Towering over a wooden podium in the Arkansas General Assembly….Republican representative David Hillman, a self-declared calf-roper, spoke of steak to pitch his latest bill.
“I want my rib-eye steak to have been walking around on four feet at one time or another,” he said. His proposal, making it illegal for meat-substitute products to be labeled as meat, was swiftly adopted.
Across the US, tens of similar bills have been introduced – some unsuccessfully – as well as half a dozen with opposing aims, as an out-of-sight battle heats up between friends and foes of plant-based meat.
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Led by plant-based foods, which mimic the taste, texture and look of meat, the US alt-meat market is forecast to nearly double to $2.5 billion by 2023, according to market research firm Euromonitor International.
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The trend has put the country’s half-a-million meat-industry workers on edge, and prompted more than 20 meat-producing states, from Wyoming to Indiana and Nebraska, to look at adopting legislation similar to Hillman’s, according to The Good Food Institute, a nonprofit that promotes meat alternatives.
In contrast, legislative bodies in states with enthusiastic backers of vegan diets….have pushed bills encouraging plant-based food….
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