GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed legislation banning the sale of lab-grown meat in Florida.
Lab-grown meat is “produced in steel tanks using cells from a living animal,” and is different from plant-based proteins, Huffington Post says (read article here). Sounds like cloning to me.
DeSantis claims the ban is necessary to prevent “the global elite” from “forcing the world to eat lab-grown meat.”
Wait, what? Nobody’s “forced” to eat anything, unless they’re a prison inmate on a hunger strike, and the guards shove a feeding tube down their throat. But if someone in Florida wants to eat lab-grown meat, DeSantis is forcing them not to.
Of course, this has nothing to do with protecting consumers; it’s protecting cattle ranchers from competition. And it’s not the first time a state has forced its residents to not eat something in order to promote an industry.
Until 1972 you couldn’t legally buy margarine in Wisconsin, a stupid law aimed at protecting dairy farmers from competition. It was like Prohibition; Wisconsin residents flocked to the state line to buy margarine by the ton from vendors on the other side, lined up along the highway like fireworks stands (see story here and photo below).
A highlight of that era was a state senator, Republican of course, who supported the ban and, to demonstrate the superiority of butter, did a blind taste test — and flunked. He picked the margarine. What he didn’t know was his family had been secretly feeding him margarine to control his weight.
Politicians who engage in this protectionism usually try to justify it on religious or ideological grounds. The Wisconsin senator asserted “God made butter”; DeSantis claims he’s striking a blow against “authoritarian goals.” Why don’t they just admit they’re forcing you to eat food that’s bad for your heart to protect the profits of farmers and ranchers? Well, I guess that doesn’t sound so good, does it?
Return to The-Ave.US Home Page
A car with Wisconsin license plates bearing the state’s “America’s Dairyland” slogan is parked just across the state line in Illinois at one of many impromptu dealers offering colored oleomargarine — illegal in Wisconsin for more than two decades — at bargain prices in case lots, September 15,1966. (AP Photo/Paul Shane)