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View Full Version : US approves animal clones as food



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xdamage
01-16-2008, 09:19 AM
Oh, and we need more science in schools. I swear, say the word clone and some people think that suddenly a full-grown biological entity is zapped into existence.

I sure hope people don't think that, but it wouldn't surprise me if some do. Yea, a clone still takes just as long to grow up as any of us. The meat doesn't just pop into existence from a machine.



Why would an industry that wants to make a profit go to cloning when it is so much more expensive than breeding? I think there will be very little cloned meat on the market.


Sure. The FDA's job is not to decide if a food or drug (or technique) can be made profitable on the open market, just to decide if it is safe. I agree, in the short term there will be little cloning, but things can change. As the technology advances, the cost of cloning may come down to the point where it is inexpensive enough.



why isn't there a poll option like "I don't care"? 'cause I don't really care.


Yes, there should be an I don't care choice.





PS. And besides, what's the point of cloning meat anyways? Is a male and a female of the same species so hard to gather in one room/field for the good old fashioned "monkey" (or cow/pig) love?


Well, I was watching a video the other day. It seems that jacking off a stud animal and inseminating multiple females with the collected ejaculate is done in some cases, so don't be sure the meat you eat now is the product of love or lust ;)

What is the point of it? Presumably multiple reasons.

First, product consistency. Taste, texture, etc. Cloning removes a big variable here. Say for example you finally cross breed enough cows that you end up with a cow whose meat has a the right amount of fat, good flavor, etc. You can try to maintain it by cross breeding, and prey that the stock is not wiped out due to a virus, or you can keep the DNA sequence and clone, guaranteeing the same results every time. It seems so impersonal, but it's really just one step removed from what is done now with cross breeding of plants and animals.

Second, yield. Without careful control of the breeding, you're likely to end up with a mix of healthy and not so healthy animals. So imagine if you could inexpensively select to breed only animals that are healthy, that gain weight well, etc. In the long run that could be cheaper.

Third, cost. In theory you could clone and raise the animals anywhere in the world guaranteeing consistent results, including parts of the world where labor is cheap. The natural way ... well the animals live and die in certain environmental conditions, and if the breed dies out ... no more offspring. The problem is your breeding stock may not survive if you try to move them to another location, and shipping animals after they are born for feeding adds costs. With cloning, in theory you can raise say "Angus beef" anywhere that is cheapest. The implantation of the cloned DNA can be done anywhere. In reality probably not yet. Not if it turns out that the cloned animals are affected dramatically by their surrogate mother (maybe in the future they will have artificial wombs though), or if the environment is a key factor in their growth (e.g., maybe the taste of the meat depends heavily on the grass, which depends on the soil, etc., and the cost of cloning and reproducing all of that elsewhere is impractical). Time will tell.

AudreyLeigh
01-16-2008, 09:44 AM
When I think about clones I think about all the genetic work that goes into it. Wouldnt it be cheaper/easier to just breed the animals?

dlabtot
01-16-2008, 10:12 AM
If only they could just grow the meat in a vat without having to bother with cloning that pesky animal.

DJ Machismo
01-16-2008, 11:01 AM
If only they could just grow the meat in a vat without having to bother with cloning that pesky animal.

The problem with that would be that the meat owes its flavor in some part to the exercise that the animal does. How much the muscle is used.

Meea
01-16-2008, 12:00 PM
When I think about clones I think about all the genetic work that goes into it. Wouldnt it be cheaper/easier to just breed the animals?

LOL I asked the same thing!

A satisfactory and (in my opinion) well thought out response is right above your post!

Thanx, xdamage, for doing the thinking that I was too lazy to!

SundayMorning
01-16-2008, 12:04 PM
There would be absilutely no difference between cloned and uncloned meat, any more than there is a difference between a plant and it's cutting.

I wouldn't care either way.

I agree with this. I wouldn't care what I'm eating, although I would be curious about it.

dlabtot
01-16-2008, 12:33 PM
The problem with that would be that the meat owes its flavor in some part to the exercise that the animal does. How much the muscle is used.

Depends on what flavor you want. Call me evil, but I love veal.

Jenny
01-16-2008, 12:54 PM
Um, what exactly is so wrong with eating meat from cloned animals? We eat cloned vegetables. We plant cloned seeds in our home gardens. I mean, I understand that it's "creepy," but beyond that, why is it gross?
I don't get it either. I've been a vegetarian for over 10 years; I don't get the difference between the cloned cow and the birthed cow. I was more sympathetic to the distaste for kinds of splicing - scorpion pieces in your tomato... but tomato pieces in your tomato that are replicated from another tomato... yeah, don't get it.

rooster470
01-16-2008, 01:09 PM
^^^^^
Now i'm hungry for a scorpion tomato. :yummy: :hungry:

Paris
01-16-2008, 01:28 PM
I have a feeling that with the shrinking availability of natural food vs. cloned and/or genetically altered food the only choice will be to eat cloned food or starve for the majority of humans.

With the growing problem of global warming causing drought combined with and ever growing human population, cloned food is really the only answer to the hunger problem. (at this time)

DJ Machismo
01-16-2008, 01:30 PM
Depends on what flavor you want. Call me evil, but I love veal.

Touche.

I am a fan of veal as well.

Of course all of those Brisket fans will really be up a shit creek without a paddle on this one.

Miss Jessica
01-16-2008, 04:13 PM
But how willanybody know if they're eating cloned meat or not if they're not going to label it any differently? I don't like that at all, I want to be able to choose what I am eating please.

Eeek. True.... Crap.:-\

TheSexKitten
01-16-2008, 06:22 PM
We don't need cloned animals to support our out-of-control population; we need human population control. Stop breeding, people!!


:heartbeat ;D

Also, about there being a difference between cloned animals and birthed animals: there definitely is one. Go look at my link to that article from BBC for a little news. Cloned animals die young and have a bunch of weird health problems, birthed animals [typically] do not. Now the real question from a scientific point of view is whether or not the effects of eating the meat is the same, but personally I don't want to be the experiment to find out.

I am absolutely sickened that they won't label the packages.

Also considering the technology necessary for this and the fact that you still have to raise the animal to adulthood, wouldn't it become costly?

ahmeerah
01-16-2008, 06:30 PM
Well today on the news I heard that major meat companies said they wouldn't use cloned meat. And in general it was stated that if cloned meats were put into effect, consumers would end up buying the offspring of the animals -- NOT the actual cloned animals.

Either way it's disgusting. There's no need for cloning animals.