Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #220: 3D Printed Steak, Cell-Cultured Salmon & Lab-Grown Chocolate

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Episode #220: 3D Printed Steak, Cell-Cultured Salmon & Lab-Grown Chocolate · Beyond Labels Premium

0:00
SPEAKER_02: If you thought gene editing cows and pigs and microbes was futuristic, buckle up.
0:06
SPEAKER_02: Because your dinner is about to be printed.
0:09
SPEAKER_02: Literally.
0:11
SPEAKER_02: So we are now entering an age where your dinner may not even grow in soil or see the sun or or be outside at all.
0:22
SPEAKER_02: It might be grown in stainless steel, where scientists aren't harvesting ingredients, they are actually designing them.
0:31
SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
0:32
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels, the podcast with the farmer Joel Salatin.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: That would be me and my favorite researcher in the world, Dr.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, who wants to dive today into a fascinating topic of engineered eating.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, the um the old leftover tobacco, uh tobacco laboratories have not been sitting idle on their hands.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: And uh so while we have a move toward you know uh clean and and and detox and better food, you have this other side that's uh going in harder to ape food and to engineer food to to create more engineered eating from animals to chocolate.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: And so Cena's gonna take us on a little bit of a romp today through the engineered food, the manipulated food uh kind of uh a state of the state.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Where are we today?
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Uh and and uh what can we look forward in the future?
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Joel.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's get started because we got a lot to cover today.
1:49
SPEAKER_02: Joel, it is a whole new world that is being created, where technology and biology are blending faster than regulators can even keep up with, and where innovations are now coming with the side of ethical and environmental questions.
2:05
SPEAKER_02: So we have now entered the era of precision breeding, where genetic modification of animals and plants is occurring using techniques like gene editing or CRISPR.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: On this podcast, we have already discussed how the produce aisle is getting a high-tech makeover.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: We've talked about scientists tinkering around with lettuce that doesn't wilt, mushrooms and bananas that don't brown, and tomatoes that are supercharged with neurotransmitters like GABA, and even wheat that has reduced gluten levels.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: But plants were just the appetizer.
2:42
SPEAKER_02: The main course is actually animals.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: So I figured you'll love this, Joel.
2:47
SPEAKER_02: So uh let's walk down the animal section of the grocery store.
2:51
SPEAKER_02: So pigs, let's take pigs, for example.
2:54
SPEAKER_02: In 2025, regulators approved a CRISPR-edited pig that's engineered to resist a devastating virus known as PRRS or porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: And the pigs may actually hit our dinner plates as soon as 2027.
3:15
SPEAKER_02: Then there's the the slick coat cow, and that is a breed that's been edited to have a shorter, glossier coat so it can handle heat stress.
3:27
SPEAKER_02: Now, normally that trait appears in tropical cattle, but scientists have spliced it into other breeds using CRISPR.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: The this is the scary part of this.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: The FDA has labeled this genetic change, quote, low risk, because this trait mimics a naturally occurring mutation.
3:48
SPEAKER_02: But what that means is there's no pre-market approval required.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: So the slick coat cow was the first genome-edited cow that was cleared for human consumption, and their meat can be sold to humans.
4:05
SPEAKER_02: It's not sold yet commercially, as far as I can tell, but it can be sold, and there's no pre-market approval required.
4:14
SPEAKER_02: In 2024, there was a slick cow progeny that was born and raised in America.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: So they're getting closer, but as far as I can tell, it's not yet being sold to consumers.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: Then there was the gal safe pig, which we've talked about before on this podcast.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: This was the first of its kind, and it was approved for medical use and for the dinner table.
4:38
SPEAKER_02: This one was edited to remove a sugar molecule that can trigger an allergic reaction in people that have alpha gal syndrome.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: That's the condition we've talked about that makes you allergic to red meat.
4:49
SPEAKER_02: And scientists are actually hoping that the organs of the cow of the gal-safe pig might one day be used in transplants in humans.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: So then back to cows, we have a whole nother approach to modifying a cow.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: This one comes out of UC Davis and the Innovative Genomics Institute.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: What they're doing, instead of editing the cow, they're editing the microbiome.
5:19
SPEAKER_02: Their goal is they want to create a type of probiotic that the cow would be given that would permanently reprogram the microbes in the cow's gut to make it, and you're never gonna guess what they're trying to make it do, Joel.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: They're trying to make the cow produce less methane, right?
5:41
SPEAKER_02: To fight climate change.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: So they're saying it's like giving a cow a one-time dose of a DNA altering yogurt for its microbiome.
5:49
SPEAKER_02: It's precision microbiome manipulation.
5:53
SPEAKER_02: The scientists are now mapping the rumen of the uh the rumen microbiome of these cows, so the the micro community, and they're testing gene edits in the lab and trying to develop uh delivery systems.
6:08
SPEAKER_02: This is actually gaining momentum.
6:10
SPEAKER_02: This gene editing of a cow's microbiome is gaining momentum, but it's not on the farm yet, as much as I can tell.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: But but here's the thing: so this is happening at UC Davis, but other researchers at UC Davis have already demonstrated that you can cut methane emission in half or more simply by changing a cow's diet.
6:33
SPEAKER_02: I mean, who would have ever thought, Joel?
6:35
SPEAKER_02: Like, we need a prestigious university to tell us that that can happen.
6:39
SPEAKER_02: But so they did some trials and they saw that they, if they fed cattle red seaweed, it would reduce methane emission up to 80%.
6:49
SPEAKER_02: And that was in beef steers.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: And in grazing cattle, it would reduce methane emission about 40%.
6:56
SPEAKER_02: And there's no gene editing required.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: So if we have this natural proven solution, why are we so determined to rewrite genetic codes, right?
7:07
SPEAKER_02: To change the microbiome, to change the cow itself.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, just so that uh just just because I can't help it, um, on our on our farm, we feed literally tons of seaweed.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Um kelp, ascophylum nodosum is the uh actual variety from Iceland.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: It's geo, it's uh geothermally dried.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: So uh most seaweed that's fed livestock is um is natural gas dried, but this is geothermally dried, and uh in Iceland, it's definitely the best stuff.
7:41
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, uh you know, we we we already do that.
7:46
SPEAKER_01: We didn't do it to reduce methane, we did it because it helps them stay real healthy.
7:51
SPEAKER_02: Wow, bonus.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: See, the the knowledge, the wisdom is already there.
7:56
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, leave the cows alone, just feed them good food, right?
8:01
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so but here, Joel, okay, if you thought gene editing cows and pigs and microbes was futuristic, buckle up because your dinner is about to be printed, literally.
8:14
SPEAKER_02: So we are now entering an age where your dinner may not even grow in soil or see the sun or or be outside at all.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: It might be grown in stainless steel, where scientists aren't harvesting ingredients, they are actually designing them.
8:33
SPEAKER_02: So in the past few years, we've watched the food industry shift from the barnyard to the bioreactor.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: So big tech has officially entered the kitchen and the promise is a cleaner, greener, more sustainable world if we would only just hand over our food supply to their machines.
8:53
SPEAKER_02: So you and I have previously talked about lab-grown chicken and lab grown beef, but we haven't talked about 3D printed steaks.
9:04
SPEAKER_02: In Israel, there's two companies that have decided that instead of raising animals, they're going to engineer them one printed layer at a time.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: The first company is called Redefined Meat, and they took the plant-based route.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: So in 2020, they unveiled the world's first 3D printed plant-based steak.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: So this did not grow like just in the lab, they actually printed it.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: So it's a complex process, but just to simple it, to make it simplified, imagine that you have a high-tech pastry bag.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: And instead of squeezing out frosting, it squeezes out layers of pea protein, soy and beet juice and coconut coconut fat.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: And each layer is mapped with precision to mimic the fibers and the marbling, and Joel, even the sizzling of real beef.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: And if you look at pictures, the this it looks like steak, and allegedly it feels like steak and it sizzles like steak and it almost tastes like steak.
10:10
SPEAKER_02: They've claimed that they have, quote, redefined meat as the company name is redefined meat, but it's more like a highly sophisticated veggie burger, right?
10:20
SPEAKER_02: Wearing the costume of a ribeye.
10:22
SPEAKER_02: But anyhow, that that was the first um 3D printed plant-based steak.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: And then came a second company called Steakholder Foods.
10:32
SPEAKER_02: This was formerly called um Meat Tech 3D.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: So they decided to raise the stakes, pun intended.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: I I assume this is stakeholder as in S T E A K.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
10:52
SPEAKER_02: Right.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: So they are using real animal cells instead of plants.
10:58
SPEAKER_02: So their scientists start with cow stem cells, and they can get this from a muscle biopsy of a living cow.
11:07
SPEAKER_02: Then they grow the stem cells in a bioreactor unit.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: So this is the giant stainless steel vat that's filled with nutrients.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: So they can multiply these cells and differentiate them into muscle and fat cells.
11:20
SPEAKER_02: Then they turn those so those cells then are separated and prepared to act as what's called bio ink.
11:30
SPEAKER_02: This is basically a smooth paste of the muscle and fat precursors that are then used in a 3D printer.
11:38
SPEAKER_02: So this bio ink gets loaded into a 3D printer and that deposits the cells layer by layer.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: And they're recreating the architecture of muscle tissue, like the muscle and the fat structures.
11:52
SPEAKER_02: And now, once it's printed, the steak to be then goes into an incubator, which is like a meat nursery.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: And that's where the cells mature and they fuse into something that looks really similar to a steak.
12:06
SPEAKER_02: It's actually called cultivated steak.
12:10
SPEAKER_02: And in 2021, this company announced the world's largest lab-grown steak.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: It was about five ounces.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: This meat, actually, by redefined meat, or sorry, the meat, the redefined meat is already selling.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: So this is a 3D printed version that's the plant-based steak.
12:31
SPEAKER_02: It's already being sold in parts of Europe and in Israel.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh, the stakeholder food, the cell-based meat, is not on the menu for now.
12:41
SPEAKER_02: But actually, they are a technology company and they develop and they license this technology to food manufacturers.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: And those food companies are the ones that would be producing the final meat products.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: So I checked out their website, and um, I'll put the link in the show description so people can see it.
13:02
SPEAKER_02: But the it looks real, like it doesn't look exactly like real meat, but they have pictures of it, and a lot of it looks very similar, where most people wouldn't notice a difference.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: And there's recipes on there of what you can do with them.
13:16
SPEAKER_02: Um, and then there's this tab where you can schedule your visit.
13:19
SPEAKER_02: And it says, discover how stakeholder can enhance your menu and meet your business needs with our sustainable and delicious alternatives.
13:29
SPEAKER_02: We look forward to hosting you and providing personalized experience that's tailored to your preferences and requirements.
13:34
SPEAKER_02: So they're um they have a customer service center where you can go and visit it.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: And it looks like they're actually like selling this equipment so that um you know, food suppliers can start making their own uh uh, you know, meat, cultured meat to be sold to people.
13:58
SPEAKER_02: So it's crazy.
13:59
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's no long-term studies on any of these um creations.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: Um, and there's not great studies showing how it compares nutritionally with the real thing.
14:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, but but this was this was new to me.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know that we were already 3D printing meat, uh, you know, from meats, from actual meat cells, these stem cells that they're taking from cows, and then kind of this fake meat from the from the plant-based.
14:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean is that did you know that?
14:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, this is shocking to me.
14:36
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I I mean, I I'm I'm uh I'm very I left off, you know, kind of where the the impossible burger and the beyond beef folks left off with the lab cultured, you know, try trying to trying to grow the you know, trying to grow the material in a in a vat, um in a bioreactor, and and that whole thing has has has pretty much failed uh because they they can't duplicate kidneys and livers and arteries and parts and and all the things that make a you know all they can do is is is bubbles, you know, bubbles and uh and filters.
15:13
SPEAKER_01: And so uh so those systems as they developed uh used a tremendous number of um of pharmaceuticals, drugs, antibiotics, because they had so much infection in that lab-grown material uh because they couldn't get the waste moved away.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: Again, it's hard to duplicate kidneys and livers.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so so that's kind of that whole thing is kind of you know collapsed, if you will.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but it makes me wonder if you know if the 3D printing by by by um by squeezing it through, and and I heard you say, you know, the the the the world's biggest steak, uh, a five-ounce.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's not very big.
15:54
SPEAKER_01: No.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: And so so they've they've how many you know millions and millions of billions of dollars they've put into this, and the biggest thing they've made so far is a five-ounce, if it's a five-ounce steak.
16:05
SPEAKER_01: So I I've lit I've lived through, and you and I have both lived through, you know, uh about 10 years ago, all the venture capital going into lab meat, cell meat, cultured meat, all this, and that whole that whole thing is basically collapsed.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: So this is apparently the um you know the next permutation of that mentality uh which is coming at it from a little different uh processing effort.
16:32
SPEAKER_01: And um and it'll be interesting to see if they get any more traction than their predecessors did.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: Okay, well, there's another one that I haven't mentioned yet, and this is now the lab-grown salmon.
16:48
SPEAKER_02: So this is different than um aqua bounty salmon, which we've talked about previously on the show.
16:56
SPEAKER_02: The aqua bounty salmon was genetically engineered uh to it had a a growth hormone incorporated into it to make it grow faster.
17:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: That was a genetically engineered salmon.
17:08
SPEAKER_02: This is now a cultured salmon.
17:11
SPEAKER_02: Um, it's grown cell by cell in the lab.
17:14
SPEAKER_02: So the company's name is Wild Type.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: How ironic, right?
17:19
SPEAKER_02: As a label, the company growing cultured or the company who is creating in a lab cultured salmon is called Wild Type.
17:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it is a San Francisco startup company, and they're trying to rewrite salmon as we know it.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: So they start with a tiny sample, a few living salmon cells that are collected from a fertilized egg or again from a small biopsy.
17:49
SPEAKER_02: And these are the pluripotent stem cells.
17:51
SPEAKER_02: Uh, so they can multiply endlessly and transform into different types of cells.
17:56
SPEAKER_02: So, what they do is they place these cells into, again, a stainless steel tank called a bioreactor.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: And this is a temperature-controlled environment.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: They're saying it acts like an artificial ocean.
18:09
SPEAKER_02: Inside, the cells float in the nutrient-rich liquid, which is the growth medium, and it's packed with the building blocks that the cells need to grow, like amino acids, you know, things like that.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: And um, they also have to add molecular, what they call coaches.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: Uh, these are growth factors that tell them when to divide and what to become.
18:32
SPEAKER_02: Here is what makes wild type different than um other companies.
18:39
SPEAKER_02: They um in the early days, the cultivated meat companies they relied and relied on fetal bovine serum, actually, which is expensive and it's an animal-derived ingredient that came from cow fetuses.
18:54
SPEAKER_02: But wild type has actually developed a serum-free plant-based growth medium.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: So the processing doesn't rely on animals at all, right?
19:02
SPEAKER_02: So that's one of the selling points here.
19:04
SPEAKER_02: But it's also kind of gross to think about that cultured meat relied on this bovine serum from a cow fetus.
19:13
SPEAKER_02: Like, where which line will we not cross, right?
19:17
SPEAKER_02: In order to try to create these foods in the lab in the name of saving the environment, right?
19:22
SPEAKER_02: Like, but I digress.
19:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so so now once once inside the bioreactor, the cells are going to multiply and until you get enough to make the salmon filet.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Now you can't just pour these cells into a mold and call that dinner, right?
19:38
SPEAKER_02: Because real salmon has structure, it has a layered texture, it flakes perfectly with the fork, it has marbling of the fat between the muscles.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: So to recreate that, wild type uses something called a scaffold.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: And it's like a 3D framework.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like a trellis in your garden for the plants to climb up.
19:56
SPEAKER_02: And it gives the cells a place to attach and align and organize themselves into tissues.
20:01
SPEAKER_02: And as the cells mature, they form real, you know, lab, real muscles and fat tissue around that scaffold, building in the texture and that mouthfeel that we expect from salmon.
20:15
SPEAKER_02: So once that tissue reaches the right density and texture, it's ready to quote unquote harvest, which means the filet is removed from the reactor, it's rinsed and it's cooled.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: And voila, you now have this piece of salmon, which the company claims is cell for cell, identical to wild salmon, but without all the nets and the boats and the you know um antibiotics and such that are that most of the salmon or that a lot of salmon is doused with.
20:45
SPEAKER_02: So that's the process.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: Now that you know the process, get this in 2025.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: So this is a new one, the FDA completed its pre-market safety consultation with the company, and you'll never guess, Joel.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: They issued a no questions letter.
21:06
SPEAKER_02: So while they don't technically say that this is grass, right?
21:13
SPEAKER_02: The the FDA says, oh no, we have this whole other process that we use when it's so cultured meat, right?
21:22
SPEAKER_02: But it ultimately comes down to a no questions letter.
21:26
SPEAKER_02: They basically look at the at the information the company has submitted and they send this no questions letter out.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: And here it is from the FDA response letter dated May 28th, 2025.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: Quote, we have no questions at this time regarding wild type's conclusion that foods comprised of or containing cultured salmon cell material resulting from the production process, blah, blah, blah, are as safe as comparable foods produced by other methods.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: So it's just as safe as fish that you would have caught from the ocean.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: So it's totally okay if it's in, if it's, you know, food or the food is comprised of these cultured salmon cells.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: Either way, we don't have any more questions.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: That one letter cleared the way for the wild type to begin small-scale production and limited restaurant launches.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: So their pilot facility is in San Francisco.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: It is affectionately called the sushi factory.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: And they can produce enough salmon for chefs to experiment with while the company is working on scaling up.
22:38
SPEAKER_02: So this is happening.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: It's, you know, like I said, the pilot is in San Francisco.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: And presumably, I mean, the chefs are experimenting with it.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know if that means people are eating it or what, but that's where it is at this point.
22:53
SPEAKER_02: And of course, the company is saying the mission is to make seafood without the environmental toll.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: No overfishing, no bycatch, no fish farms leaking antibiotics into the into the ocean, just fish minus the footprint.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: So it's seafood without the sea.
23:13
SPEAKER_02: Of course, they got a long ways to go, right?
23:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, grams is different than tons, but but as you can see, this one seems to be gaining some momentum.
23:22
SPEAKER_02: Um, another one that people probably did hear about, and then because I want to get I want to get to the chocolate one as well.
23:28
SPEAKER_02: So another one that you've probably heard about is the mammoth meatball.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: Have you heard of this one, Joel?
23:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, from the woolly mammoth.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: So let's just do this one briefly, then just to catch everybody up to speed.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: So someone has decided to go prehistoric.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: In 2023, there was an Australian startup called Val, and they decided to take cultured meat to ice age extremes by creating the mammoth meatball.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: So Val started with a myoglobin gene.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: Now, myoglobin, that's the protein that gives meat its color and some of the flavor.
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Woolly mammoths, of course, have been extinct for thousands of years.
24:10
SPEAKER_02: Um, and so the company had to get really creative.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: So they reconstructed the gene digitally.
24:16
SPEAKER_02: They filled in missing pieces with DNA from the mammoth's closest living relative, which is the African elephant, they believe.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: So they stitched this genetic sequence together, then they inserted it into sheep muscle cells, and then they coaxed the cells to grow in a bioreactor.
24:36
SPEAKER_02: Again, like this microscopic uh meat brewery.
24:40
SPEAKER_02: And the result was bite-sized mammoth meatball.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: Now, no one's actually allowed to taste it.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: It hasn't been safety tested.
24:48
SPEAKER_02: Nobody knows how our immune systems would react to this lab grown concoction, and it's not actually mammoth meat, as I've just described to you.
24:57
SPEAKER_02: But the company didn't make it for us to eat.
25:00
SPEAKER_02: They actually said they made it to start a conversation.
25:03
SPEAKER_02: The message is if we can grow meat from extinct species, maybe we can rethink the way that we produce it from living species.
25:12
SPEAKER_02: And this message worked.
25:14
SPEAKER_02: It made headlines around the world.
25:16
SPEAKER_02: And I'll say, I mean, this from a scientific perspective, this is very clever, right?
25:21
SPEAKER_02: It it's it's a little, um, I'm a little awestruck that they were able to do this.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: But this is exactly the type of boundary pushing that is now floating around the cultured meat space where pastures are swapped for stainless steel tanks and farmers are replaced with scientists in lab coats and gloves, right?
25:40
SPEAKER_02: This is molecular engineering.
25:42
SPEAKER_02: Do we really want to eat lab grown sheep mussel engineered to make a mammoth-like protein patched with elephant DNA?
25:51
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't want to eat that.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: I mean, today it's the mammoth meatball.
25:54
SPEAKER_02: Tomorrow, maybe it's saber-tooth sausage or a Neanderthal nugget, right?
26:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what are they going to come up with next?
26:03
SPEAKER_02: But what really strikes me with this is um the mammoth meatball symbolizes to me our growing disconnect from our food supply.
26:13
SPEAKER_02: Right?
26:13
SPEAKER_02: We we we used to raise animals on grass and under the sun.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: And now we're trying to resurrect extinct DMA fragments and we're calling it innovation.
26:25
SPEAKER_02: It's the perfect example of how we're trading wisdom for novelty.
26:28
SPEAKER_02: We're forgetting that food is not just chemistry, right?
26:33
SPEAKER_02: It's relationship.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: And maybe that's what these innovations are really showing us that in our rush to control life, we've actually forgotten how to live in harmony with it.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: Gosh, and I'm almost tearing up.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, because this it I think it has such a profound implication for even how we live our lives.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, at the end of the day, no matter how advanced our technology becomes, you can't engineer connection.
27:02
unknown: Right?
27:02
SPEAKER_02: The mammoth meatball may have been designed to start a conversation, but I think the conversation isn't about meat at all.
27:09
SPEAKER_02: I think it's about remembering what it means to be human, right?
27:14
SPEAKER_02: And what it means to have common sense and to connect with each other, with the food, with the environment.
27:19
SPEAKER_02: If you really want to save the environment, connect with it, right?
27:23
SPEAKER_02: That will change your behavior of how you interact, how you do that, as I call, as I I said to you this, to this, to you before, how you have this dance, Joel, that you do with nature.
27:36
SPEAKER_02: And this is such a lost art for so many of us.
27:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we we can't even understand what the dance is.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: That's why you get so many questions on how do you do this, how do you farm this, how do you, you know, how do you move the chickens, how do you integrate it all?
27:51
SPEAKER_02: Because it's so missing from our culture, and we're moving further and further away from that.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: And I think this is a really a stopping point to be able to ask ourselves what kind of relationship do we want to have with our food, with our environment, with the earthworm?
28:07
SPEAKER_02: You know, who what are we really connecting with?
28:10
SPEAKER_02: And do you have thoughts before I go on and crush your heart about chocolate?
28:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think I think it's interesting that these outfits have been have been pretty um weak on nutrition.
28:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:26
SPEAKER_01: They they and and and realize that all of the all of the uh the nutrient bath to grow this stuff in is all obviously crop-based.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: So you've got soybeans and corn and and wheat and rye and whatever.
28:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they you can't uh they're not God.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: You can't create this ex-nihalo, you know, out of nothing.
28:50
SPEAKER_01: So it takes something.
28:51
SPEAKER_01: It takes so it takes um cropland to actually make the the nutrient-dense bath for these things to grow in.
29:01
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it I mean it it's pretty Star Treky, Cena.
29:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, it it it it it really does um sound sound like Star Trek and makes me want to go um ask Yoda Yoda what he would think about this.
29:16
SPEAKER_02: I know.
29:17
SPEAKER_02: I mean, and to your point about the quality of the food, I mean, we think of things in the laboratory, you're trying to create things in a sterile environment, right?
29:26
SPEAKER_02: You're trying to not have contamination in there.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: So, what is the microbiome of the food that's of this cultured meat or the cultured fish?
29:35
SPEAKER_02: What is the microbiome?
29:36
SPEAKER_02: I I mean it's it must be picking up the microbiome that's in the lab, right?
29:41
SPEAKER_02: And this and there's not a lot of great things in the lab.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: We, if you think about, I mean, I worked in a lab for a long time.
29:46
SPEAKER_02: If you think about what do you do in a lab, you're sterilizing that thing.
29:50
SPEAKER_02: You have massive protocols to clean everything down, you're bleaching it, you're wearing gloves, like because you know, the chemicals are toxic and whatnot.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so that's the environment that the food sees that it's growing in instead of you know the outdoor, the sunshine, the, you know, the soil microbiome.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: So it has to be picking up a microbiome from somewhere and it's doing it initially from this lab.
30:14
SPEAKER_02: I don't want that type of microbiome to enter into my body.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: We already have a problem where studies, some studies have shown that Western cultures have lost maybe up to 35% of our microbial diversity.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: And part of that's through eating the sterilized foods that we eat.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: So we don't want more of that done.
30:37
SPEAKER_02: And and the second part of this is I was thinking, because not just down to the they can say, oh, our food is bioidentical if they're measuring things like vitamins, minerals, protein, fat, and carb content, right?
30:51
SPEAKER_02: Those macro and micronutrients, because they can add those to the medium, right?
30:56
SPEAKER_02: They can engineer it that way.
30:58
SPEAKER_02: But we have talked about this numerous times, Joel, and we talked about this too with Dan Kittridge.
31:05
SPEAKER_02: Food is not just chemicals.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: There's so much more to food than we actually realize.
31:10
SPEAKER_02: There's so much more than we actually know.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: We did an episode on biophotons, how living things create light, right?
31:18
SPEAKER_02: We are light beings.
31:19
SPEAKER_02: There is a life force that runs through everything that's, you know, that is that is in existence, that it's alive.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: So, what kind of energy does this food have, right?
31:32
SPEAKER_02: What kind of photons is it actually producing?
31:34
SPEAKER_02: Because you know that we don't know everything that's in the human body or in the animal.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: So you know we cannot create everything that's in there and create a scaffolding, as they call it, that will create this meat that has all these different intricate interactions that a cow meat would have, right?
31:55
SPEAKER_02: We cannot recreate that in a lab.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: So, what kind of energy is in it?
31:59
SPEAKER_02: What kind of like I have not heard any of them say that they've measured any kind of energetics of any of these products.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: So, what kind of energetic imprints is it actually containing?
32:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, you know, uh, think back when Morgan, Morgan Spurlock, uh did the his little homemade documentary that went crazy.
32:19
SPEAKER_01: Uh Biggie Biggie size me, you know, and he spent what was it, uh, you know, a month or something eating nothing but McDonald's?
32:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah.
32:27
SPEAKER_01: You know, you know, he he died.
32:29
SPEAKER_01: He died this year at 54.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Um, and uh, I mean, I'm I'm not blaming McDonald's, I'm just he died very, very young.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but but you know, he he had he had to he had to stop.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: The doctor said he was gonna die.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: And um and and you know, wouldn't it be what we desperately need now is all these companies need to subject themselves to long-term, you know, long-term testing where you know you can, you know, and we we've got the carnivore diet now, you know, and and uh there are people that I mean you you can live, you can live on you can live on beef for quite a while.
33:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just eating nothing but beef and be pretty healthy.
33:16
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's the whole basis of the carnivore diet, right?
33:18
SPEAKER_01: And uh there are plenty of people doing that.
33:22
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't it be interesting to see how long you could live on this?
33:26
SPEAKER_02: That would be fascinating.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure you can find test subjects too, to you know, people who are all gung ho about this movement, test them before and during and after.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: That would be fascinating because in essence, what they're doing here is they're trying to create life, right?
33:43
SPEAKER_02: I mean, food is living.
33:45
SPEAKER_02: So what they're saying is when they say this is bioidentical, they are saying they created life.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: So prove it.
33:55
SPEAKER_01: And and we know, we know, uh, I mean, philosophically, there could there can be no life without death.
34:03
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the the whole the whole life, death, decomposition, regeneration, life, death, decomposition, regeneration, that that cycle uh that has that has um run things forever uh you know, is such a foundation of the of the ecological womb, if you will, that um that to just thumb your nose at it and say, well, it doesn't matter.
34:28
SPEAKER_01: And and uh you know, these kind of things they they strike me, you know, look, I I'm not against technology.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, I I use a computer, we're doing this on a Zoom call.
34:42
SPEAKER_01: Uh we're we're not but there's a difference between you know the the mechanic, the mechanical side of technology and the biological side of technology.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: And biology is not just mechanics.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: It's it's um, you know, you can go out and and hug your car all day, and uh it doesn't care a lick if you're hugging it, but you can go out and hug your cow, and the cow cares a lot whether you hug her or not.
35:12
SPEAKER_01: And uh and so that's to your point, um there is so much mystery beyond the empirical physical structure of life that um that it's like these guys just don't they don't recognize any of that kind of nuance.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: Well, and it might part of it too might stem from the training.
35:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, we've talked about this in detail, so I won't belabor the point.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: But uh medical doctors and even you know scientists like myself, we are trained that the human body is a machine.
35:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so if that is your perception, then I can see how you would be dismissive of these other components that we are talking about, you know.
36:02
SPEAKER_02: So I think that's a cultural shift that would be good.
36:06
SPEAKER_02: It would serve us well if we can change that narrative, that we are not like machines.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: And I think people are waking up to that as they're realizing that you know the doctors don't have the answers to all of these sicknesses.
36:19
SPEAKER_02: And you know, the doctors are trained that we're machines.
36:22
SPEAKER_02: So uh people are starting to wake up to this concept, you know, and and hopefully we can get that movement going faster before uh, you know, hopefully the salmon doesn't catch on.
36:33
SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, but but okay, look, but let me let me address chocolate because I don't want to run out of time for this one.
36:40
SPEAKER_02: And this one, this one was upsetting to me because I love my chocolate.
36:44
SPEAKER_02: So lab grown chocolate is coming our way in 2024.
36:49
SPEAKER_02: There's a startup called Celeste Bio, and they announced that it's they successfully produced cell-cultured cocoa butter.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: Now, you know, cocoa butter is that silky fat that gives chocolate that luscious melting-your-mouth feel.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:05
SPEAKER_02: But this cocoa butter was not pressed from the cocoa bean like it usually is.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: It was grown in the lab from cells.
37:13
SPEAKER_02: So briefly, the scientists took a small sample of a cocoa plant tissue, just a few cells from the cocoa pod.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: They placed it in that nutrient-rich liquid, like a plant soup, and in the right conditions, those cells began multiplying in a bioreactor.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: They formed tiny clumps of fat-producing cocoa cells.
37:36
SPEAKER_02: Then the company extracted the fat from those lab-grown cells, and voila, cocoa butter with no tree required.
37:44
SPEAKER_02: Celeste Bio has said that it is bioidentical to the real thing.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: They claim it has the same flavor, same texture, that same glossy finish.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: Um, when you like if you snap the chocolate bar in half, the only difference is it never touched soil, it never saw sunlight or a single rainforest canopy.
38:03
SPEAKER_02: So, why are they doing this?
38:05
SPEAKER_02: Why are they growing chocolate in a lab?
38:09
SPEAKER_02: And the short answer I could find is money and supply.
38:13
SPEAKER_02: So cocoa prices have been skyrocketing.
38:16
SPEAKER_02: In 2024, they hit a record high.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: It was the most expensive it had been in nearly half a century.
38:22
SPEAKER_02: They're claiming that that was a mix of climate change, crop disease, aging trees that were devastating yields in West Africa, which is where uh apparently most of the world's cocoa is grown.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: Farmers were struggling, and the world, um, the giants, the chocolate giants of the world, like Nestle and Mars and Mondelez, they got really nervous.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: So biotechnology entered the scene.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: And lab-grown chocolate, they say, is the quote, sustainable solution to the climate chaos.
38:56
SPEAKER_02: Well, who's one of Celeste Bios backers?
38:59
SPEAKER_02: Mondelez International.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: And they're the company behind Cadbury, Toboleron, and Oreo.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: So you can imagine that they're pretty excited, right?
39:07
SPEAKER_02: Instead of having to depend on millions of farmers and a more fragile ecosystem, they can someday possibly grow cocoa fat in stainless steel tanks right next to the chocolate factories.
39:18
SPEAKER_02: They're claiming that there's no deforestation, no child labor headlines, there's no pests, no rainstorm problems, no fluctuation in the chocolate prices for the consumer.
39:29
SPEAKER_02: There's just a tree missing.
39:33
SPEAKER_02: Now, the Celeste Bio insist it's not meant to replace uh the cocoa farming entirely, that this is their insurance policy for the chocolate industry.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: But let's be honest, when big food finds a cheaper alternative, don't they usually jump?
39:54
SPEAKER_02: Right?
39:55
SPEAKER_02: They don't usually supplement, they substitute for cheaper options.
40:01
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know where this one's going, but I love chocolate, and it's really concerning to me that chocolate might start to be adulterated with this cell cultured chocolate.
40:11
SPEAKER_02: And while I was on this study, Joel, I stumbled across another potential problem coming down the line with chocolate.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: So speaking of substitutions, some chocolate companies are trying to cut their cocoa content because it's expensive, right?
40:31
SPEAKER_02: They're trying to cut the cocoa content by adding wheat or soy to replace a portion of the cocoa solids or the butter.
40:41
SPEAKER_02: There's a supplier called Ardent Mills that offers a product called Cocoa Replace, and it's a wheat-based cocoa powder substitute.
40:49
SPEAKER_02: And they say it can replace up to 25% of the cocoa powder in certain applications.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: It's cheaper, it's easier to mass produce, and I guess technically it's still chocolate.
41:01
SPEAKER_02: So one of the problems with this is that if you're sensitive to gluten or soy, you need to start reading the labels because you may not realize that that chocolate bar is now kind of akin to a breadstick for you.
41:17
SPEAKER_02: So this is, I think we're now starting to enter the phase.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: We know that the produce has is being manipulated on multiple levels.
41:28
SPEAKER_02: And now we know even more manipulation is happening with the meat.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: And now between record high cocoa prices and corporate cost cutting and the shiny new promise of this lab-grown cocoa butter, now we're entering a entering a world where even desserts may become digitized.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: And you know, Joel, as I was as I was studying this, I was thinking, you know, chocolate used to be really sacred.
41:53
SPEAKER_02: It was a sacred food.
41:54
SPEAKER_02: Like ancient civilizations, they treated it as medicine.
41:58
SPEAKER_02: And some treated it as currency, it was an aphrodisiac.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: Today it's like a data point, right?
42:04
SPEAKER_02: We've gone from these cocoa trees in the tropics to test tubes in a biotech lab, from hand roasting the beans to like bubbles in a bioreactor, right?
42:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's I know I'm on a roll, right?
42:18
SPEAKER_02: With with my alliterations, which I know you love.
42:22
SPEAKER_01: But but we we you know, where we are, uh, you know, it's it's interesting.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: The um the things the the philosophy.
42:37
SPEAKER_01: I I just keep coming back to the philosophy.
42:40
SPEAKER_01: Um you know, the Bible says, can two walk together except they be agreed?
42:45
SPEAKER_01: And um and and I'm struck by the by by the similar philosophy that that came to a mechanized view of life, you know, Western reductionist, linear, compartmentalized, segregated type thinking.
43:04
SPEAKER_01: And uh and and that brought us to chemical fertilizers, and then that brought us to herbicides and pesticides, DDT and glyphosate.
43:16
SPEAKER_01: And my point, Sina, is that these that that the the fraternity, the fraternity of thought that's driving this is the same fraternity of thought that has driven all the stuff that sometimes even 50 years later, you know, this stuff this stuff wasn't seen as as negative, you know, day one.
43:42
SPEAKER_01: But um but you know, sometimes 50 years later you start seeing because by you know, life is is very forgiving.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it it is forgiving, and it can take a lot of abuse.
43:55
SPEAKER_01: And um, I mean, we can take a lot of abuse, right?
43:58
SPEAKER_01: And and um So, you know, when we when we start down, that was that was the problem with the with warp, you know, with the COVID warp thing.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, you can't you can't determine in well, we gave it to them for a week and nothing happened, so everything's fine.
44:17
SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, these these things take a long, long time to develop.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, from a from a farmer's perspective, when we look out here at the biological clock and how long it takes, for example, an abused pasture, I'll just use an example, an abused pasture to, you know, to start to um to to to respond, or how long it took, how long it took um uh things like ragweed to develop to mutate into super ragweed, you know, with uh with herbicides.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: Uh that took that took decades.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: You know, that didn't happen overnight.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh how long it took you know caterpillars to um to adapt to um you know to insecticides.
45:13
SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, uh, I mean, I can tell you that, you know, in in livestock now, you know, you can you can go and ask for, for example, um uh you know, a list of antibiotics you've got a problem, and you can go get a list and 60 60% of them are now unusable, and it'll say um, you know, uh adapted to whatever the the the disease, the bug adapted to that, and so it's no longer efficacious.
45:49
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't work anymore um because it it's no it no longer works.
45:53
SPEAKER_01: And you you can get a list.
45:54
SPEAKER_01: I mean the the this this is not secret, you know.
45:57
SPEAKER_01: Uh you can get these lists from the state lab, and um they're they should they should give a thinking person pause, but it's like our pause button doesn't work.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: Well I mean it goes back to that the wisdom.
46:18
SPEAKER_02: I mean you you can't 3D print wisdom, right?
46:22
SPEAKER_02: I mean, what are we doing?
46:23
SPEAKER_02: What are we actually trying to sustain?
46:27
SPEAKER_01: You can't even Google wisdom.
46:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you can't you can't Google experience either, you know.
46:37
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
46:38
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: So um just in because we don't have that much time left, because I'm I'm pretty sure we're gonna get some questions about this, let's just quickly cover um regulation, like what's been approved and labeling, because I'm sure we're gonna get questions about like you know, is this gonna be labeled?
46:59
SPEAKER_02: How am I gonna know I'm eating this?
47:00
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
47:01
SPEAKER_00: Good, good, please.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: Um so let's start with the cell-cultured fish.
47:06
SPEAKER_02: So so fish is only regulated by um the FDA.
47:11
SPEAKER_02: Uh, right, when it comes to cell-cultured meat, that's regulated by the FDA and the USDA.
47:18
SPEAKER_02: So um in June of 2023, the USDA and the FDA did give authorization to two companies to produce and sell cultivated chicken commercially in the US.
47:31
SPEAKER_02: And those companies were upside-down foods and uh and good meat.
47:35
SPEAKER_02: Now it's been very limited so far, more like high-end uh restaurants or limited uh pilot sales.
47:42
SPEAKER_02: It's not available, to my knowledge, in broad retail, like grocery stores.
47:47
SPEAKER_02: But it was the this was the first US federal approval for cell-cultured meat for human consumption.
47:53
SPEAKER_02: Um and then, and again, you know, through grass, um uh, you know, grass-like process.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: Now, as of mid-2025, a handful of countries have given approval for cell-cultured meat for human consumption.
48:10
SPEAKER_02: Singapore led the way.
48:12
SPEAKER_02: They did that all the way back in December of 2020 with lab-grown chicken uh products.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: Australia granted approval in the in mid-2025 for quail cell products to hit restaurant menus.
48:24
SPEAKER_02: Um, Israel has moved forward.
48:27
SPEAKER_02: Um, broad retail availability is still limited, um, but they are moving forward as well.
48:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, labeling, so labeling is a big circus.
48:37
SPEAKER_02: Some are calling it cultivated meat, some are calling it cell-based, others are calling it no-kill meat or slaughter-free protein.
48:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's like you need a dictionary at this point.
48:49
SPEAKER_02: But uh from what I can tell, labeling's been proposed but not finalized at the federal level.
48:55
SPEAKER_02: Now, um, it'll probably have to say something like um, you know, cultivated meat.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh, some states have actually passed or are considering passing their own laws, require special labeling um or even banning them.
49:12
SPEAKER_02: Um but um, oh wait, before I get into that, let me just let me also say let me circle back to the salmon.
49:19
SPEAKER_02: The lab-grown salmon has to be labeled clearly enough for the consumer to know what it is.
49:26
SPEAKER_02: Um, but there's no standard mandated wording yet, like lab grown or cell cultured that a company has to use.
49:34
SPEAKER_02: So each label has to go through FDA review, apparently, um, but there's no standard terminology.
49:40
SPEAKER_02: So, in terms of the states, as of September of 2025 of this year, Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and Texas have all passed bans on the manufacture, sale, or distribution of cell-cultured meat.
49:58
SPEAKER_02: So other states have actually taken a more limited approach to the cell-cultured meat regulations.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: For example, Iowa passed a law that prohibits school districts, community colleges, and public universities from purchasing lab grown meat.
50:13
SPEAKER_02: They also created uh or passed legislation creating labeling requirements for what it what it defines as these manufactured uh protein food products.
50:24
SPEAKER_02: So they can't be labeled as meat unless there is a qualifying term right next to it on the package.
50:30
SPEAKER_01: South Cena, give me that give me that list of states again.
50:35
SPEAKER_02: Alabama, Alabama, Florida, Indiana, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, and Texas.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: Now, the interesting thing about all those states is that they are very conservative.
50:58
SPEAKER_01: Those are all red states.
51:00
SPEAKER_01: And um and and so so I I want I want our listeners to really catch the fact that the pushback on cultivated meat is coming from from agricultural conservative states.
51:21
SPEAKER_01: It's not coming from the environmentalist, liberal environmentalist blue states.
51:28
SPEAKER_01: It's coming from conservative um agriculture-dominated red states who don't want who are doing it.
51:41
SPEAKER_01: So so when I look at this list, the thing that screams at me, and I may be wrong, but what screams at me right off is that the opposition is not that this is unacceptable food.
51:56
SPEAKER_01: The opposition is I raise cows, I don't want competition.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: That's the opposition.
52:04
SPEAKER_01: In other words, I don't want people, you you know, when you say states are passing these things, I don't want people to say, oh, good, some of these states really get it.
52:11
SPEAKER_01: They don't want this.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no, no.
52:14
SPEAKER_01: These are states that have a huge bunch of farmers who don't want the competition.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: It has nothing to do with the with the qualitative with the qualitative discussion of is this food or not food?
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Is this acceptable food or not acceptable food?
52:32
SPEAKER_01: It's all about protecting my farm business.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: I just thought I'd point that out.
52:41
SPEAKER_02: No, that's fantastic because uh the other states fall in line with what you're saying, like Iowa passing uh, you know, like limit the laws that you they can't even purchase it and you have to put these labels on it.
52:58
SPEAKER_02: So Iowa, you know, is is a red state.
53:01
SPEAKER_02: And then the next one is South Dakota.
53:04
SPEAKER_00: Yep, right?
53:04
SPEAKER_02: It South Dakota passed a law in 2025 saying that no state funds could be used for the research, production, promotion, sale, or distribution of these cell cultured proteins in South Dakota's a red state.
53:17
SPEAKER_02: Um, so it falls in line perfectly with what you're saying.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you said that because I hadn't thought about that.
53:22
SPEAKER_02: I was just like, oh, all these red states are getting it.
53:26
SPEAKER_01: They're just like the vaccine in lettuce, but no, they're not getting it, they're not getting it, they just don't want their ox to get gored.
53:34
SPEAKER_02: Oh, that makes a lot of sense.
53:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, bummer, you burst my bubble.
53:38
SPEAKER_02: Like I thought we were making a little more progress than that, but oh, that's my naivety coming through.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and that's why we do the show together.
53:50
SPEAKER_00: Like we balance each other out.
53:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
53:56
SPEAKER_00: We're all in our silos.
53:58
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
53:58
SPEAKER_02: So right, right.
53:59
SPEAKER_02: So so some of the so those are the ones that have more prohibitive laws.
54:04
SPEAKER_02: And then there's like 22 states that have passed food labeling requirements.
54:08
SPEAKER_02: And of course, now there's litigation that that's occurring.
54:12
SPEAKER_02: It has occurred across several states with mixed outcomes.
54:15
SPEAKER_02: So nobody actually knows what's going to ultimately happen.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: Um, this cell cultured meat and the state, the state um legislation against it is very new.
54:28
SPEAKER_02: And the litigation has largely been at the district level.
54:31
SPEAKER_02: So we don't know what's actually going to happen.
54:34
SPEAKER_02: And maybe perhaps the US Supreme Court will hear the case and bind all the other courts.
54:40
SPEAKER_02: But um, but this is something that we'll we'll watch and we'll keep tracking because we definitely don't want them to get away at the minimum with not having an adequate label on it so we know if this is you know cultured meat growing in the lab.
54:57
SPEAKER_01: And correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding is as I've the the you're you definitely dug into this a lot more than I have, but the litigation, you know, what what's the litigation about?
55:07
SPEAKER_01: Well the litigation is about can you use the word meat?
55:12
SPEAKER_01: It's it the the there's to my knowledge, there's no litigation that is that is uh uh questioning the whatever the the whether this whether this is food or whether it should be sold or not.
55:28
SPEAKER_01: The the litigation is all about um you can't use dairy, you can't use cocoa on something that's not cocoa, you can't use you can't use uh meat on something that's that doesn't that wasn't grown on an animal, you know, those kinds of things.
55:46
SPEAKER_01: Those those are the basis of the of whatever litigation is going on.
55:51
SPEAKER_01: It's about terminology, it's not about actual um you know efficacy of the material.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: And one of the things that the the companies are bringing up is that um it it's against their First Amendment right, like they're attacking their First Amendment right.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
56:10
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah.
56:11
SPEAKER_01: To be able to speak and use words uh that you want to use.
56:17
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
56:19
SPEAKER_02: So um let's see, and I was trying to look up, uh I can put a link in there uh for people to look up more of these lawsuits.
56:28
SPEAKER_02: Like some of them um uh they're really split on who's winning and who's not.
56:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh and then and they go into part of the reason is because um the word choices that they're using, even in the bills that they're writing.
56:44
SPEAKER_02: So like the Oklahoma statute was was held um to apply only to sellers like Tyson Foods, who sell both real meat and plant-based meat products.
56:56
SPEAKER_02: But the Texas statute applied to the products itself, regardless of the seller's overall business model.
57:03
SPEAKER_02: So it says despite both lawsuits being brought by the same two plaintiffs against the same type of labeling statute, Oklahoma was dismissed and Texas was allowed to continue.
57:13
SPEAKER_02: So, see, there's all these different nuances, but it's all like you said, it's about the label.
57:18
SPEAKER_02: They're not debating whether or not this is food or not.
57:21
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
57:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're not they're not debating whether this will hurt you or not.
57:24
SPEAKER_01: Uh they're they're just debating uh the you know the the meat, the livestock sector doesn't want to start competing with bioreactors.
57:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's the that's the bottom line.
57:35
SPEAKER_01: And so they're trying to force they're trying to force a more uh uh a greater separation of language um than in other words, they they the I can tell you the livestock sector would like to not even for them to not even be able to use the term meat.
57:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's um it's self-cultured uh whatever.
57:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh the the the the so so that the word meat does not even appear.
58:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
58:06
SPEAKER_02: I mean that's absolutely true.
58:07
SPEAKER_02: I mean, and once again, we come down to the power of labels, like right.
58:12
SPEAKER_02: Power of labels, yeah, yeah, and there'll be loopholes just like all the other labels.
58:17
SPEAKER_02: They'll you know, no matter what they do, there's gonna be more labeling loopholes.
58:20
SPEAKER_02: So you really it comes to we really got to know the farmer, right?
58:24
SPEAKER_02: As this technology pushes forward, that's again the bottom line.
58:27
SPEAKER_02: If you want to eat real food, you gotta just know your farmer.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's exactly right.
58:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, thanks, Cena, for taking us into this, this um this is cutting edge, cutting edge stuff.
58:38
SPEAKER_01: And uh, I was aware of a lot of it, but uh not how far some of it had gone and some of the nuances of it.
58:44
SPEAKER_01: So your your chemistry uh brings a uh a new level of that um to to the discussion.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: So uh thank you for bringing us up to speed on it.
58:55
SPEAKER_01: So question question for our um our our listeners have you um have you eaten um any cell cultured meat anywhere?
59:09
SPEAKER_01: Or do you know someone who does who has and if you have what was it like?
59:18
SPEAKER_01: Right.
59:18
SPEAKER_01: There's there's not a lot out there, so it may be that no none of our listeners would have um imbibed, but um uh somebody somebody might.
59:28
SPEAKER_01: So so so Cena, if if somebody offered you, hey maybe this is a better question.
59:33
SPEAKER_01: If somebody, if you if you went you know, to a restaurant with somebody and um or or to somebody's house and they offered you cell cultured meat and told you what it was, would you would you be a gracious guest and eat it anyway, or would you send would you refuse to eat it?
59:55
SPEAKER_01: So you know me.
59:58
SPEAKER_01: I would refuse to eat it.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I have no problem refusing to eat things, especially that.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, when I travel when I travel and people are you know working on my food, uh, they ask, are you allergic to anything?
1:00:13
SPEAKER_01: I say the only thing I'm allergic to is McDonald's and Chick-fil-A.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_01: That's the only thing.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_02: So uh Yeah, you should carry around one of those allergy cards.
1:00:21
SPEAKER_02: Just say McDonald's Chick-fil-A.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_02: And now you gotta add to it, cultured meat.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: Cultured.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, the thing is, cultured meat.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_01: I don't even want to say I don't even want to say meat.
1:00:32
SPEAKER_01: I I I appreciate that argument that that that this is not actual meat.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean it really does, it really does split the nuance, doesn't it, of what is life?
1:00:43
SPEAKER_01: Um it does.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_01: I I can't bring myself to say self-cultured.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: It's oh it's cultivated.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it it's something else.
1:00:52
SPEAKER_01: It's like like self-cultured um um tissue, you know, just call it tissue.
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: Um uh or or something.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_01: Hey, listen, everybody.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for uh joining us on another uh episode of Beyond Labels.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_01: We hope you've uh been uh encouraged and challenged and informed a lot, especially uh from today's um discussion with Cena.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: And we look forward to visiting with you again next week.