World Economic Forum participants meeting in Davos openly discussed reshaping consumer culture to overcome opposition to lab-grown meat, while critics raised concerns about health, safety, food sovereignty and centralized control of food systems.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Participants at last week’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum called for what was described as a cultural revolution to increase public acceptance of lab-grown meat, despite acknowledging strong consumer resistance to the products, according to reporting by The Blaze. The gathering in Davos, Switzerland, brought together leading global political and business leaders for the WEF’s 2026 annual meeting.
During the Food @ the Edge session, panelist Sam Kass, who served as a senior policy adviser for nutrition during the Obama administration, raised questions about the growth of technological “replacements” for what he described as “core foods.” Kass, a former chef, said he did not want to see a future “where we’re starting to drink coffee from a factory as opposed to from a tree.”
That view was challenged by Andrea Illy, chairman of Italian coffee company illycaffè, who said there is “a terrible cultural resistance from consumers to accept tech foods,” but argued such foods “represent the way forward.” Illy, who has been affiliated with the WEF for more than a decade, said reducing meat consumption provides environmental and health benefits, claiming that “70% of the ecological footprint of agriculture is due to animal proteins.”
Illy further argued that “excessive consumption” of real meat is the leading cause of noncommunicable diseases and described it as the “number one health problem” in Western countries. He called for lowering meat consumption to what he characterized as a “healthy” level and for a decades-long cultural shift to encourage adoption of lab-grown meat.
A widely shared X post from the Davos discussions amplified attention to Illy’s remarks and the broader framing of food-system change promoted during the session.
Experts tout benefits of real meat, question safety of lab-grown alternatives
Internist Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, disputed Illy’s assertions, pointing to health trends she said worsened after officials began encouraging reduced meat consumption. “Since health officials started recommending less meat — which they blamed for certain health conditions — we had child obesity rise from 4% to 20%,” Nass said. “Childhood Type 2 diabetes doubled. Adult diabetes and prediabetes skyrocketed.” She attributed those trends primarily to increased carbohydrate consumption.
“Meat is extremely healthy, especially when animals graze on grasses as they were meant to and when they are not fed antibiotics, hormones and contaminated feed,” Nass said. She added that animal feed used in industrial meat production is often “drenched with glyphosate or grown on sewage sludge.”
Biologist Heidi Wichmann, Ph.D., a member of the advisory committee for Make Europe Healthy Again, said noncommunicable diseases are driven less by meat itself than by modern food production methods. “The primary driver is not meat, but the way food is produced, treated and disconnected from natural biological cycles,” she said. “Excessive consumption of biologically degraded, highly processed products is problematic, regardless of whether they are of animal or plant origin.”
Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense, said that while animal agriculture can be “an ample source of disease variants,” unresolved questions surround the safety of lab-grown meat. “Lab-grown meat has all the unknowns of any new technology,” Jablonowski said. “In theory, lab-grown food can be healthy. In practice, only if consumers demand it.”
Sayer Ji, chairman of the Global Wellness Forum and founder of GreenMedInfo, said lab-grown meat introduces “novel risks” that have not been fully studied. “Many products rely on immortalized cell lines, which by definition evade normal cellular aging and death mechanisms — raising legitimate concerns about oncogenic potential and long-term biological effects,” Ji said.
Ji also warned that such technologies centralize food production into patented, proprietary systems, displacing local and farmer-based networks. “This represents a shift away from food sovereignty and toward industrial dependency,” he said.
WEF calls development of lab-grown meat from stem cells ‘revolutionary’
Last week, the WEF released a video promoting lab-grown meat produced from animal stem cells, describing the technology as “revolutionary.” The video highlighted Singapore-based Shiok Meats, which produces meat and seafood from animal stem cells, with the WEF stating the technology offers “a promising solution to the environmental and ethical concerns associated with conventional animal agriculture.”
Singapore, which approved the sale of lab-grown meat in 2020, has positioned itself as a global leader in alternative protein adoption. In 2024, the country approved 16 insects for human consumption.
Several experts said these developments reflect efforts by the global elite to reduce meat consumption through social and regulatory pressure, including proposals that could make people allergic to red meat or push wealthy nations toward 100% synthetic beef.
“Narratives had to be created by the globalists to demonize meat,” Nass said. “The push for lab-grown meat comes from the desire to control food by central authorities, who want food to only come from outside authorities, who can withhold it if you do not comply — or who make it too expensive and control you that way.”
Seamus Bruner, director of research at the Government Accountability Institute, said what “ties all of this together” is what he called an obsession by the ‘Controligarchs’ — “a small, self-appointed elite that believes every aspect of human life must be managed, optimized and ultimately owned by them.”
Seven states, including Florida, Texas and Montana, have enacted bans on lab-grown meat. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released new dietary guidelines emphasizing protein, dairy, healthy fats, vegetables and fruit while deemphasizing grains.
Consumer rejection of alternative meats has also intensified. The stock price of synthetic meat producer Beyond Meat fell sharply last year, dropping from an all-time high of $240 to less than $1 amid weak demand in the U.S.
Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, said, “There is near-zero market demand for this ‘frankenfood’ born of the same intellectual class and lab technicians who have given us poison food and medicine.” He added that producers of synthetic meat “rely on government regulations and restrictions to throttle genuine health and good lives while deprecating what we know is both good for us and delicious.”
WEF: phasing out artificial additives placing ‘stress’ on food industry
Other WEF panelists criticized efforts by HHS to phase out synthetic dyes and artificial additives in food. According to Slay News, Jasmin Hume, founder and CEO of Shiru, said the recommendations place the food industry “under an unprecedented amount of stress.” Hume argued that removing synthetic ingredients would require major changes and negatively affect consumers and the planet.
Nass countered that about 10,000 artificial food additives are approved in the U.S., compared with roughly 400 in the European Union. “Companies already know how to produce food without most such additives,” she said.
Slay News reported that Hume’s comments came as the Trump administration accelerates its Make America Healthy Again (MAHA ) crackdown on ultra-processed junk, added sugars and synthetic additives, leaving WEF-aligned interests “scrambling to defend” products facing growing resistance.
Mass vaccinations or culls of livestock linked to lab-grown meat agenda
Politico Europe reported Jan. 16 that Greece is responding to a nationwide sheep pox outbreak with mass culls, amid farmer demands for vaccination instead. Farmers recently protested government policies by blocking highways across the country.
“Sheep pox is so infectious that global farming regulations require whole herds to be slaughtered immediately after even a single case is detected,” Politico Europe reported, noting that more than 470,000 sheep and goats have been culled and over 2,500 farms closed.
EU Animal Welfare Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi previously told Greek authorities vaccination is the only new measure capable of stopping outbreaks. Greek officials have rejected that approach, citing export risks and the lack of an approved vaccine, according to Politico Europe.
Regenerative farmer Howard Vlieger, a board adviser to GMO/Toxin Free USA, said the debate ignores natural herd resilience. “Let the ones die that are going to die,” he said, using survivors as the genetic base for rebuilding herds.
“Vaccine-induced immunity does not replicate the breadth, durability, or ecological integration of naturally acquired immunity,” Ji said.
Bruner, author of Controligarchs: Exposing the Billionaire Class, Their Secret Deals, and the Globalist Plot to Dominate Your Life, said lab-grown meat, mass culling and vaccination reflect the same worldview. “They seek to replace organic, decentralized life with systems that can be surveilled, patented and governed from the top down,” he said.
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