Feb. 13 (UPI) — Less than a year after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration agreed that cultivated chicken is safe to eat, lab-grown meat faces legislation that could keep it off students’ plates nationwide.
U.S. Sens. Jon Tester, R-Mont., and Mike Rounds R-S.D., have introduced the School Lunch Integrity Act, which would prohibit cultivated meat from being served in the National School Lunch Program and the School Breakfast Program.
The bill (S. 3674) has been referred to the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, where it is awaiting review. There is no companion bill in the House.
Rounds and Tester said in a release they oppose what is technically called cell-cultivated protein because of a lack of “USDA guidance” and a lack of “demonstrated studies showing the safety of lab-grown meat.”
