By RACHEL LANE

D.C. Correspondent

WASHINGTON, D.C. — What is “meat?” This question was just one of the focuses for a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) hearing last week focused on animal cell culture technology – meat grown in a lab.

The FDA will be accepting public comments until Sept. 25 to discuss safety concerns surrounding lab-grown meat, labeling issues and other aspects of the technology.

The dairy industry has been fighting a similar battle for years as soy milk, almond milk and other milk substitutes become more popular. Unlike current products on the market, the discussed product will not be a plant-based substitute, but meat grown in a lab using cells from an actual animal.

Half a dozen FDA officials spoke about the science involved, the complications of naming the product and the potential availability of the cell culture technology. No one from the USDA was present or spoke about the issue, but that agency conducted its own public comment period that ended in April.

During the meeting, about 75 minutes were used to take comments from people in the audience. Those who spoke represented conservation groups, animal rights groups, dairies and the cattle industry.

Maggie Nutter, a fourth-generation rancher from Montana and director of the U.S. Cattlemen’s Assoc. (USCA), focused her comments primarily on the marketing aspect of labeling lab-meat as meat. “Meat” should be a term reserved for protein food production harvested from an animal in the traditional manner, she said.

The popularity of the term “beef” is the result of marketing done by the beef checkoff. “When other products use the term ‘meat’ or ‘beef,’ they are taking advantage of the years of hard work the beef producers’ checkoff has put in building beef’s good reputation,” she said.

“They are hijacking our trademark branding for the benefit of their own marketing. As ranchers, we don’t want anything that isn’t beef to be called beef or to use terms connected to meat.”

If cultured cell protein advocates and scientists want the benefits of a checkoff program, they need to develop their own programs, Nutter said. Consumers want the facts about their food. They want to know where it comes from, how it was grown and what is in it, she added.

She said putting a “meat” label on something from a lab would make the label less understandable for consumers.

Eric Schulze, vice president of product and regulation at Memphis Meats, explained global demand for meat is projected to double in the next few decades. It is part of the reason Memphis Meats was founded.

“To feed this larger and more urbanized population, food production must increase … If we are to meet these and other challenges, we must innovate,” he said.

He said the process is still being refined and the company has not started to market the products, but researchers have shown that cell-based meat has produced meat and poultry products that are safe to eat and otherwise comparable to conventionally produced products.

“The finished product is meat – real, familiar, delicious meat, like the kind consumers eat right now,” Schulze said.

Cell-based meat is sometimes referred to as “clean meat,” a phrase that is meant to convey the products produced in the process are free of many of the complications of traditional meat. Michael Selden, co-founder and CEO of lab-grown fish manufacturer Finless Foods, said traditionally fished seafood has traces of mercury in high enough quantities that certain portions of the human population – like women of childbearing years – shouldn’t eat it.

Fish have also been found to contain trace amounts of plastic, which are also being consumed by humans. While the health impacts behind plastic particles in people is still unknown, he said it seems like it would be a good idea to remove it, when possible, from the food system.

Several speakers pointed out that lab-grown meat is being grown in such small amounts that it has not been made available for independent testing.

Consumers Union Senior Scientist Michael Hansen said he worried that FDA loopholes will get the cultured-cell meat on the market before it is properly tested. Currently, companies need to prove ingredients are “generally recognized as safe” and the FDA may approve the label without ensuring the science holds up.

“Cultured meat products should be required to go through a premarket safety assessment, and the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) process is clearly inadequate to assure safety,” Hansen said.

The current process is inadequate. He said a survey of 1,000 people by Consumers Union showed only 35 percent of consumers like the label “lab-grown meat,” followed closely by “artificial or synthetic meat.” Only 9 percent of consumers like the term “clean meat.”

Kari Barrett, advisor for Strategic Communications and Public Engagement at the Office of Foods and Veterinary Medicine at the FDA, said the agency’s science board will be meeting in the fall to discuss the topic. The meetings are being held now, before cell-meat is ready for market, because the FDA doesn’t want to lose public support for the innovation, like what happened with genetically modified foods.

Anyone interested in leaving a public comment can go to https://bit.ly/2MtgKfz and click the green “submit a formal comment” button.