As Americans celebrated New Year's by tearing into a juicy steak or enjoying several alcoholic beverages, this time next year they might be in for a surprise about their culinary hedonism. Recently, the US Food and Drug Association surprised few when it announced animal byproducts, mainly meat and dairy, can be sold to consumers without any notification that it was the byproduct of laboratory cloning. There are many arguments against selling and consuming animal byproducts but the most fact-based is comparing the genetic composition of the cloned animals to their 'organic' counterparts."In 2002, researchers at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reported that the genomes of cloned mice are compromised. In analyzing more than 10,000 liver and placenta cells of cloned mice, they discovered that about 4% of genes function abnormally. The abnormalities do not arise from mutations in the genes but from changes in the normal activation or expression of certain genes." (source)
For any carnivore/omnivore out there, this is just one of a long list of reasons why you should take steps to eliminate meat from your diet.
article by John O.
2 comments:
From this post, I can't exactly determine what the reason for not eating meat might actually BE. First, the only line relating to a potential "problem" with the consumption of a delicious hamburger is that it may be a byproduct of laboratory cloning. While at first glance I thought this meant I'd be a eating a juicy burger made from a cloned cow, on second reading I don't think that is what you're saying.Second, I am very curious about how widespread the practice is. My instinct tells me "not very." Cloning can't be cheap, and in a slim-margins game like farming and the meat industry, I can't imagine the cost would be justified over regular breeding techniques that result in meatier animals.Third, assuming there was more than a .0001% chance of eating a mouthwatering piece of meat from a cloned animal, does this argument focus on the quality of the meat or on the treatment of the animal? I'm not sure if a tender steak from a cloned cow is of any less quality or integrity than that from a regular cow, or if the objection is that a cloned cow may have some abornmally functioning cells which may or may not impact its quality of life on the meat farm.
These questions all come from the assumption that the article's point is that the next tasty burger you eat may be from a cloned animal, but, as I said before, that may not be the issue at all. It may be a "byproduct of laboratory cloning," whatever that means. Or is the article against cloning, the research from which could potentially be a boon to human medicine in the future?
Thanks for the feedback.
Firstly, I did intended that you could be eating cloned 'steak'. It is unacceptable and over time it will reach millions of consumers. The cost is justified with these frankenstein farm animals. Their output/meat content is higher, increasing the people who will ultimately consume it. As far as the cloning/low-margins concept, I know first-hand how mislead you are. How much is milk per gallon? More than gasoline. Also, the semen of cloned super-animals is a luxury item in the farming community. Farming is a very profitably business, largely due to outdated/misplaced subsidies.
I am 100% pro-science/research but I do not see how animal cloning would benefit society. Logic and common sense come into play. Josef Mengele would agree with you though. We're supposed to be the more intelligent species.
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