In Europe, the first requests for the green light for synthetic meat to arrive on the tables could already be presented in 2023. The alarm comes from Coldiretti: after the green light from the American Food and Drugs last November for the first chicken meat produced in the laboratory , the opening of the first breach in the EU could be closer than you think. For the Coldirettias well as for many of the Italian agricultural associations, “it is a lethal threat to agriculture, consumer health and the planet’s biodiversity”.
Almost 400,000 signatures have been collected against the possibility of a green light from Brussels: among these are the prime minister Giorgia Meloni, the Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty Francesco Lollobrigida, many national and European parliamentarians, mayors, entrepreneurs and numerous bishops. The mobilization aims to promote a law in Italy that prohibits the production, use and marketing of synthetic food. “We will fight it in every way,” assured Minister Lollobrigida yesterday, speaking at the conference “Frankenstein on a plate? Synthetic food the new threat” organized by Coldiretti. «Synthetic food is not good food – the minister said – iFurthermore, the production of food in the laboratory would erase our sustainable economy, our way of life and our civilization».
Lollobrigida has announced also that on the issue of health warnings on bottles of spirits, which broke out days ago with Brussels’ approval for the use of these labels in Ireland, Italy «will seek every legal way to claim the right not only to promote wine , but also to be able to avoid being stigmatized in some countries with misleading labeling».
Until now, these letterings were only reserved for cigarette packs. Now, however, with its tacit assent, the EU Commission has cleared Irish customs legislation, which it also wants to apply to alcohol. A dangerous precedent for producers of wine, beer and spirits in Europe: within this year, in fact, Brussels could be called upon to write the new legislation on community labels which includes both nutritional ones (such as the Nutriscore traffic light), and the infamous health warning. “We will support not only defense actions against the attack of fake labeling – Minister Lollobrigida reiterated yesterday – but we will also carry out all promotional actions to explain at every level what are the benefits of the Mediterranean diet, in its complexity, and of the products of the our nation”.
In order to reach our tables, any synthetic steak will have to go through the same approval process that served to bring insects on the plate to Europe: first came the authorization from the EU Commission (in 2021); then EFSA, the European Food Safety Authority, gave individual oks to each specific preparation, from flour larva to crickets. Similarly, in November 2022 at the Food and Drug Administration there was a first pre-commercial consultation on a human food based on cultured chicken animal cells: not an actual approval, but a sign that the American institution has no objection to the food safety of the product in question. The ball, on meats grown in the laboratories of Californian Upside Foods, now passes to the United States Department of Agriculture.