WESTERN JOURNAL – One of the European nations best known for its cuisine has rejected a “novel” addition to its tables: so-called “cultivated” or “lab-grown” foods, including meat.
“Italy is the world’s first country safe from the social and economic risks of synthetic food,” Italian Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida told the BBC last week.
He said in a Facebook post on November 16, as translated by the New York Post:
“In defense of health, of the Italian production system, of thousands of jobs, of our culture and tradition, with the law approved today, Italy is the first nation in the world to be safe from the social and economic risks of synthetic food.”
“The country’s Chamber of Deputies approved the bill 159 for to 53 against, confirming an earlier passage of the bill in the Italian Senate,” the Washington Examiner reported Saturday.
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Violating the law could result in fines of up to 60,000 euros, or approximately $65,500 at current exchange rates. (Other outlets, it should be noted, listed higher possible fines.)
The new law bans the “use, sale, import and export of lab-grown food,” according to the Examiner, but could be headed for conflict with the European Union, which has yet to act on what it calls “novel foods.”
If the EU ultimately approves lab-grown meat, the European Commission could challenge Italy’s new law …