‘Political efforts’: the Republican states trying to ban lab-grown meat

Florida is on track to ban cell-cultivated meat while three others float it - but experts say the reasoning has little to do with safety, ethical or environmental questions

At a press conference in February, the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, told a room full of reporters: We're not going to do that fake meat. That doesn't work." He'd been discussing legislation under debate in the statehouse that would ban cell-cultivated meat - an emerging technique that, instead of slaughtering animals for consumption, grows meat in a lab using a small sample of animal cells.

A few weeks later, a Republican member of the Florida legislature - and cattle rancher - Dean Black took to the House floor, saying, Cultured meat is not meat ... it is made by man, real meat is made by God Himself ... If you really want to try the nitrogen-based protein paste, go to California."