Mmm, cloneburgers. Is that what you are having for lunch? Beef taken from cloned cows? Gross?
Well, get ready for it, today the FDA ok'd food from cloned livestock, saying that it is "virtually indistinguishible" from conventional livestock.
Labelling will NOT be required. So, yes, non-vegetarians will be eating cloned meats soon enough.
... more below
I like the use of the word "virtually" in "virtually indistinguishible". It can sure hide a lot of difference, no?
OK, fine, you say, cloning is indeed gross but is it really going to harm us, or are you just scaremongering?
The truth is: I don't know. The Center for Food Safety says that there is "serious scientific concern about the food safety of products from clones". I can't vouch for this group or the science. If you are interested, I'd suggest google.
But what I can say for sure is that:
- There is little data in support of the safety of cloned meat. How could there be when cloning was just recently invented and is still not perfected.
- From an animal welfare perspective, this looks a bad thing, as cloned animals are more likely to suffer birth defects or other health problems than "natural" born animals. (Source: same Center for Food Safety press release cited earlier).
- Americans seem to think it's gross. (Same source).
Personally, I am not a vegetarian, but I eat little meat. I'm a major supporter of the grass-fed meat movement. See e.g.: http://www.eatwild.com/ and read The Omnivore's Dilemna if you are interested in learning more about this.
To me, this is another major reason to move more towards low-impact, sustainable, foods. I'm also wondering what other countries that import our meats might think about this.
What do you think?
Update [2006-12-28 15:36:15 by Loudocracy]: The NYTimes has published a better article than the Yahoo article linked to above.