Originally appeared in the Omaha World-Herald
When it comes to (literal) kitchen table issues, Gov. Jim Pillen deserves five stars.
Thanks to legislation championed by the governor, Nebraska families won’t be used as test subjects for an experimental new food called lab-grown meat. Pillen joined a chorus of right-minded conservative governors last year in pressing pause on a rollout of the petri-dish protein in supermarkets.
Since 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has regularly rubber-stamped lab-grown meat for consumer sale. The approvals began under the Biden administration but puzzlingly continue today, despite the test tube protein running afoul of the “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) diet.
The MAHA crowd has found itself in a bipartisan coalition of natural food advocates, farmers, and concerned parents who view lab-grown meat as a food pariah. Most people — including many Cornhuskers —s imply can’t get over the “yuck” factor. The product is manufactured by putting animal cells into steel bioreactors where catalytic chemicals are added to stimulate growth. Once enough cellular mass has formed, the goop is shaped into a patty or nugget.
Others question the food’s safety and long-term health impacts. When reporting on lab-grown meat in 2023, Bloomberg correctly observed “there just aren’t any long-term health studies.” The manufacturing process often includes the use of immortalized cells, which have been modified to replicate in perpetuity — behaving much like tumors. Although these have been used in medical research where it is handy to have lots of cells to experiment with, they have never before been served as food on a mass scale.
But where Washington has failed to respond to concerned consumers, America’s federalist system — made up of 50 “laboratories of democracy”—is working as a safety net. Not only has lab-grown meat been 86’d from the menu in Nebraska, but a handful of other prudent Republican governors have done the same, including those leading Florida, Alabama, Montana, Texas, Indiana, and Mississippi.
This year, the idea is gaining further traction in more states, such as neighboring Wyoming and South Dakota. Even some leading Democrats are joining the chorus of skeptics, including Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., and former Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.
On the flip side, would it surprise you to know that California Gov. Gavin Newsom has dumped taxpayer dollars into helping fund the science experiment? The industry is also being financially supported by tech billionaires like Bill Gates, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. While some may shrug at the prospect of family farms being replaced with sterile laboratories, Pillen does not.
Lab-grown meat has been sidelined in Cornhusker country in favor of the rural values and strong agriculture economy that makes Nebraska a great place to live and raise a family. That’s a recipe more states would be wise to follow.
Jack Hubbard is the executive director at the Center for the Environment and Welfare.