Yummy?

[Tisket]

Are you uncomfortable with the idea of cloned animals and animal byproducts (milk, eggs, etc.) entering our food supply? I am opposed to the idea personally but was curious about others here.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003308396_clones17.html



FDA set to allow cloned meat and milk
By Rick Weiss

The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — Three years after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) first hinted that it might permit the sale of milk and meat from cloned animals and their offspring, prompting public reactions that ranged from curiosity to disgust, the agency is poised to endorse marketing of the mass-produced animals for public consumption.

The decision, expected by the end of this year, is based largely on new data indicating that milk and meat from cloned livestock and their offspring pose no unique risks to consumers.

"Our evaluation is that the food from cloned animals is as safe as the food we eat every day," said Stephen Sundlof, the FDA's chief of veterinary medicine, who has overseen the risk assessment.

Sundlof said the agency is not inclined to call for labeling of products from clones, as some have demanded. For one thing, clonal meat or milk would be impossible to authenticate because there is no way to distinguish them from conventional products.

Farmers and companies that have been growing cloned barnyard animals from single cells in anticipation of a lucrative market say cloning will provide a level of consistency and quality impossible to attain with conventional breeding, making perfectly marbled beef and reliably lean and tasty pork the norm on grocery shelves.

But groups opposed to the new technology, including a coalition of powerful food companies, have not given up. On Thursday, advocacy groups filed a petition asking the FDA to regulate cloned farm animals one type at a time, much as it regulates new drugs, a change that would drastically slow marketing approval. Some are also questioning the ethics of a technology that, while more efficient than it used to be, still poses risks for pregnant animals and their newborns.

[The Ponzzz]

Honestly, I don't mind. But then again, I like the idea.

[Celephais]

I can't wait to eat a cloned Wagyu steak...

[Back]

I say go for it. As long as the clones and originals are treated humanely.

The only real downside to this is that farm animals won’t enjoy studding or inseminations on a regular basis.

[Ignot]

I am not opposed...maybe it will be cheaper one day, too.

[Back]

Did you know there are many breeds of cow?

This comely site gives us pics of the many breeds, A through Z.

http://www.bovinebazaar.com/breeds_a-c.htm

[Tsa`ah]

I'm surprised at a few things here. Fist the quick acceptance of cloned food and second at how fast our government has thrown it's support toward the industry yet balks and digs in the heels when it comes to the medicinal aspect of cloning.

Everyone should read up on genetically engineered staple and feeder crops before they start lining up for a cloned black angus steak or tall glass of cloned milk and oreos.

While cloning and genetic engineering are not the same thing, we do not know if the cloning process will produce an exact match to the donor specimen. It just takes one slightly off protein or strand of D/RNA to completely alter how the human body processes the food. Our current staple and feeder crops are contaminated on the genetic level due to oversight and quaranteen error. People and livestock now exhibit allergic reactions to engineered food stuffs because we did not anticipate the slight changes ... nor did we anticipate that a not so small cross section of the populace would have an adverse reaction.

Cloning is still, on the animal level, a very new and not well researched process. We could have the same issues that we are currently having staple and feeder crops if we allow manufacturers the option of not labeling cloned foods and if we allow companies to interbreed cloned stock with natural stock.

There is also the aspect of consumer rights. I'm pretty sure that the Muslim and Jewish communities would want to know if their food was cloned, as I'm sure any radical Christian conservative against cloning would. Though people may not see the big deal ... we do have strict guidelines about labeling as it is. Consumers have the right to know if the parts in their computers and cars are remans. They have the right to know the active and inactive ingredients in any drug. They have the right to know the dietary content and ingredients of any food they buy. Likewise, everyone should have the right and choice to eat or not eat cloned food.

It could be an over reaction on my part, but it smells too much like lobbyist money and pork project politics forcing me to accept something I have every right to not accept.

[AestheticDeath]

I would rather have things labeled so I could make my own choice, as right now I don't think I would feel comfortable eating cloned food.

But you also have to be cautious about it, because of some 'radicals'. They might be as bad about cloned foods as some are about abortion. Can you imagine someone getting shot down/bombed in the grocery store because they buy cloned food items?

[Celephais]

It just takes one slightly off protein or strand of D/RNA to completely alter how the human body processes the food.

Uh... cloning (in theory) is exact DNA replication, animal reproduction in the wild is not, and from my unresearched understanding I would think it would be more likely you would get a mutant alergy animal from a natural animal.

But I'm certainly open to any proof otherwise (although I have a feeling this proof would be heavily bias'd info from the whole anti-playing-god religious community)

[Augie]

I would rather have things labeled so I could make my own choice, as right now I don't think I would feel comfortable eating cloned food.

But you also have to be cautious about it, because of some 'radicals'. They might be as bad about cloned foods as some are about abortion. Can you imagine someone getting shot down/bombed in the grocery store because they buy cloned food items?

I agree with this. I'd want to have the food labeled so I could make my own choices.

And I am sure there would be some insane people out there who WOULD shoot someone for cloned items. Hell they beat each other up for having 11 items in a 10 items or less lane.

[thornhappy]

I'm ok with it. I'd let other people try it out first, and would definitely want labels, but I can't really see an issue. Now they just need to find a way to replicate clean drinking water before we run out of that, too.

[Kuyuk]

As a chef, I would never serve cloned meat, etc.

As a person, I would not buy it, but I would probably eat it if someone else was serving.

I dont feel there's enough need to clone stuff, when we can just as easily reproduce our livestock humanely (sp?) today.


But hey, I'm a treehugger.


K.

[VoxDulcis]

I can't wait to eat a cloned Wagyu steak...

Sweet, sweet, Wagyu...

[Celephais]

...when we can just as easily reproduce our livestock humanely (sp?) today.

HAHAHAHAHA. Something tells me we would actually raise cloned animals more humane than we raise real animals.

[Stanley Burrell]

If we clone major exports that may or may not happen to be the number one export of a country that I may or may not be ½ culturally entwined to then I shall be emo.

Or more like emooooooooooo.

Efeckingads. That was terrible.

[Sean of the Thread]

You said it.

[ElanthianSiren]

I don't really understand what the fuss is about. Most people already consume a large amount of food that is genetically engineered, either to grow larger or to keep away pests. :shrug: More of the same.

-M

[Stanley Burrell]

I don't really understand what the fuss is about. Most people already consume a large amount of food that is genetically engineered, either to grow larger or to keep away pests. :shrug: More of the same.

-M

Because wanton pictures of the Pacific Ocean salmon non-natives or harping upon Bikini Atoll byproducts makes things seem less yummy :-\

[ElanthianSiren]

Well naturally. I've just never seen people start crying about weavel-proof corn or GMO wheat, which is on the market about a decade now. All this stuff is in food, especially if it's agro business, unless it's organic. The irony is just amusing (to me) as someone who did botany/plant physiology/engineering instead of taking the animal courses (bio majors generally get to pick between the two).

BTW, I buy organic.
-M

[Sean]

I'd eat/buy cloned meats, I don't really care if its labeled or not as long as it's delicious.

[Apathy]

I'd prefer a label. Probably would buy it anyways but I like to know what I'm eating.

Especially if it had a name.

[TheEschaton]

I think I'd have a problem with animals whose specific existence was completely controlled by humans, for the sole purpose of our consumption.

But then again, I eat meat, so I already do that, so I have no problem with it, as long as they are treated humanely. Which most aren't even now, so it's another one of my causes, though admittedly low on the list. I just tend to think animals are around to be below us on the food chain. No one complains if you drive a team of oxen too hard, and treat them inhumanely.

-TheE-

[Tsa`ah]

Uh... cloning (in theory) is exact DNA replication, animal reproduction in the wild is not, and from my unresearched understanding I would think it would be more likely you would get a mutant alergy animal from a natural animal.

You said a few things that ring true.

1 - Theory. We don't know exact genetic effects of producing a cloned food source. Nor do we know of any potential consequences of breeding cloned food sources or interbreeding between naturally gestated food sources and cloned food sources. The technology and science, let alone the scientific observation, is still very new.

2 - Nature. Sure, stray variants occur in nature all the time ... we have yet to run across rampant, let alone localized, adverse effects in the food supply due to nature. Nature has been doing this for billions of years and man, until recently, has been part of that system. Man has been tampering with this for a few decades ... not even a worthwhile expression of percentage.


But I'm certainly open to any proof otherwise (although I have a feeling this proof would be heavily bias'd info from the whole anti-playing-god religious community)

This has nothing to do with god. This has to do with firm scientific method. We're not talking about releasing drugs onto the market with FDA approval before any real clinical trials can be done. We're talking about releasing untested foods and allowing those sources to breed with conventional sources.

People can stop taking drugs. The FDA can come back to the table and say the release was premature. Once the genie hits the genes, you can't stop eating and it's very unlikely (without tracking) that you'll be able to distinguish between GE and natural.


I don't really understand what the fuss is about. Most people already consume a large amount of food that is genetically engineered, either to grow larger or to keep away pests. :shrug: More of the same.

Actually, no.

Man has been genetically manipulating food stuffs since the advent of agriculture. The difference is that it has been done via cross pollination and animal husbandry. This is why an ear of corn today looks nothing like an ear of corn 200-300 years ago. This is why beef stocks are larger and very short lived. This is why sheep have extremely large winter coats.

This is not more of the same. Current GE is done in a lab via gene splicing. We're not talking taking a low yield corn strain with a high resistance to heat stress and cross pollinating that with a high yield corn strain that shows low tolerance to arid conditions ... we're talking taking a section of a completely different plant species, a specific trait identified on the genetic level, and doing a cut and past on an agricultural strain that we eat.

Look up Starlink sometime. In 2001, Starlink (GE corn) contaminated a very large percentage of our corn supply. This was an untested engineered strain that due to sheer ignorance and oversight, spread via a gentle summer breeze. Luckily, so far, Starlink is harmless and the FDA and most food producers did the right thing by initiating recalls. Dad's farm was effected by it in 2002 and he subsequently lost about 1k in acreage and had to spend about 12k to salvage and break even that year.

GE or cloned, from the lab to our table has not been tested or studied enough to justify something that has the greater potential to wipe humanity off the earth than any natural of astronomicall catastrophe.

[Celephais]

I think I'd have a problem with animals whose specific existence was completely controlled by humans, for the sole purpose of our consumption.

But then again, I eat meat, so I already do that, so I have no problem with it, as long as they are treated humanely. Which most aren't even now, so it's another one of my causes, though admittedly low on the list. I just tend to think animals are around to be below us on the food chain. No one complains if you drive a team of oxen too hard, and treat them inhumanely.

-TheE-

See if they made one colossal super meat animal, like one animal could produce the food of say 100 cows, it would A) get treated better because it's worth more, and B) it would only be one suffering "soul", so that's better right? Now someone just needs to come up with some sort of 73 ton cow.

[Stanley Burrell]

Man has been genetically manipulating food stuffs since the advent of agriculture. The difference is that it has been done via cross pollination and animal husbandry. This is why an ear of corn today looks nothing like an ear of corn 200-300 years ago. This is why beef stocks are larger and very short lived. This is why sheep have extremely large winter coats.

This is not more of the same. Current GE is done in a lab via gene splicing. We're not talking taking a low yield corn strain with a high resistance to heat stress and cross pollinating that with a high yield corn strain that shows low tolerance to arid conditions ... we're talking taking a section of a completely different plant species, a specific trait identified on the genetic level, and doing a cut and past on an agricultural strain that we eat.

Look up Starlink sometime. In 2001, Starlink (GE corn) contaminated a very large percentage of our corn supply. This was an untested engineered strain that due to sheer ignorance and oversight, spread via a gentle summer breeze. Luckily, so far, Starlink is harmless and the FDA and most food producers did the right thing by initiating recalls. Dad's farm was effected by it in 2002 and he subsequently lost about 1k in acreage and had to spend about 12k to salvage and break even that year.

GE or cloned, from the lab to our table has not been tested or studied enough to justify something that has the greater potential to wipe humanity off the earth than any natural of astronomicall catastrophe.

I'm going to take wild stab and guess that she wasn't referring to selective breeding (in the conventional sense you laid out.)

That being said, it still doesn't mean that selectively bred crops aren't toyed with (an assload) at this very moment using non-splicing/IVF methodology.

Skewed molar solutions of indole-3-acetic acid are going to continually be used in order to deliver a GA knockout with a thin line between senescence and super growth (and will still definitely pop up in the grocery isle if plant X remains ingestible.)

And yeah, what good could Philip Morris possibly do if half their product was still TMV-prone...

[Tsa`ah]

I'm going to take wild stab and guess that she wasn't referring to selective breeding (in the conventional sense you laid out.)

That being said, it still doesn't mean that selectively bred crops aren't toyed with (an assload) at this very moment using non-splicing/IVF methodology.

Skewed molar solutions of indole-3-acetic acid are going to continually be used in order to deliver a GA knockout with a thin line between senescence and super growth (and will still definitely pop up in the grocery isle if plant X remains ingestible.)

And yeah, what good could Philip Morris possibly do if half their product was still TMV-prone...

I get that ... but you're going from A-Z while skipping everything in between.

Our food sources have been manipulated for thousands of years, but it has all been confined to square pegs and round holes. We've stretched the boundaries by using round and oval shapes that fit, but don't necessarily belong. It hasn't been until later part of the last decade that we broke out the dremel to reshape the hole or the peg.

Cross pollination and selective breeding practices have been limited to compatible organisms. Interspecies breeding if you will ... even intergenus breeding.

Breeding a lion and a tiger for the objective of a lyger isn't a far stretch. Selectively breeding a species of a large fatty cow showing traits of a low libido and high infant mortality rate with a species exhibiting excessive horniness and low infant mortality rate isn't a stretch.

It would be nigh impossible to breed an ostrich with any species of laying hen in order to produce a new chicken species that laid 3 huge ass eggs a day.

Going back to my original reservations, cloning is new on the animal level. We haven't observed cloned food enough to understand if there are any risks. We don't know if there are molecular subtleties that pose dietary incompatibilities with current stocks. We don't know if there's the potential of altered aminos, sugars, or even say stray liver function that could produce enzymes not compatible to our digestive systems.

The point is that we do not know. We don't have the observation, we don't have the research past the finished product, we in fact have very little to make a safe conclusion that cloned food, let alone GE food, is perfectly safe to consume.

Again we're not talking about something that can be taken off the shelf or recalled. We're not even talking about cloning human organs for transplant ... which can be removed for a donor organ if things start to look bad. We're talking about potentially, and doing so very blindly, contaminating the stuff we all need to survive on a global level.

[Nieninque]

I think I'd have a problem with animals whose specific existence was completely controlled by humans, for the sole purpose of our consumption.

But then again, I eat meat, so I already do that, so I have no problem with it, as long as they are treated humanely. Which most aren't even now, so it's another one of my causes,

If there was a competition to see who could contradict themselves the most in one post, you would have won hands down.

Biggest load of drivel you have ever posted, The E

[Nieninque]

I strangely find myself agreeing with much of what Tsa'ah says.

I dont buy GM good. I am fucked if I would buy cloned food, and it is hilarious that stem cell research is banned by the US but they are going to feed you the same kind of stuff anyway.

I guess the bonus for us is we can use the Americans as a case study to see if there are any new things like CJD that we can develop by our fucked up need to fuck around with nature some more, before we actually do it for ourselves.

When will we ever learn?

[Tisket]

It's disturbing that the FDA has stated that since the food from clones is virtually indistinguishable from uncloned foods that they would not have the authority to require labeling. Thus making it far more difficult to track the health impact on the general public from cloned food consumption. Kind of a win-win for cloned food advocates I'd say...

Whatever, I imagine that there are a lot of companies scrambling to design a "Clone Free" label right now.

[Apathy]

Would you pay more money for something if you were assured it was not a clone?

[Tisket]

Would you pay more money for something if you were assured it was not a clone?

Cat food is cheap and edible. Doesn't mean I'd eat it.

[Latrinsorm]

Fist the quick acceptance of cloned food and second at how fast our government has thrown it's support toward the industry yet balks and digs in the heels when it comes to the medicinal aspect of cloning.It's almost like they think humans are in some way different from animals.

The Ice-9 theory of genetics is pretty fun for fearmongering, but do you have any evidence that a) cloning food is (not could be, but is) more prone to mutation than natural genetic variation and b) this mutation is (not could be, but is) dangerous? I agree that it's better to be safe than sorry, but you seem pretty sure that it's unacceptably risky.

[Nieninque]

It's almost like they think humans are in some way different from animals.

The Ice-9 theory of genetics is pretty fun for fearmongering, but do you have any evidence that a) cloning food is (not could be, but is) more prone to mutation than natural genetic variation and b) this mutation is (not could be, but is) dangerous? I agree that it's better to be safe than sorry, but you seem pretty sure that it's unacceptably risky.

Do you not see the difference between researching the effects of cloning human cells and releasing cloned animals as food?

It's also funny that you are expecting people to prove that it isnt safe rather than expecting those pushing for this to prove that it is.

Seems arse about face to me.

[Celephais]

I wonder whatever happened with Dolly... did someone end up eatting Dolly? (rhetorical question... I wiki'd it... Dolly is now a museum exhibit)

[Sean of the Thread]

Who gives a shit to be honest.

[Latrinsorm]

Do you not see the difference between researching the effects of cloning human cells and releasing cloned animals as food?Do you not recognize that research inevitably must include experimentation? (That's sort of the whole thrust of Tsa`ah's screeds.)
It's also funny that you are expecting people to prove that it isnt safe rather than expecting those pushing for this to prove that it is.What I'm expecting is rational restraint. If Tsa`ah had simply said "there's no reason to believe it will be safe" that would be fine. All the doom was a little much, hence the reference to Ice-9.

[ElanthianSiren]

At its core, it's the same debate you run into when genetically modifying anything for consumption (via modern methods -- do we like that phrasing better?). Some people will side with science and say it's fine; others will take a more "put nothing unnatural in your body" approach, despite any evidence you show them. Most people, however, will take the cheapest price to most satisfaction ratio route.

I see cloning food as more of "another option". It's an option I'd hestitate to take personally (because I'm of the "put as little unnatural in your body as you can" mind, and I'm saving my unnatural points for when they come out with viable islet cell therapy), but if the choice came down to feeding less people or more, I'd have to go with favoring the ability to feed more individuals well.

I agree we've been manipulating yields/size since the inception of agriculture, but that's obviously not what I was talking about.

-M

[Tsa`ah]

Do you not recognize that research inevitably must include experimentation? (That's sort of the whole thrust of Tsa`ah's screeds.)

I don't know what to tell you other than you're reading more than what I've posted and making wild assumptions about the scientific process involved up until this point.

THERE HAVE BEEN NO CLINICAL STUDIES.

Clinical studies are conducted prior to the release of medications ... the entire observation and research process pretty much ended when it was proven that we could clone a living source of food. We have NO real data, no scientific observation, and nothing in the way of studies to indicate that cloned food is safe for human consumption.


What I'm expecting is rational restraint. If Tsa`ah had simply said "there's no reason to believe it will be safe" that would be fine. All the doom was a little much, hence the reference to Ice-9.

Doom and gloom was not represented in any of my posts. Concerns about global contamination due to lack of study and consumer rights was predominately present.

Rational restraint would be for producers and our government to take every expected precaution to ensure that we the people won't develop food allergies or digestive diseases. The precautions are not there ... they have been nonexistent to this point.


At its core, it's the same debate you run into when genetically modifying anything for consumption (via modern methods -- do we like that phrasing better?). Some people will side with science and say it's fine; others will take a more "put nothing unnatural in your body" approach, despite any evidence you show them.

And I will side with science almost every time when acceptable methods are used.

When studies show that GE corn is causing irregular liver function in test mice, I'd say it merits more study and the risk involved with human consumption is too high. When corporate agriculture and the FDA become bedfellows, scratching each other's backs, it becomes evident that the consumer's best interest (health) are no longer a concern.

If a section of the population has no problem eating GE and cloned food stuffs, so be it. Give us a choice however. Regulate and enforce those regulations. Set up buffer zones to prevent contamination via pollination, track seed stores, monitor livestock breeding, and for fuck sakes .... make it mandatory that everything is labeled ... GE, cloned, or conventional.

My point is that precaution needs to be taken. The FDA's stance on this is a big green light and no need to tell the people shit about what they're putting in their mouths.

[ElanthianSiren]

My point is that precaution needs to be taken. The FDA's stance on this is a big green light and no need to tell the people shit about what they're putting in their mouths.

I agree but I have always agreed with more stringent labeling. In the end, however, this isn't likely. One need only to look at nutrasweet/aspartamine, which breaks down in a body (at temps over 96F) to phermaldyhyde (can never spell that word). The FDA still hasn't labelled Monsanto's little dreamchild as harmful. Hence my quote about more of the same.

IMO you should have three classes: 100% certified organic, Certified farm fed (hormones), 100% Genetically Engineered.

-M