Cloned Meat….is it a good idea?
As a scientist and a natural/whole food advocate I am a little torn on the issue of cloned food. Being a scientist endorses your belief that science can make life better and indeed in a lot of ways it has. I would of guessed long before the FDA report that in theory there would be little difference between the cloned and “naturally bred” animals as far as composition of the meat however on an emotional level I find it a little creepy (the picture above is from this NYtimes article and the calf above has been cloned from a steak…..wierd huh?). Anyway, the things that do concern me are that lack of genetic diversity could cause several lines of clones to be more susceptible to infections of all kinds thus leading to more and more chemicals, antibiotics and pesticides to be used on and around the animal. Additionally, I worry that the eventual result of divorcing natural reproduction from our food chain will further the perception that meat comes from a lab and not our natural world.
This quote by from the NYtimes I found especially disturbing…
“When you buy a box of Cheerios in New York and one in Champaign, Illinois, you know they are going to be the same,” said Jon Fisher, president and owner of Prairie State Semen in Illinois. “By shortening the genetic pool using clones, you can do a similar thing.”
I don’t eat beef so me buying it is sort of a non-issue for me but if you do are you frightened by the possibility that you may be eating the offspring of a clone (clones are too expensive to eat at this time so they will be used for breeding, eventually as the process becomes less expensive and more reliable they may actually become what is eaten)? Does beef being the same everywhere sound good to you as long as the quality is high? Would you be upset if the government introduces this food into supermarkets without labeling it? And if they did would you still buy beef?
