“Be okay with food grown in a lab as long as it meets our nutritional standards.” This is how the speech of the spokesperson of the European Commission Stefan de Keersmaeker can be summed up, according to Il Messaggero, which is quoted by Rador.

In fact, De Keersmaeker hinted that in the coming months, market demand for other “new products” – that is, those that have been invented in the laboratory based on insects or simply used traditionally outside of Europe – may soon find their way to the tables of Brussels.

So, if they meet certain conditions (correct labeling and food safety), the European Union approves cricket flour, ultraviolet-treated mushrooms and “test tube meat”, a food product obtained by fusing animal stem cells in a bioreactor. which is not yet on the list of novel foods authorized by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and which has once again caused controversy among workers in the agricultural sector.

“Synthetic meat is the opposite of our idea of ​​food, based on the appreciation of agricultural and livestock products, a symbol of high quality and the identification of territories and national traditions,” said CIA-Agricoltori president Cristiano Fini.

Nomisma research shows that between 2016 and 2022, the number of lab-grown meat labs and startups will increase from 13 to 117, and by 2030, global artificial food production will reach 2.1 million tons.

Experts assure: “Meat in a test tube is safer”

“The cultured meat production process is very controlled. These are substances that, even if created artificially, reproduce molecules that are natural in the body. I believe that cultured meat can be safer than meat from intensive farms because it will reduce the risk of spreading pathogens and also reduce the use of antibiotics and steroids,” says Luciano Conti, professor of applied biology at the University of Trento.

However, the expert recalled that the process of producing meat grown in the laboratory is currently impossible for industrial production, both because of time and because of the still very high cost.

Therefore, for now, the appearance of synthetic meat on the shelves of European supermarkets is a possibility that is still quite distant in time, and not the year 2023. Currently, there are only two places in the world where you can eat laboratory meat. restaurants: Israel and Singapore.

Photo: Dreamtime