Newsletter: The planet needs lab-grown meat, no matter what Ron DeSantis says

Good morning. I’m Paul Thornton, and it is Saturday, May 18, 2024. Here’s what we’ve been doing in Opinion.

When I first heard about the criminalization of lab-grown meat in Florida and Alabama — and yes, it is criminalization, since producing or distributing the stuff within those states is now punishable by fines and jail time — my first reaction was to roll my eyes at another “own the libs” stunt by two Republican governors. Then I had the thought probably shared by plenty of other vegans and vegetarians who marvel at how far people will go to consume animal flesh: Why don’t we just stop eating meat already?

“It would be so nice and easy if everyone just cut down on their meat consumption, wouldn’t it?” said Carolyn Englar, spokesperson for the alternative-meat promoting Good Food Institute, when I posed the question to her. “Unfortunately, global meat consumption continues to rise, despite many years of environmentalists and global health experts pushing for the reverse.”

She’s right, of course. We’ve long known the environmental cost of raising and killing tens of billions of animals per year for food. In their Times op-ed article this week lampooning the Florida and Alabama bans, New York University professors Arthur L. Caplan and Jeff Sebo tally some of the consequences: 80% of agricultural land is used for raising animals and growing their food, leading to widespread deforestation and biodiversity loss. In California, we’re running out of Colorado River water largely because so much of it goes toward alfalfa used to feed livestock. Growing crops to feed to animals that will be fed to humans is an awfully inefficient way to deliver calories.

One solution is something akin to the harm reduction approach in addiction treatment: To meet people where they are and mitigate the damaging effects of their behavior. This is where lab-grown meat, also known as cell-cultivated meat, comes in.

The only way meat consumption — and this stuff is meat, approved for sale as such by federal government — can approach sustainability is by dramatically cutting the number of animals we raise and kill for it. But the practice of taking tissue samples from livestock and using them to grow meat in devices called bioreactors is still in its research and development phase. Ideally, the business will scale up over many years to the point that cultured meat might displace enough slaughtered animals to reduce the harmful effects of animal agriculture.

But that day is far off — really far off. Which makes the bans signed into law by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey so baffling.

I asked the Good Food Institute’s principal scientist for cell-cultured meat, Elliot Swartz, to give me an idea of how far off we’re from DeSantis’ vision of the “global elite’s plan to force the world to eat meat grown in a petri dish.” For someone who works at a nonprofit tracking and promoting the development of non-animal protein alternatives, Swartz’s assessment struck me as hopeful yet jarringly frank.

He noted that while global meat production is measured in hundreds of millions of metric tons annually, for cell-cultivated meat we’re still measuring the output in kilograms. It’s growing, yes, and development of this nascent industry is moving fast and attracting investment. But federally inspected facilities in the U.S. producing this meat today, Swartz said, could supply between one and 10 restaurants.

You read that right. DeSantis might see a scheme that spans the globe, but there’s hardly enough cell-cultivated meat to supply a block of fast-food restaurants in Burbank.

Which isn’t to say that lab-grown meat is doomed. By the end of this year, Swartz predicts, enough products could be approved by the federal government to supply up to 100 restaurants. He also points to Israel and Singapore, both of which recently approved the sale of lab-grown meat, as two countries taking action because both have land and water shortages that make meeting the growing demand for animal protein extremely difficult. They’re acting out of self-interest, as other parts of the world must to satisfy humanity’s taste for meat without destroying forests and fouling water supplies.

“We have reached the carrying capacity for meat production,” Swartz said. “That is why we need alternatives to meat consumption.” Getting our meat from somewhere other than dead animals is our only way to keep eating the stuff in the future. Meat pulled out of machine may have an “ick” factor, something capitalized on by Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who declared his support for DeSantis’ ban and declared he would never “serve that slop” to his children. But if lab-grown meat unsettles your stomach, wait until you see the inside of a slaughterhouse.

In the meantime, you can do the Colorado River and California’s critically stressed aquifers a favor by forgoing the occasional hamburger — as suggested in a Times op-ed article last month — or, more heroically, eliminating your meat consumption altogether. Ask a vegan or vegetarian for help — we’re everywhere.

An American doctor stuck in Gaza worries where patients will go as Israel moves into Rafah. Mahmoud Sabha, a physician from Orange County who is living in Texas and volunteering in the Gaza Strip, says his patients have asked where they should go, since they know others have been killed with their IV lines still attached as Israeli forces have moved in on other hospitals.

Will California’s new tax on gun sales reduce firearm violence? In July, the state will start taxing firearm sales, just as it does for alcohol and tobacco. The National Rifle Assn. characterizes this as an affront to the U.S. Constitution, but University of San Diego professor Topher L. McDougal says that reaction hints at the effect the tax may have on gun sales.

The L.A. City Council just proved it can’t be trusted to fix itself. City Hall has been beset by corruption convictions and ethics complaints over the last several years, so if there’s any time for Council members to strengthen independent ethics oversight, it’s now. Instead, says The Times’ editorial board, it gutted key reforms and voted Tuesday to put a watered-down ethics reform package on the November ballot, showing its “true self-interested colors.”

Biden still trails Trump in the polls. His problem goes beyond inflation, Gaza and age. Popular policies will translate into popular support, the thinking goes, and many Democrats believe President Biden can catch former President Trump in the polls by getting it right on issues such as the Israel-Hamas war, student loans and more. “That might be true to some extent,” writes columnist Jonah Goldberg. “But I think focusing on the issues misses Biden’s real weakness: vibes.”

More from this week in opinion

From our columnists

• Robin Abcarian: “Diaper Don”? Trump’s supporters turn the tables on his puerile critics
• Jackie Calmes: The Supreme Court’s conservatives onstage, unplugged and unrepentant

From the op-ed desk

• A job can’t always lift someone out of homelessness. What more is needed?
• Alice Munro’s stories gave voice to women’s unspoken, almost unspeakable, inner lives

From the editorial board

• Critics say Prop. 28 arts funding is being misspent. School administrators need to show their work
• China embraced electric vehicles. The U.S. didn’t. Now we’re paying the price

Letters to the editor

• At long last, USC valedictorian Asna Tabassum gets her due
• Clarence Thomas starts using the “fake news” defense
• Remembering Sam Rubin, “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” pitchman