Billionaires Push Lab-Grown Food on America, and It’s Gross

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Alright, folks, buckle up because the billionaire boys’ club is at it again, meddling with our food in ways that make your stomach churn. Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, two of the world’s richest control freaks, are sinking their cash into lab-grown salmon, meat, and even butter, trying to reshape what we eat while claiming it’s all for our own good. Spoiler alert: it’s not going over as smoothly as they’d hoped, and people are pushing back hard.

Let’s start with Bezos. His investment arm, Bezos Expeditions, is backing a San Francisco startup called Wildtype, which is backed by heavyweights like Amazon founder’s investment firm Bezos Expeditions, Cargill, and Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio. Wildtype just got the FDA’s green light to sell lab-grown salmon. This stuff isn’t fish pulled from the ocean—it’s frankenfish–cells grown in steel vats, mixed with plant-based ingredients to mimic real salmon.

It’s already on the menu at a fancy Haitian restaurant in Portland, Oregon, called Kann, and there are plans to roll it out to more restaurants in 2025. They’re marketing it as “sustainable,” saying it’ll save the oceans from overfishing and pollution. Sounds noble, right? But here’s the kicker: the FDA didn’t do its own safety tests. They just took Wildtype’s word for it, relying on the company’s own data to call it safe. Wildtype just used the GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) loophole to get its product approved. GRAS is a regulatory shortcut that was originally intended for well-known ingredients that have been consumed for years. In this case, Wildtype has been allowed to skip the rigorous testing typically required for new food products and instead use its own data to claim safety.

That’s like letting a fox guard the henhouse. Critics are screaming about the lack of transparency—nobody’s saying what’s in the “proprietary nutrients” used to grow this franken-fish, and there’s talk of growth factors that might be linked to health risks like tumors. Sustainable? Maybe. Shady? Definitely.

Then there’s Bill Gates, who’s been pouring money into lab-grown meat and now synthetic butter through his investments in companies like Upside Foods and Savor.

Upside got USDA approval to churn out lab-grown chicken, and Savor’s working on fake fats to make their meat and dairy knockoffs taste better. Gates is all in on this, pushing it as a fix for climate change and food shortages. But the backlash? Oh, it’s glorious. States like Florida and Alabama have outright banned lab-grown meat, with others like Nebraska and Mississippi following suit. People aren’t buying the “save the planet” spiel—especially when studies show lab-grown meat might use up to 25 times more energy than beef. Plus, there’s a growing distrust of Gates’ motives. Posts on X are buzzing with folks calling him out, accusing him of experimenting on the public with untested biotech food. Some even claim he’s trying to sneak RNA-altering tech into crops, though that’s more rumor than hard fact for now. Either way, the public’s not thrilled about eating lab-made sludge pushed by a guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in the country.

Both Bezos and Gates are leaning hard into this sci-fi food future, backed by big names like Cargill and Tyson, but the cracks are showing. Funding for lab-grown meat has tanked—down 75% in 2023—and consumers aren’t exactly clamoring for it. The vibe on X is pure skepticism, with people calling it “fake meat” and “disgusting.” There’s a real sense that these billionaires are playing mad scientist with our food supply, all while the FDA and USDA roll over without asking tough questions. Why the rush to replace real food with lab concoctions? And why so little transparency about what’s in it? Something smells fishier than a bioreactor, and it’s not just the salmon.

Stay sharp, people. Keep an eye on what’s hitting your plate, because these guys clearly think they know better than you what you should be eating. It’s time to get the Administration to rein in the rogue FDA