11 pages., Objective
To understand current public perceptions of in vitro meat (IVM) in light of its potential to be a more environmentally sustainable alternative to conventional meat.
Design
A qualitative content analysis of the comments made on online news articles highlighting the development of IVM and the world’s first IVM hamburger in August 2013.
Setting
News article comment sections across seven US-based online news sources (The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Cable News Network and National Public Radio).
Subjects
Four hundred and sixty-two commenters who made eight hundred and fourteen publicly available online comments addressing IVM.
Results
Key themes in commenter perceptions of IVM included environmental and public health benefits, but also negative themes such as IVM’s status as an unnatural and unappealing food. Overall, the tone of comments was more negative than positive.
9 pages, The rapid growth in web-based grocery food purchasing has outpaced federal regulatory attention to the online provision of nutrition and allergen information historically required on food product labels. We sought to characterise the extent and variability that online retailers disclose required and regulated information and identify the legal authorities for the federal government to require online food retailers to disclose such information.