Don't Eat Poop! A Food Safety Podcast

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Francine Shaw: Labrador meat isn't on grocery store shelves in the United States, and isn't coming anytime soon, but two states have already banned it, and others are weighing similar moves. The restrictions are a sign that traditional meat. Producers fear losing market share to these new products, but they've also been divisive.

Some in livestock industry question the precedent of these actions in GOP led states, fearing that they could embolden blue states to further regulate meat production, including how chicken and hogs are raised.

intro: Everybody's got to eat, and nobody likes getting sick. That's why heroes toil in the shadows, keeping your food safe at all points. From the supply chain, to the point of sale. Join industry veterans Francine L. Shaw and Matt Ragucci for a deep dive into food safety. It all boils down to one golden rule.

Don't. Eat. Poop. Don't eat poop.

Matt: Hello, hello Francine. Hey Matt. Exciting day? It is. Exciting topic. It is. Francine's a little frightened of this topic. Frightened? Whenever we do something that people are very passionate about, it can get, it can get hairy, you might say. We haven't received much hate mail, which is nice.

That could change after today's, let's encourage

Francine Shaw: that.

Matt: Okay, but I think you and I both can put the pros and cons on this topic because when it comes to calories, get in my mouth. I'm not too picky on where it came from, but there are a lot of people who are very passionate pro and con about lab created.

Meat? In fact, so much so that I think there's a lot right now going on, Francine, or like regulation about not being able to call certain things meat if they're not actually meat and how do you define meat? And I would, I don't know about you, but I would like to go down the path of not talking about that at all because the definition of meat is beyond my pay grade.

Francine Shaw: If it's grown in a dish, I'm not calling it meat. I mean, I'm sorry.

Matt: So this is probably the reason why you and I have not discussed this in the year and a half of doing this podcast, but it's a huge issue. And I say issue what I mean is it's a huge. New scientific development. With a lot of money backing it as a potential for the future.

And we already talked about robots like flippy a few times. We should talk about different types of companies that are putting out these. Different types of meat alternative solutions,

and it came on my radar because food safety news posted something, an article about a lot of fish, and this is really fascinating because on the meat side of things, the beef, there could be a debate about whether that's needed, right?

There's a lot of land. out there that would never get used for any type of agricultural purposes other than raising cattle. You can't really do anything else on the land. So are cattle going extinct? No, cattle is not going extinct. You could make a huge argument that certain fish have the potential of going extinct.

Because they're being overfished so where I think this really gets into a huge potential in the future is lab based meat for fish alternatives. And this water fish has created a sushi tuna that is supposed to be as good as. Wild caught tuna, which.

I don't, Francine, are you a sushi person? So

Francine Shaw: I like sushi.

So when I was doing inspections, I found some restaurants that didn't have the parasite destruction tags. Which makes me concerned.

Matt: Okay. I did not know that there was such thing as a parasite destruction tag. I have consumed sushi for a very long time and it's, I love it so much. I know I'm putting my health in my own hands for this just because of the risk reward satisfaction.

And by the reward, it tastes really good. What is this parasite? Thing. And why haven't I heard of it? Is this not ubiquitous or what?

Francine Shaw: What it means is that basically they're buying their sushi from an approved supplier and that the sushi has been treated frozen to ensure that if it has parasites, they're dead.

Bottom line, if there were any parasites in it, that the parasites are dead so that you don't end up with them in your digestive tract. So when I was doing inspections and I would ask them for their parasite. Destruction tag. Many of them did not have those parasite destruction tags.

Matt: And is it per fish?

Like, how would you see a parasite destruction tag?

Francine Shaw: It was for their, in this particular case, it was for the, I'm trying to remember because I haven't done these inspections for a while.

They needed them for specific, I believe it was for specific types, specific types of fish. I believe it was for specific types of fish that they sold.

Matt: And would this be like in a book, would it be like tagged on to the carcass, like on? You would like them

Francine Shaw: to have them in an organized manner, but they would have them one hand. Anyway, a lot of them didn't have the proper documentation.

Matt: So, yeah, that makes sense. So there are places that you would eat sushi and there are places that you would not based upon risk.

That makes sense because the biggest issue with sushi are those parasites, right? Yeah.

So I saw this article about what a fish and I thought, that's super cool. Um, WAD, W A D sorry. It's Wanda fish, W A N D A.

Francine Shaw: It sounds like you were saying, what a fish.

Matt: I know. There will be a fish. What a fish. I never grew up in, never grew up in Boston, but sometimes have the accent.

Francine Shaw: I'm envisioning this big blob of fish. What

Matt: a fish. Ah, that's funny, Francine. I guess that's what they call sushi. It's a what a fish. What a fish. Do you eat sushi? And

Francine Shaw: I'm just, the visual was too much for me. I'm like, I need clarification here.

Matt: When it comes to this type of stuff, I know that, uh. Fish, the fisheries at the rate at which the supply is compared to the demand for fish in general.

We're going to outfish our fisheries if we don't find solutions. I would definitely eat this, at least try it 100%. But again, anybody who's listened to this podcast for a while knows that I will eat just about anything. So that doesn't say much, but I would definitely try this and see if it really tastes like tuna.

And if it does, Then it would be a great solution. But then I was thinking about this.

I thought, oh, this would be great for the podcast for Francine and I to talk about the different type of meat alternatives, lab based meats that are out there. And what are the potential food safety or food compliance concerns now and in the future, As these potentially like, we don't know if the market's really going to bear out, but what are the costs of building this and creating this versus the price at which somebody is going to pay?

Because there's a lot of money going into this. I don't know how many of these companies are actually profitable yet, if this becomes big and the price point is right, and now this lab grown meat and food is. everywhere. What's a food safety risk? And like what you're saying, if it's made a petri dish, I don't want to eat it.

But if people can't tell the difference because it's, it looks, feels, tastes, smells exactly like the real quote unquote, real thing that is fished out of the ocean. I can see this becoming a huge food adulteration issue in the future as well. So not just put the food safety ramifications of this is going to be, but also What the food adulteration and falsification looks like in the future.

I'm really fascinated by what this is going to look like.

Francine Shaw: So I would taste it just out of curiosity. Yes. I would taste it. Food fraud. Can you imagine if it looks and tastes a nightmare, an absolute nightmare?

Matt: Yes. Yes. And so I work in a lab when I say I work in a lab, let me rephrase that. I manage a lab every single time my chemists see me, I think they like roll their eyes and, ah, crap, this guy's coming back in the lab again because I'm not a chemist.

I just play one on podcast, but like, Equipment that we have now, you can really find the markers of food adulteration pretty quick, right? If the genetic material of this tuna, we know those genetic markers. If those aren't there, then we can find them. The problem is not everybody has a 500, 000 mass spec just hanging around in their basement to go test their food before they buy it or consume it.

So you have to use your senses. And the food now, the food adulteration out there now is so hard to tell with your senses. You have to be like a master taster, I think, to maybe they could do it. Yeah. We can tell, we just need really expensive equipment to do it.

Francine Shaw: I'm certain there have to be risks with these products.

Maybe we're moving away from Salmonella and E. coli to God knows what. And years ago, we didn't know that all the chemical risks. Were a problem is with cancer and whatnot is we're finding out they are today.

Matt: So with the tuna, you look at all these fatty fish, you look at mercury issues, right? Would we have those same issues in a facility created meat, right?

And that's potential, but it would come from the industrialized equipment. It could come from the ingredients being utilized in there, not specifically from the fish. So there are definitely going to be ingredients that are coming in. So you could test your ingredient suppliers to make sure that you don't have heavy metals, we'd be very difficult to get that out of there, but you could get in trace amounts in there and you can make sure that there's no bacteria being introduced your suppliers by making sure that you have the proper COAs, do your own internal testing, it wouldn't get rid of all the facility problems, right?

You wouldn't probably have the parasites because that would have to be introduced. But you could end up still having Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, environmental based pathogens like Listeria, if it was introduced via an ingredient supplier.

Francine Shaw: Well, where are we harvesting the cells from?

Matt: I don't know. Yeah, so these would all be, like, in the risk assessments of these lab based meats.

They'd have to figure out where they're getting everything, and that would be the only way that there'd be pathogens. In the products once it's created. Now, once it gets into the supply chain, then you can add a lot more things to it. But from that manufacturing facility, it would be, it would be, have to be introduced by ingredient suppliers or, yeah, or be brought in somehow.

It could be brought in by an employee. The fish isn't going to be the issue like in the ocean or in a river or a lake or whatever.

Francine Shaw: Well, and some states are making it a crime to sell the Did you know that?

Matt: No, I did not know this. So some wait, are they making a crime to sell lab grown meat? Are they making a crime to call it meat?

Quote unquote

Francine Shaw: Alabama have barred lab

Matt: meat. Which one you said Alabama and which one

Francine Shaw: florida and Alabama banned lab meat. But some in livestock industry fear president of states deciding what goes on store shelves and what can't

Matt: I had 40 has started that a long time ago.

Francine Shaw: Yeah, I had heard about this Darren and I actually talked about this at the food safety summit.

Labroom meat isn't on grocery store shelves in the United States and isn't coming anytime soon, but two states have already banned it and others are weighing similar moves. The restrictions are a sign that traditional meat. Producers fear losing market share to these new products, but they've also been divisive.

Some in livestock industry question the precedent of these actions in GOP led states, fearing that they could embolden blue states to further regulate meat production, including how chicken and hogs are raised.

Matt: Yeah, it's also reactionary because California is forcing with prop 21, I think it is forcing meat producers.

Like the big one is the hog producers to change their whole entire facilities around so that the swine can move around more freely. And so this totally is reactionary. So when they talk about setting the precedent, the precedent's already been set and it has not been set by red states. The precedent's been set by blue states.

This is a reactionary response. And actually the Supreme Court discussed this when they were asked, when they were doing their questioning, they asked the California attorneys, do you feel like now any like red states would be reactionary and start creating laws against. blue states that have to do with food or other types of things.

They used really drastic type of language, but I missed that Francine, and that's a really good call because it looks like that's exactly what's happening. And so the precedent is not being set with Florida and Alabama, it's being set with California and it's a reactionary response. Which is going to jack up way easier to create beef products and seafood products directly from the source than it is to create lab based products right now.

The future of that may change when they figure out how to scale this. But if they start losing states access to consumers in certain states, like Florida, which is a massive state, That could change the economics of this significantly and not even make it survivable.

Francine Shaw: Well, and if it happens with me, there's going to be a trickle down effect to some other products, things as well.

What other industries could be affected?

Matt: As more and more tit for tat type of regulations happen. What does the law affect? Does the law affect consumers buying it on their own, or does the law affect businesses trying to sell it?

Francine Shaw: Violating the law could be found guilty of a misdemeanor. A food sales establishment found violating the ban could have its food safety permits suspended or revoked.

The Alabama law laws state research and development and cultivated products and be effective October 1st, 2024.

About 150 companies worldwide have enlisted the industry, including 43 based in the United States.

Matt: Wow.

So then food adulteration becomes a legal, an even further legal issue, because if this was cheaper, which I don't know if it is or not, every single time I go to buy this type of products, these type of products, they're never less expensive.

They tend to be more expensive. So it doesn't make sense for food adulteration now. But if we got to a point at which this was less expensive, then not only could it be food adulteration, Just in general, but you could be violating certain state laws twice by selling the product in general one and then mislabeling it as something else.

Francine Shaw: Do you know lab grown meat has been around since 2013?

Matt: No.

Francine Shaw: I did not know that.

Matt: Was it Beyond Meat that was the first one?

Francine Shaw: It was produced at Maastricht University. and rare for a consumer to even taste. FDA approved still only, will still only cover lab grown meat from two companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat.

Matt: Upside Foods and Good Meat. Well, it has good in the title, so it must be good. I'm sure. Obviously, this is terrible because I literally do not know either one of these companies. It's amazing. All these, Like lab based food companies or whatever type of like alternative products to meet their websites are way better than any type of like beef manufacturing.

Like JVS's website is not nearly as good meats.

Francine Shaw: So I have plant based foods in my freezer. My daughter eats those

Matt: website has pictures of their product. It looks so good. Like now I'm getting hungry. I do think that there's still risk in food safety, food compliance, food regulatory with this, but they're just going to be, some of them are going to be similar.

Some of them are going to be completely different. It's going to be fascinating moving forward because I don't see this disappearing. There's obviously a market for it. So if they can manufacture at the right price for the market, and that really it's not who could buy it now, but how do they grow it so that consumers.

Who would buy meat or this and there's no price differentiation, we'll just buy this instead. Getting to that point, I think would be a huge change in the marketplace.

Francine Shaw: It does look amazing, the food.

Matt: Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Like, I'm looking at it going, there would be no way I would tell the difference between this chicken and what, like, real chicken is.

None. Now I'm hungry, and I want to try this. I'm in Colorado, so I could buy just Colorado, California, they're good.

Francine Shaw: How

Matt: about the guy

Francine Shaw: with CBD in it? Yeah, right?

Matt: Can

Francine Shaw: I have mine laced, please? We can't buy anything.

Matt: Oh, that's so funny.

Francine Shaw: the other end of the spectrum.

Matt: I think we did good. I don't think we made anybody mad in this episode.

We'll find out, but I think we did good balancing this out. What else do you have for us, Fratine?

Francine Shaw: Nothing, Matt.

Matt: Well, then let's do a food safety myth because it looks, it tastes, it smells, and it feels exactly like the product you think it is. That does not mean that it is that product.

Francine Shaw: No, it's

Matt: adulteration.

Now that will probably be the biggest issue. Of the next generation. It's always been an issue, but I think now with better equipment, better understanding, better communication with social media, I think consumers now are realizing that their olive oil doesn't mean it's extra virgin olive oil, even though it says it on there.

Their honey doesn't mean that it's honey, even though it says it on there. Their cod, it doesn't mean it's cod, even though it tastes, smells, looks, feels exactly like cod. It could be some other fish disguised as cod.

Francine Shaw: I can't imagine going to buy beef. I know that mine's beef because we,

Matt: you raised it.

Francine Shaw: There are capitals.

Matt: Yeah.

Francine Shaw: I can't imagine going to the store and looking at beef and having to determine was this grown. in a lab or did it come from a cow? If Bill Marler was still around, he would be doing poisoned.

Matt: Right? 103. Okay, but here's another, you say it's your cow, but do you butcher it? It was sent to the butcher. I understand, but did you butcher it yourself?

Francine Shaw: Now,

Matt: do you know 100 percent stop talking about stuff? No, but that could be like, if fake meat, quote unquote, but look, feel, taste exactly like the real thing. And you send your cow to the butcher, right? Your carcass to the butcher. What would keep them from giving you, the fake meat and then selling the real meat at a higher premium to somebody else.

Francine Shaw: Well, it's like taking your diamond to the jewelry store. You take it to the jewelry store, you drop it back, drop it off, and they give you a different diamond back.

Matt: All right. Well, with that frightening thought, don't eat poop.