Would you eat a hamburger if it was created in a lab as opposed to being real meat from a cow? It’s a question that could be debated this week in the state Legislature.

House Bill 518, sponsored by Athens Rep. Danny Crawford, R-Athens, would require food manufacturers to label products derived from cell cultures being sold in Alabama as not being real meat. Such products aren’t available for public consumption yet, but those supporting the bill say it’s only a matter of time.

Erin Beasley, executive vice president for the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association, explained federal laws don’t address the issue of labeling, and that Crawford’s bill instead represents a pre-emptive strike. Crawford chairs the House Agriculture and Forestry Committee. Sen. David Sessions, R-Mobile, is carrying a version of the bill in the Senate.

“Cell-culture products are being developed quickly,” Beasley said. “They are grown in a petri dish and and look like meat products.”

Lab-grown products have support in certain circles, including one of the richest men in the world — Bill Gates. Memphis Meats, a start-up company developing lab-grown products, took in $17 million in 2017 from sources that included Gates, according to a recent report in the Scientific American.

Proponents of lab-grown products say the process is better for the environment and doesn’t involve killing an animal. The Scientific American report, citing officials with Mosa Meats, said one tissue sample from a cow can yield enough tissue to make 80,000 quarter-pound hamburgers.

The process isn’t cheap, however. The report says it cost more than $300,000 to produce a lab-grown burger in 2013. Five years later, Memphis Meats reported a quarter-pound of its ground beef cost $600.

Beasley said some companies have found a cheaper way to produce the products, and added it’s only a matter of time before they wind up on grocery store shelves. She’s afraid a reliance on lab-grown products, as opposed to the real thing, could crash the beef cattle industry the way the production of soy and almond milk hurt the dairy industry.

“Twenty years ago, when soy and almond products came out, they were labeled as milk products,” she said. “The dairy industry is upside down right now because there’s such a low demand for actual dairy milk.”

Limestone County beef producer Donna Jo Curtis explained the meat industry is heavily regulated, and lab-grown meat should face the same restrictions.

“We as meat producers want the consumer to know when they’re buying real meat,” she said.

To read the bill in its entirety, visit https://bit.ly/2UMfPuF.