawmakers also are looking to restrict it, arguing the product could hurt farmers and pose a safety risk to the public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Florida cattle ranchers joined Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/u><\/a> when he signed the ban into law in May, Valeti said Florida officials never reached out to his company before passing the legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s pretty clear to us that the governor and the government have been misinformed,\u201d Valeti said. \u201cAnd all we\u2019re asking for is a chance to have a direct conversation and say, \u2018this is proven science, this is proven safety.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cultivated products are grown in steel tanks using cells from a living animal, a fertilized egg or a storage bank. The cells are fed with special blends of water, sugar, fats and vitamins. Once they\u2019ve grown, they\u2019re formed into cutlets, nuggets and other shapes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chef Mika Leon, owner of Caja Caliente in Coral Gables, prepared the cultivated chicken for Thursday’s event, which invited members of the South Florida public to get their first, and possibly last, taste of cultivated meat before Florida’s ban begins Monday. Leon served chicken tostadas with avocado, chipotle crema and beet sprouts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When you cook it, it sizzles and cooks just like chicken, which was insane,” Leon said. \u201cAnd then when you go to eat it, it\u2019s juicy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reception guest Alexa Arteaga said she could imagine cultivated meat being a more ethical alternative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe texture itself is a little bit different, but the taste was really, really good,\u201d Arteaga said. \u201cLike way better than I was expecting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another guest, Skyler Myers, agreed about the texture being different when eating a piece of meat by itself but said it just seemed like normal chicken when he ate the tostada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no difference,\u201d Myers said. \u201cI mean, there\u2019s no way you would ever know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides the ethical issues surrounding the killing of animals, Valeti said cultivated meat avoids many of the health and environmental problems created by the meat industry, such as deforestation, pollution and the spread of disease. He also noted that the meat his company produces is not coming from a lab but from a facility more closely resembling a brewery or a dairy processing plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t have any confined animals,\u201d Valeti said. \u201cWe just have healthy animal cells that are growing in cultivators.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The restrictions come despite cultivated meat and seafood still being too expensive to reach the market in a meaningful way. Two high-end U.S. restaurants briefly added the products to their menus, but it hasn’t been available at any U.S. grocery stores. Companies have been working to bring down costs by scaling up production, but now they\u2019re also trying to respond to bans with petitions<\/u><\/a> and possible legal action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sean Edgett, Upside Foods chief legal officer, said the company went through a yearslong process with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration before receiving approval. He said those federal regulations should supersede any state bans, which he believes are unconstitutional.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hopeful that if lawmakers can\u2019t change their mind and turn things around back to an avenue of progress that the courts will step in and make that clear,\u201d Edgett said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Backers of the bans say they want to protect farmers and consumers from a product that only has been around for about a decade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

State Sen. Jay Collins, a Republican who sponsored the Florida bill, noted the legislation doesn\u2019t ban research, just the manufacturing and sale of cultivated meat. Collins said safety was his primary motivator, but he also wants to protect Florida agriculture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLet\u2019s not be in a rush to replace something,\u201d Collins said earlier this year. \u201cIt\u2019s a billion-dollar industry. We feed a ton of people across the country with our cattle, beef, pork, poultry and fish industries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Valeti isn’t trying to replace any industry, just give people more options, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to have multiple choices that feed us,\u201d Valeti said. \u201cSome of those choices are conventional farming. Some of those choices are coming from plant-based foods. And cultivated meat is another solid choice.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MIAMI — As Florida’s ban on “lab-grown\u201d meat is set to go into effect next week, one manufacturer hosted a last hurrah \u2014 at least for now \u2014 with a cultivated meat-tasting party in Miami. California-based Upside Foods hosted dozens of guests Thursday evening at a rooftop reception in the city’s Wynwood neighborhood, known for its street art, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":29036,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[29354],"class_list":["post-29035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-florida-ban-takes-effect"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29037,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29035\/revisions\/29037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}