I've been a committed vegan for more than three years, but this week, I ate meat. Why? The meat dishes I ate this Wednesday weren't ordinary salmon and chicken. They didn't come from a slaughterhouse or fishery—in fact, they didn't come from a living animal that had to be killed at all. The meat I tried was cultivated, or lab-grown meat.
While lab-grown meat has been subject to considerable culture war fervor in recent months, few have actually tried slaughter-free meat. In fact, after a brief restaurant-based debut last year, lab-grown meat options aren't available for commercial sale anywhere in the United States currently. The dishes I had came from cultivated meat companies Wildtype and GOOD Meat, and were served for free by alternate protein industry group Food Solutions Action.
I tried two salmon dishes and one chicken dish, all served up inside José Andrés' downtown D.C. restaurant Oyamel. The first salmon dish involved a dollop of guacamole wrapped in a thin slice of Wildtype salmon gravlax. Salmon, especially cured salmon like gravlax, is the kind of meat I miss the most since going vegetarian four years ago, so I was particularly excited to try this one. While it wasn't quite like how I remembered lox tasting, the Wildtype salmon was savory, undeniably meaty and pleasantly fishy. In my experience, texture is the biggest challenge facing cultivated meat products and the wafer-thin preparation in this case helped the Wildtype salmon shine.
The second salmon dish was a simple ceviche-like preparation of cubed salmon, avocado, pecans, and a tangy dressing. Here, the sponginess of the Wildtype salmon was more apparent, and the textural wonkiness certainly wouldn't fool any committed carnivores.
GOOD Meat's chicken was served as a simple taco with beans and salsa. I've had this kind of cultivated chicken before, and I don't know if it was simply a different preparation or an update to GOOD Meat's production process, but I thought this time around, GOOD Meat's chicken was close to perfect. The chicken wasn't too bouncy and had a pleasant "shreddy" texture resembling the structure of chicken thighs. It was fairly convincing, enough that I did a mouth-based double take when I took my first bite.
But residents of two states—and possibly more to come—might never be able to try these dishes. In May, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a law banning the sale or production of lab-grown meat in the state. A few weeks later, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey followed suit, signing a similar law. Several other states, including Tennessee, Arizona, and Texas, all considered, though ultimately did not pass, other bills banning the sale or manufacture of lab-grown meat.
"It's important to recognize that at present the cultivated meat industry has exciting long-term potential, but right now it's just potential. This is a tiny industry," Glenn Hurowitz, the founder and CEO of Mighty Earth, a climate-focused advocacy group tells Reason. "There's nothing that made me more excited about the potential for cultivated protein to get to scale than how afraid the meat industry seems to be of it…they seem to be taking it seriously."
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