Except for your grubby arteries!
Meat and milk from cloned animals and their offspring is as safe as the natural version, the Food and Drug Administration declared, clearing the way for such products to enter the food supply without special labeling.
“Meat and milk from clones of cattle, swine and goats and their offspring are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals,” said Randall Lutter, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for policy…
Initially, only a small amount of steaks, pork and dairy products derived from clones will become available in grocery stores. But over the next three to five years — after ranchers have time to clone their most prized animals and those clones are able to breed — the products will become routine on store shelves, industry executives said…
The risk assessment noted that “cloning raises many ethical and economic concerns” that are important to the public but said the FDA’s task was to focus on the science.
I headlined this “again” because scientific study after study, governmental and private, reaches the same conclusion.
I’m more affraid of those yellow things on the plate
safe? they should be able to make cloned meat better and safer than non-cloned. I’ll buy it.
Fear of food from clones and irradiated food = the traditional slack-jawed ignorance and fear that are defining characteristics of the sheeple.
Cloning? isn’t that like “intelligent design”?
I’ll have to ask my clone about that!
I like the ‘simulated cloned grill marks’! makes it look like it was ‘really cooked’!
I don’t have a problem with this.
Due to chronic illness I do not eat meat, dairy or eggs. I guess this is another case of letting the FDA knock themselves out.
Why did the fish get left behind? Noah is gonna be pissed!
Its no tlike we will be seeing cloned goodies on our plates. Its too expensive to b wasted that way. Now as a way to make superior breeding stock available, thats something that will happen.
I’m all in favor of cloning – the world would be a far better place with 500 million copies of me.
What’s it matter anyways? We are all jacked into the Matrix and it just some computer telling us that it is meat. I would rather have that than the grey, mushy protein sludge anyday.
3,
Irradiate meat is not a good solution. A good solution is to have proper safe handling of meat slaughter. Irradiated meat allows the meat producers to run more cattle and when you get a shit stain on the meat, well, just irradiate it and the shit won’t grow. There’s still shit, but it’s, you know, just a little bit.
#10, right on. I’ve always felt that there’s nothing wrong with irradiation per se, but the potential for abuse is enormous. The same goes with cloning. I think the food is probably okay to eat, but what’ll happen thirty years from now when a plague kills every genetically-identical chicken in the world, leading to global depression and famine? Think it can’t happen? Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gros_Michel_banana
#10 and #11 — I have no issue with irradiation, but I fully agree that it is no substitute for safe and responsible handling… …however, without irradiation, I still don’t think the massive industrial agriculture corporations who manufacture (rather than raise or grow) our food are too impressed with words like “safe” and “responsible” in the first place.
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As for clones… Most people get their understanding of cloning from 60′s and 70′s sci-fi movies. While cloning still has a number of well documented problems (like producing a head size too large to escape the mother), it is not producing dangerous foods with bizarre side effects.
Were it not for my adamant demands for information in other subjects, I’d just say not to tell people the food is cloned and then they’ll never know.
11, 12,
I’m a bit of a gourmand, and one thing I’ve come to appreciate is the variety of flavour from different types of fruit and vegetables. Hell, even the taste from different grow seasons is detectable if you know what your looking for. And meat is one of the most varied. Each cow tastes different and differences are even more apparent through different producers. In the supermarkets filled by ConAgra and shit like that you end up with dead dairy cows that are nasty. But, a properly raised animal tastes different, and it should. One of the things I love about meat is that variety in flavour depending on feed, conditions, producer, aging. Cloning meat will just turn everything into the blandest shit there is. It’s well known that the taste of everything on the mass market is just salty since that’s what the people are used to. Cloned meat will be bland, 0% fat and boring.
#13 – I understand your point… But ranchers and chefs know this and they will always respond to the demand for high quality beef stock.
Cloned beef will not replace food in the gourmet market, but rather supplement the far larger and sadly necessary market for mainstream foods.
I’m not sure what impact cloned beef will have on world hunger, but cloned fruits and vegetables on the other hand, I think can have a significant impact.
Poor people might like a perfectly cooked cut of high quality beef, but what they need is a steady source of cheap and healthy food, regardless of whether or not it wins any taste awards.
13,
Well, that’s just it though. I find that supermarket meat and pre-packaged junk to be CHEAPER than fresh fruits and vegetables. Broccoli, as nasty as it can be, is 2.99 a bunch and pork is 99c a pound… wtf? Entire pre-packaged meals are sold cheaper than buying raw ingredients and cooking it yourself. This is the real problem. Meat SHOULD be expensive since it’s supposed to be a part of a wholesome diet, not the main course with some fries on the side.
The poor need a steady diet of healthy foods that are cheap. Unfortunately as the NYTimes did a little example on, 1 food dollar goes farther when buying a back of chips with 10000 calories than an apple with barely 250. And this is where N. America is moving faster towards…
http://tinyurl.com/2fa4cy
http://tinyurl.com/2gtz7q
Shit… I responded to myself!
OK, 14… 15 was for you…
BTW, you should note that the Italian mom = hot and the Polish daughter / daughter in law = hot. No, not the little kid on the couch.
#15 – Unfortunately as the NYTimes did a little example on, 1 food dollar goes farther when buying a back of chips with 10000 calories than an apple with barely 250.
You’ve zero’d right in on an important detail of a much larger issue. It’s an education issue. It’s an economic issue. It’s an ethical issue. It’s probably several dozen kinds of an issue.
Most folks ignore the reality that all problems facing any massive population will be complex and multi-faceted, and I think ultimately we are just agreeing with each other.
I should note that when I said cloned foods can help solve hunger issues, that I mean that it is one small part of a much larger number of solutions.
#11′s point is right on; my objection is not safety to humans (cloned meat won’t be any more bad for you than meat made the old fashioned way) but rather to the safety of the food supply. I’ve been around factory farms for much of my life, and one thing you can count on is that they will take things too far, and whole herds of genetically similar or identical cows will almost invariably end with a nasty plague that kills them all.
Not to mention the fact that cloning is expensive, and resource intensive, and we’ve got plenty of meat already.
I never have nor will ever have a problem with cloned meat.
The cloning process right now is the exact same method that nature uses to create identical twins or triplets. Its only done in a lab than a womb.
As for the meat becoming bland, no it won’t. They are cloning for superior stock, so there can be better tasting milk, eggs and meat. We also have to do this with vegetables and fruit so we have consistent sizes and flavours.
That way ALL food will taste and be the best it can be for everyone, not just the gourmet.
Just think if all our beef is like kobe? And its 2.99 a pound? People would love that. And that is just what the people cloning want to do.
I am all for better, safer and healthier food.
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Particularly as response to #3, quote from FDA own study:
“According to the FDA report, only four to seven percent of cloned animals survive to adulthood. Typically, less than one percent of cloning attempts result in a successful birth, and of those, only a small percentage are healthy enough to live for more than a few days or weeks. This means that hundreds of animals die during pregnancy or are born with serious abnormalities.
“Large Offspring Syndrome” is a common problem with cloned animals, in which the offspring is significantly bigger at birth than a non-cloned animal. This results in an overly painful and stressful labor and delivery for the mother, often requiring surgical intervention to deliver the baby.
Studies show abnormalities are the norm, not the exception. Cloned animals suffer from respiratory distress, hypoglycemia, weakened immune systems, developmental problems, deformities, and a variety of other ailments.”
Last paragraph should be the “macroscopic” warning that something is wrong on the microscopic level with the clones. Indeed there are studies showing that these problems go to the cellular level metabolic problems in cloned animals. Note “abnormalities are the norm” part. If abnormal meat is offered for sale it at least should be labeled for the consumer to make decision.