Ġbejna cheese, test-tube coho salmon and laboratory meat

Ġbejna is a round cheese made in Malta from sheep’s, cow’s or goat’s milk, rennet and salt, prepared in a variety of ways as part of traditional Maltese cuisine. The country’s authorities will apply for the ġbejna to be included in the EU’s list  of protected food heritage, i.e. to be awarded the label “Appellation d’origine protégée”. The application to the EU includes the term ‘ġbejna tan-nagħaġ’ (sheep’s ġbejna), which means that the proprietary product should be made only from the milk of locally reared sheep according to precisely defined and strictly observed procedures.

San Francisco-based company – Wildtype –  is growing seafood from a test tube.  The pilot programme for coho farming begins with the sampling of genetic material from live fish. In special tanks, the cells multiply as they would in nature – thus growing fillets of this salmonid fish. Cell-cultured seafood is a solution to many of the fishing industry’s environmental problems, including overfishing, health risks from mercury and micro-plastic contamination and fishing atrocities.

Veggly, a vegan dating app, asked 750,000 of its users worldwide about  their attitudes to lab-grown meat. 47% of vegans surveyed are in favour of this, but have no intention of eating test-tube meat. 24% of those asked would try cultured meat and would still consider their diet as vegetarian. 29% of survey participants did not support the idea of lab-grown meat at all and would never try it.