This week, a new law went into effect in Mississippi. The state now bans plant-based meat providers from using labels like “veggie burger” or “vegan hot dog” on their products. Such labels are potentially punishable with jail time. Words like “burger” and “hot dog” would be permitted only for products from slaughtered livestock.I think it risible that people in Mississippi are thought to be so dumb as to think that a "veggie burger" has meat in it.
But it's not just people in The. Worst. State. In. The. Union. that are thought to be rather slow on the uptake. The EU parliament also believes that Europeans are too stupid to be able to tell the difference between a veggie burger and a hamburger. Which, by the way, doesn't usually contain any pork, but people seem to be able to figure that out without governments having to so inform them.
From Aimee Mann's Twitter feed:
ReplyDelete"Jason Isbell
Verified account @JasonIsbell
Jul 6
Jason Isbell Retweeted Alina Selyukh
Oh my god I think I ate a hot dog in Mississippi once do you think it was an actual dog"
-Doug in Oakland
I don't think this is so much a reaction to vegiburgers, but a preemptive shot against any non-farmed product labeled as 'meat'. If attempts to grow 'meat' in a lab (bypassing actually raising an animal) became successful in scale, the industry would take a massive hit, due to the difference in effort to produce. The two ways forward would be to regulate or to co-opt. Right now, the easier action is through laws. If that doesn't succeed, then buy-out/take over the companies who are producing the product when it is actually viable.
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