Forbes Opinion Piece Raps Media Bias vs Cultured Meat

Brian Kateman, a Forbes contributor, has lashed out at media outlets like Bloomberg News, for being biased against plant- and cell-cultured meat, describing them as exercises in scaremongering over nutritional bogeymen like GMOs, “processed” foods, and long ingredient lists.

Photo Insert: There’s no evidence that cell-cultured meat will cause cancer in humans, but processed meat like deli slices, sausages, hot dogs, and bacon is known to be carcinogenic.

They often ignore the tangible health advantages that these alternatives have over traditional meat.

In an opinion piece for Forbes, Kateman, cofounder and president of the Reducetarian Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing consumption of animal products, argued that “some of the environmental critiques are little more than lists of hypotheticals, rather than comprehensive comparisons of the effects of traditional vs. alternative meat on the environment. A thorough comparison would examine the effects of the products on not just climate change, but also on land use, pollution, and freshwater consumption.”

“It is important for journalists to remain skeptical of hype and marketing claims, of course. But to responsibly inform the public, they should present the evidence for both sides of a claim. The past few weeks have shone a light on a bigger pattern of bias at play. Just this week, in a ‘puzzling’ article for Bloomberg, writer Joe Fassler explored a link between cell-cultured meat and cancer that, as even he acknowledges, is baseless,” Kateman argued.

Prominent voices are also pointing out the stunning irony of the impossible level of scrutiny placed on new, environmentally-minded products while legitimate concerns about traditional meat continuously receive a pass.

There’s no evidence that cell-cultured meat will cause cancer in humans, but processed meat like deli slices, sausages, hot dogs, and bacon is known to be carcinogenic. Red meat is also recognized as a probable carcinogen by major authorities like the World Health Organization (WHO), Kateman concluded.

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