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TechnoratiLess than a dozen years after Dolly the sheep became the world's first cloned mammal, grocers and restaurateurs are digesting the fact that milk and meat from cloned animals could soon filter into their supply chains.
The government took major steps toward easing cloned livestock and their offspring into the food supply in mid-January, when the Food and Drug Administration concluded they're safe to eat.
The question is, will consumers swallow the new technology? And how will food businesses cope if their customers balk?
Many food merchants are still framing their policies while they warily monitor public opinion. The historic commercial debut of cloning comes in an era when a significant segment of consumers have rejected other foods the FDA deemed safe, such as milk from hormone-treated cows and genetically modified corn.
Cloning is an attempt to create a new animal using the DNA from an existing adult animal. The FDA, while noting that livestock cloning produces many malformed or ill newborn animals, said cloned animals that survive for several months after birth can be healthy. They can reproduce normally and produce healthy young, the FDA said. The agency said it found no signs that food from healthy clones is harmful to humans, and predicted that sickly clones would be excluded from the food supply.
Consumer groups, however, have called FDA's positive safety assessment hasty and ill-founded. The Center for Food Safety said the FDA based many conclusions on small or limited studies, many of them financed by cloning companies. Clones that appear healthy can have infections, or abnormalities that could affect food quality such as unusual proteins or imbalances between protein and fats, the group said. Further studies should be done to evaluate clones and their offspring, the organization said.
Such groups are urging consumers to press their supermarkets and restaurants to refuse food from clones. And those businesses are being peppered with inquiries like "Will my hamburger meat come from a cloned cow?" and "Are clones kosher?"
Independent grocer Sam Mogannam said he didn't need any calls from his customers to know if they'd accept food from cloned lineages. He's sure they won't. And he has no intention of stocking any at Bi-Rite Market, which he bills as a mecca for organic, sustainable and non-artificial foods in San Francisco's Mission District.
"We believe in allowing nature to take its due course," he said. "I know our customers wouldn't support us if they knew we were knowingly accepting products from clones or their offspring."
But food merchants, from small shop owners to national supermarket chains, could face formidable challenges if they want to guarantee customers the option of avoiding all products linked to cloning.
No public system is in place to alert food sellers when products from animal lines that include clones could reach their shelves - whether in the form of a rib-eye steak, a quart of low-fat milk, a can of beef minestrone or a wedge of sharp cheddar.
Consumer groups such as the Center for Food Safety and Consumers Union support mandatory labeling of all products linked to cloning, from raw meat to meatball sandwiches. They're backing bills proposed in Congress and by a few state legislators, including state Sen. Carole Migden, D-San Francisco. Without labeling, they argue, any food safety problems that did arise from cloning would never be linked to the technology.
Some retailers, after hearing from customers, are also calling for some form of government action. Two supermarket chains with a significant presence in Northern California, Safeway and Whole Foods Market, say the government should oversee a system to track clones through the food supply. It should also consider other means, such as food labeling, to ensure that consumers can make informed choices about products of cloning, the companies said.
"The lack of effective governmental oversight and tracking could mean consumers will lose the ability to choose clone-free products," Whole Foods spokeswoman Margaret Wittenberg said.
The FDA maintains that no labeling or disclosure requirements are necessary to protect public health. The agency, after years of study, issued a lengthy report Jan. 15 concluding that milk and meat from cloned cattle, pigs and goats are safe for consumption. The FDA said it had too little information to assess cloned sheep, but it found no food safety problems connected with the progeny of clones.
The offspring of all cloned livestock were immediately cleared as food sources by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, based on the FDA's findings. Clones themselves - cattle, pigs and goats - will also enter the food supply. But when, and under what regulatory scheme, if any, has not yet been decided.
The USDA is inviting industry input as it develops a plan to usher cloned animals into the market. In the meantime, the agency is asking companies that have created or purchased clones to honor a voluntary ban on selling their meat or milk for food.
This means that Ditto, a cloned cow created by a UC Davis researcher, can't be a food source just yet because the university honors the temporary ban. But UC Davis is now free to sell milk or meat from Ditto's daughter, an unnamed Holstein cow conceived by sexual reproduction.
Even before the FDA's favorable report, a few clone owners admitted in various news reports that they had already sold milk or meat from the animals as food.
As the rules stand now, livestock breeders and milk or meat suppliers have no legal obligation to disclose to either food manufacturers or consumers that a product came from a cloned animal line. Some vendors plan to keep their products clear of cloned lineages, but the FDA may not permit packages to bear a voluntary label such as "clone free."
Safeway Inc. of Pleasanton, one of the nation's largest food retailers, said its customers are demanding more information. The company acknowledged that the government conducted important studies on food from clones. But to help shoppers make informed choices about products tied to cloning, Safeway supports additional studies "that would help ensure changes to federal policy are done in a manner that maintains consumer confidence and informed decision making."
The Pleasanton chain, which has 269 stores in Northern California, is asking its suppliers to deliver no products from cloned animals while the government mulls its options. "Meanwhile, the federal government should exercise its authority and expertise to determine an appropriate regulatory framework, including traceability and labeling," Safeway said in response to a Chronicle inquiry. Safeway declined to say whether it will accept foods from the offspring of clones.
Trader Joe's, a Monrovia (Los Angeles County) grocery chain that carries many organic product lines, did not respond to The Chronicle's query.
Bruce Knight, USDA undersecretary for marketing, said the agency is willing to help industry members create a tracking and certification program if they request it. The USDA already administers standards and certification of organic products. Knight said the USDA would work with companies that want to set up voluntary labeling of food from clones.
Few food businesses have actively sought to sell products from cloned animal lines, but all could be affected by the few U.S. cloning companies in business. Their customers are farmers who want replicas of valuable breeding animals - clones of a prize bull, for example, whose semen fetches high prices for artificial insemination. As breeders, cloned animals could quickly influence the gene pool of U.S. livestock. The preserved semen of one bull can be sent throughout the country to produce thousands of descendants.
One healthy cloned calf can cost as much as $20,000. But these expensive animals may enter the meat supply when their reproductive lives wane. Their milk will also be sold for dairy products.
At this point, retailers that want to avoid food from clones are relying on private agreements with their suppliers, who in turn have to trust their own sources. Meat packers may be able to exclude some clones by consulting an industry database of cloned animals whose owners volunteer to register them. The two major livestock cloning companies, ViaGen Inc. and Trans Ova Genetics, are developing the registry with the certification company AgInfoLink. Meatpackers would be able to scan or read an animal's ear tag to identify clones, said AgInfoLink executive Glenn Smith.
At this point, AgInfoLink doesn't plan to track the milk, semen or offspring of clones. But Smith said that could change if retailers request such services.
Most food outlets that have taken a stand on cloning have said they will exclude clones themselves, but not necessarily food from their progeny.
Natural foods retailer Whole Foods Market of Austin, Texas, which has 24 stores in Northern California, said its products will remain free of both clones and their descendants.
"We are working with our supplier community to develop a chain of custody records that trace product breeding stock through multiple generations," said Edmund LaMacchia, vice president of purchasing for perishables.
It's not clear, however, that all USDA-certified organic operations will be completely "clone free." Some organic producers say they're not sure yet how they can guarantee that their animals have no ties to cloning. That includes Albert Straus, president of Straus Family Creamery in Marin County, which supplies all the dairy products for Sam Mogannam's Mission District market and nearby ice cream store.
Like most dairy operators, Straus relies on artificial insemination to reproduce his herd. Straus wants the government to require semen suppliers to reveal whether their products come from a cloned bull or its young. Without such certainty, Straus said, dairies might lose their organic certification from the USDA.
USDA's organic standards do rule out clones, but the agency may permit the use of a clone's descendants, Knight said. Therefore, consumers who want to avoid food from both clones and their offspring may not be able to rely solely on the organic label.
Buying only kosher foods won't insulate consumers from products of cloning at all. Rabbi Menachem Genack of the Orthodox Union, which certifies food items as kosher, said cloned animals would qualify as long as they belong to a single kosher species, such as cattle, sheep and goats.
At this point, consumer choice rests on a patchwork chain of voluntary agreements among suppliers and retailers.
The first time many Americans take a bite of food from a cloned animal or its offspring, they may never know it.
Cloning's imperfections at center of debate
Twenty years from now, the eating public may blithely accept food from cloned animals. But at this point, consumer groups are aghast at government actions to usher cloned livestock and their offspring into the U.S. food supply. To a large extent, the resistance stems from the fact that livestock cloning is still an imperfect art.
The Food and Drug Administration found in January that food from healthy clones and their progeny is safe. But in the same lengthy report, the FDA also detailed snags in the current art of animal cloning that reduce its rate of producing healthy clones to less than 10 percent. Many cloned embryos die or develop into sickly newborns.
Among consumer groups, those technical snags have raised questions not only about food safety, but also about animal welfare and ethics. They contend that further study may reveal health dangers the FDA didn't discover, as new testing methods emerge. In the FDA's view, future research will not only confirm the safety of food from clones, but will also improve methods of creating them.
Clones are made by coaxing a single adult cell from the original animal - call it a bull named George - to form an embryo that will become George2. The nucleus containing George's DNA is swapped into an egg cell from a cow, after the egg's nucleus is removed. The hope is that the resulting embryo, implanted in a surrogate mother, will be an exact copy of George. But about 90 percent of the time, that doesn't happen.
Clones can be born grossly malformed, and many die within six months. The fetuses can grow too large, causing difficult, extended pregnancies ending with delivery by cesarean section, the FDA found in a review of scientific studies.
But the FDA said clones that survive past six months are often healthy and fertile. Their offspring have even fewer health problems, the agency said. No significant differences appeared in milk or meat from cloned animal lines and their non-cloned counterparts, FDA reported.
The FDA acknowledged that newborn clones are often sick or dying, but said those animals would never pass inspection for entry into the food supply.
Consumer groups aren't convinced that cloning raises no safety concerns. For example, they suspect that many young clones will survive only through treatment with antibiotics and other drugs. Such animals could enter the food supply and affect human health, they contend.
An ethics board advising the European Food Safety Authority concluded in January that cloning for food production cannot be justified at this point because of the suffering of both deformed clones and their surrogate mothers, or dams, in animal breeding terms.
On the question of food safety, however, the European Food Safety Authority agreed with the FDA. The FDA, whose purview is limited to food safety, did not evaluate the ethics of cloning.
Online resources
Read the FDA's risk assessment of cloning: www.fda.gov/cvm/cloning.htm
Read the Center for Food Safety's critique of FDA's report: www.centerforfood safety.org/Policy.cfm
E-mail Bernadette Tansey at btansey@sfchronicle.com.
© 2008 The San Francisco Chronicle
64 Comments so far
Show AllDouglas Barnes,
My condolences for the loss of your friend.
You are correct. This everything for profit system is ruining the planet and all life forms.
I finally 'realized' the saying, "money is the root of evil."
Grumpyoldlady, you're welcome. Dr.Shipwash, thank you for the very interesting information. Madrone, I hadn't thought of the patent idea, but now that you mention it, it's pretty obvious. Thanks.
You know, reading all this stuff makes me realize something:
We, the People are really in charge, only we don't know it. We don't have to eat the junky food they sell us. We don't have to buy the plastic crap they make us think we should buy. We don't have to vote for the slimeballs they present to us. We don't have to join the military. We don't have to watch the crap news on TV they palm off on us. We don't have to buy SUV's.
But we do, because we've been brainwashed. It's like we're all cult members, and the cult we belong to is the cult of the consumer. Maybe we should all just drop out of the cult.
"One healthy cloned calf can cost as much as $20,000."
Hilarious. Not included is the millions of dollars spent to provide the background science to make cloning possible, of course.
Funny, I know of a way to create animals basically for free. Mind you the technique is not patentable and the product is not genetically uniform (of those who love widespread disease).
Humans are herbivore, physiologically speaking, and the diet of the carnivore is really unhealthy for us. Most will say we are omnivores, but there is no reason to consume animal flesh, other than the learned taste for it.
Stupid article. It's easy to avoid cloned food: go vegetarian/vegan. It's what the nutritionist/ethicist/environmentalist/peace activist/ recommends, anyway.
Madrone,
Thanks for the link! I'll check it out.
Grumpyoldlady wrote: "What, then, is the economic incentive for meat producers to use cloning in lieu of good, old-fashioned reproduction?"
You can't patent non-cloned animals. Strongly recommend you go to Netflix for "The Future of Food". Really. It is a great resource and will explain some things about GMO's and patent actions. Also, you can get it as an instant download so you don't even have to mess with mailing the disk back.
The problem with cloning is that it eliminates the natural genetic diversity built into a population. It is like marrying your sister and having children. We have two copies of each gene, one from the father and one from the mother, and if both genes come from relatives that increases the chance that we will get two copies of the defective gene. That is why there are so many birth defects in those who marry relatives. Sexual reproduction is a process where the DNA and genes are recombined to produce genetic diversity. This genetic diversity is what allows the population to resist pathogens that could cause it to become extinct. For example, some people have a mutation in a co-receptor needed for the AIDs virus to enter the T-cell. These people are resistant to AIDs infection. This shows how genetic diversity can prevent a population from becoming extinct. If if were not for this genetic diversity, we would all be susceptible the the deadly virus. Cloning animals will eventually lead to entire herds wiped out by a single pathogen.
Dr.S
zookini-
Perhaps the ignorant person is you. You make no commentary at all on this blog, and when you finally do say something it's nothing but insulting potshots at people you disagree with. Not everyone posting here at CD has the same point of view. (That would be rather dull). So if you are asking if I'm paid - No. If you're asking if I'm ignorant - Possibly. So what? My opinion is expressed. If you want to participate in the discussion, pony up yours.
MORE!
Forget the comparisons to France and Japan etc!!!!
You would think that SCIENCE by now would have been able to sample a babys DNA at birth!!!(and have it on file for EVER!!!!) and be able to predict the childs health needs, which would include mothers milk and fresh food love and care from an extended human family etc.
Instead "science" teaches that mothers need machines and COW milk to raise their babies?????
Given that there are members of every human ethnic group in the US, and we have the ability to get food from anywhere to here(not a good thing;) Would you not think that by now There ought to be ZERO eating disorder and hunger HERE(at least, and elsewhere too)?
I do.
People who come here from the furthest places in the world stick with their"limited" diets and more or less remain healthy. Their children show the "American/Western diseases" which are not limited to physical health
BE Progressive, Quit yappin and DO SOMETHING!!!!!
Lots of "comments " from the usual "progressive suspects."
We are marching down the road to our own extinction, get used to the idea.
The owning class does not eat their own @##$, they do feed it to everybody they can; it's part of the plan.
In the meantime, encourage everybody you know to boycott yes BOY COTT! all, yes ALLL fast food, all MILK based products,(liquid cow), and do not allow yourself or your children to eat ANYTHING, ANYWHERE, that you did not cook. Stay hungry a couple hours a day and a couple days a week, and watch in amazement as your families health improves!!!!!
Go to the "doctor" only for broken bones or major injury caused by you feeling so jubilant, you tried to jump across two buildings and fell short.
YES YOU CAN!!!!!!!
you going to die anyway, stop %^&&*ing worrying about it!!!!!
The question is, will consumers swallow the new technology?
The answer is, American consumers will swallow ANYTHING!...Read "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy and you'll get to experience the American South during Nuclear Winter. Hint: They eat each other!
WTF & Peaceman,
Our sugar addition is out of control. Read almost any food label and you'll find it in some form or other (fructose, lactose, sucrose, corn syrup, etc., etc.). There are so many of them that many people often don't recognize it as sugar. We cultivate this love of sugar from infancy (check out the ingredients on baby formula sometime). Unfortunately, when we feed our sweet tooth with artificially enhanced forms of sugar it makes foods that are naturally sweet, like fruits and many vegetables, taste bland by comparison. Same goes for salt. It's no wonder we can't get kids to eat fruits and veggies anymore without adding a lot of sugar and/or salt.
WTF, You are right about the sugar which is probably worse than tobacco. The famous French pastries, and even the ones in Italy, have much less sugar in them the junk we make in America.
The high fructose corn syrup is very bad and so many so-called health foods products use it.
Also, they do a lot more walking over there. We have to drive three blocks to go to the fast food joint and wonder why we are overweight.
Buy local, support your local farmers. And if you can raise your own chickens, and ducks! Grow a garden this spring. Plant a fruit or nut tree. It gets you back in touch with what is real about life. Not this fake consumer driven life on TV.
Hey, that milk puss is pasturized, no sweat. You should see what Scrapple is made from. Yummmy-yum.
You guys have a problem with Dick Cheney?
This is just not necessary. There are plenty of cattle and sheep and hogs and chickens to fill the bill, so why cloning. Cloning is a disgrace, first because of the many clones that are ill, and second, because in the long run we just don't know what we are getting into. But the main reason for these allowances is for someone to be making money that fills the coffers of some FDA pocket. But since the Republicans took over, we consumers don't have a right to voice our objection.
I lived on a family farm in the early 50s, and it is such a sad shame to see what has become of our relationship to the earth. We become cattle ourselves now, before the corporate interests. Sad.
All the more reason to stop eating animal products.
Let's see... Mastitis is an infection in the udder of a dairy cow. This bacterial infection is fought off by the cow's immune systems white blood cells, with puss as a product of the infection. How much puss is allowed in milk? Do some research on "dairy mastitis" for yourself. Cloned animals disrupt natures natural selective process weak animals are the result. So when (not if) all animals are cloned there won't be much of a choice and you won't be able to afford the non cloned beef reserved for the rich and wealthy.
We see similarities in the farming of vegetables becoming less resistant to plant diseases. So what you will see is more MMMMMMMaaaadddd cow, bovine AIDS as well as hoof and moth disease. USDA is recalling beef from that animal abuse video that was released. Downer cows being added to your beef hot dogs. A downer cow is a good sign of a mad cow, just how many were processed before the video was taken?
Has anyone be keeping track of the H5N1 (bird flu) in India, Pakistan and Indonesia? Hmmm, we don't hear much about it in the daily news... Scary Sh*t!
The FDA and USDA are not protecting your food supply. Do yourself and your family a favor and get used to eating your veggies now. Stop eating animal products because the nation's food supply is a dirty little secret waiting to be exposed.
I miss my Ben and Jerry's ice cream... No more puss for me!
Peaceman wrote: I was amazed how healthy the French people looked, and it seemed like every third or fourth person smoked.
It's not the smoking (as you know), but the lack of sugar that the Europeans are so healthy. Sugar (and especially it's evil twin, high-fructose corn syrup) is responsible for the obesity epidemic in the US. They stick this garbage in everything.
Seek out and buy organic as much as possible. You will pay more money for less food but at least you will not be risking the poisoning of yourself. As you get used to eating less volume but better quality, your body will adjust to the change and you will feel better.
As all that processed and chemicalized crap that generally inhabits most of the store between its walls exceeds its shelf life and has to be thrown away because nobody much is buying it, the processers and manufactureers will also get the message--change or die!
Grumpyoldlady,
You 're welcome. The Nat Sherman's cost around six bucks a pack now. But at least they last longer as the 'regular' brands lace the tobacco with nitrates and nitrites for quicker burning in order to use more product. (that's capitalism, for ya'...planned obsolesence!)
One Dick Cheney is one too much.
I don't think anyone here knows the extent of genetic modification is being practiced. You should look at the hundreds of patent applications for genetically modified animals. In Australia, the genetically modifiy sheep so they won't fart. Seriously, to reduce mehtane. In 1985 my friends husband worked in a secret lab for Shell or one of the gas companies to make a lean pig. They were call animal physiologist.
Peaceman,
Thanks for the reminder about the Nat Sherman brand. I smoked those years ago, but with the rising prices they started to feel like an extravagance. I'll have to give them another look.
You're right about all the chemical preservatives and who-knows-what that's going into our food. You'd think with all those preservatives in our bodies, we'd be...well...better preserved! Sort of like pre-embalming. But I guess the overall poor health of the American public speaks for the quality of our food supply.
KEM PATRICK,
"Next? Another Dick Cheney."
ARRGGHHH! Perish the thought!!!
Next? Another Dick Cheney.
ticonderoga and grumpyoldlady;
If you smoke, 'Sherman' brand is very good, as their cigarettes are pure tobacco leaves without the chemical additives. Regarding smoking, I was amazed how healthy the French people looked, and it seemed like every third or fourth person smoked. It could have been outward appearance, but the women have very nice skin and hair.
More importantly, the overall health of the individual is determined by many factors, but here in the United States, we gorge ourselves in artificial or what is called "factory food" with all sorts of chemical additives for a longer shelve life, among other things. From my own observation, this "false food" is far worse even for a non-smoker, than for a smoker consuming minimally processed food with an abundance of raw foods.
Getting back to the article, scientists may have opened a 'Pandora's Box' on the cloning. First comes the genetically modified organizms in food crops. Now animal cloning. What comes next?
Ticonderoga,
Your suggestions make good sense to me, from a mass-production/maximum profit perspective, particularly the idea of reproducing "perfect" specimens without all that annoying uncertainty that nature injects into the equation.
Thanks for the help!
If such a large proportion of cloned livestock is unhealthy and malformed, it behooves science to tell us WHY. If we're going to be asked to eat this stuff, we need to know. It's my understanding that Dolly, the first cloned sheep, was born with older tissues than a normally produced lamb, and suffered early onset arthritis. WHY?
I already avoid rBst dairy products, food from China, eggs from chickens who are confined in small laying cages, farmed fish, tuna (mercury, you know) and a number of other pitfalls. I am used to it.
After 10 years of fish-and-dairy-but-no-meat vegetarianism, I took last year off and ate meat. It's a good solution for those who find vegetarianism difficult. I was hungering for pastramis and Italian sausages. The sad truth is that most imitation meats aren't worth the cost. By the end of the year I was bored with meat and happy to go back to my regualr regime. I may do it again in ten years if boredom sets in.
If, as one commenter noted, the world has a starvation problem (thereby justifying cloning and other modern meat miracles), animal cloning and meat-eating in general will not solve it. What is needed is a system in which people get much of the grains and other foodstuffs that now go to producing meat for the well-off.
Good luck to you, grumpyoldlady!
And why cloning, if it's expensive and risky?
I'll take a guess or three, but I really don't know:
1. For the future. Might be cheaper when the learning curve is over. For example, breeding animals is a tricky thing, what with all that messy sexual reproduction to deal with, not to mention those aggressive bulls. But if you could master cloning you could eliminate all those messy steps.
2. To easily replicate ideal stock. If you could really make this cloning thing work you could duplicate your biggest and fattest cattle, over and over again. Again, genetics is problematical and tricky, but cloning is like making a book: you just set the type and print the thing over and over again.
3. To be able to bypass the adult stage. For example, if you wanted to produce veal, you could just clone a calf over and over again, without having to wait for it to get big enough to make other calves. This of course would save time, and maybe that's the real reason. It would be similar to how trees are cut for paper in Maine: they don't wait for a tree to get 200 years old to cut it down, instead they bulldoze 10 or 15 year old trees down, and wait for them to get 10 or 15 years old and do it all over again.
But I'm just guessing, so please take all this with a grain of salt.
We are all going to die.
I knew this cloning and genetic altering was going to be trouble. It's another killer bee mistake by over zealous scientists.
Some great points being made here. But I still don't get it! If cloning is expensive and has such a high failure rate, why would meat producers want to do it anyway? Someone help me out here!
Ticonderoga,
As a fellow nico-addict, I totally empathize! Those damn Coughin' Nails are wicked hard to give up. I'm looking into Chantix. I know quite a number of folks at work who've managed to quit that way. Wish me luck!
You don't have to be religious to know right from wrong. Cloning disrupts diversity and creates a sexual repression not to mention human involvement in animal reproduction. That is some pretty sick ****.
TheLorax--
Were you paid to make the ridiculous comments you just posted or are you merely ignorant?
Actually, WTF, I didn't find giving up eating meat difficult at all. The hardest part about it was giving up drinking beer, because I used to be a beer-and-barbecue kind of guy, and barbecued veggies just don't go nearly so well with beer as does barbecued meat, IMO. So I gave up beer, which was pretty hard. The meat part, all on its lonesome, wasn't that bad at all.
By far the hardest thing to give up for me, much harder than meat or beer, is cigarettes. Damned things are tough as hell to quit. Still working on it.
Bet I'd be rich today if I'd bought stock in R.J. Reynolds 30 years ago.
OMG this is such nonsense. Who cares where the meat comes from? There's a hunger problem in the world and it won't be solved by trying to stand in the way of science.
If the cloned meat is proven to be less nutritional than standard meat then that will need to be addressed when it's discovered.
The "I won't eat meat from cloned cows" nonsense is a continuation of the same religious fantasy that's plaguing America right now. You don't like it? Don't eat it.
Bananas are going extinct because there is no longer any diversity that protects against plant illness.
Not quite enough to eat vegetarian (what does that even mean nowadays?); consume vegan, support local. Better yet: diy. Stay disciplined, best of luck, support for us all.
kloshe nanitch
@ticonderoga and peaceman.
We'd by lying if we said giving up meat was easy. I gave up eating meat when I was 18; that was 43 years ago. To this day if I smell barbied aussie snags or a meat pie, my brain pleasure center goes nuts. It is probably similar to giving up smoking nicotine (I never did go down that path, thank goodness) or being an alcoholic. It's tough at first, and the longer you go without self-indulging, it gets easier to say no, but you will always have a weak spot triggered by something that will challenge your decision.
I will avoid it. For the little meat we eat I will buy from local sources which we still have and support. If you don't want cloned meat don't buy it from a chain super market. Find a local farmer or CSA and do yourself and your local economy a favor. In many areas you can visit farmer's markets and, guess what, have a home vegetable garden,
ticonderoga; Don't put yourself down. I just started sooner, that's all. The first 30 days or so was hard, as everyone in my family were/are meat eaters and looked at me as an anomaly. ( he'll get over the fad...) But I got to tell you, growing up in New Jersey and going to the shore in the summer and walking along the boardwalk with all the food concessions, the one aroma intoxicating to me was the food stand with the Italian sausuage fried with onions and green bell peppers. ( I can smell it to this day. ) The will power was challenged and the mind- in- motion program went to work, rejecting the sausuage and the stroll along the boardwalk continued on untill I came to the custard or ice cream concession and the pizza stand and over-indulged.
KEM; If they start cloning peanut butter and jelly...I shudder to think what's next! ( Wonderin' if Jimmy Carter grows organically grown goobers? )
As I understand it, for years all asparagus has been cloned, and all bananas. That is they are grown from cuttings not from seed (current bananas don't produce seed) which is the same thing as cloned reproduction in animals. We're doing pretty well with asparagus and bananas and who knows what other veggies and fruits.
Certainly all our foodstuffs, animal or vegetable has been genetically modified for centuries by selective breeding, although gene insertion and such are very new.
So people may be trying to shut the barn door about an eon too late.
Which is not to say that known organic foods and locally grown products are not a good idea; they are. So eat your farmers greens and lamb, but don't fool yourself that they are not genetically modified in some way or other.
And for the good of others who can't afford the deliciously high prices at good farmers markets, work actively for clean and humane slaughterhouses, and not irrigating with sewage and adequate food inspections.
I haven't done much reading on this, so maybe others with greater knowledge can help me out. I don't get it. It seems like the whole cloning process is very expensive and that the outcome is often a failure. What, then, is the economic incentive for meat producers to use cloning in lieu of good, old-fashioned reproduction?
An earlier post offered some excellent advice. Working with local farmers and co-ops not only helps to support your local economy, there's a big peace-of-mind factor in knowing exactly where your food is coming from and how it has been handled.
Yeah, KEM, they probably do...
Cloning George or Osama or Saddam? After Robert Pickton I lost all desire for pork and now any meat at all. Might just as well be a vegan and avoid this whole toxic mess.
It doesn't make any difference. Just cook the meat and eat as usual. You won't even be able to taste any difference since there isn't any difference. Too bad education in the US doesn't teach science any more.
Do they clone peanut butter and jelly?
Man, I don't want my Soylent Green to be cloned.
41 years? Wow! You're a better man than I, peaceman. I'm just getting started on this vegetarian thing.
I agree with the go local, go vegetarian. This is the same Bushco FDA that keeps approving drugs that kill people.
BTW it's probably just as well it costs that much, or everyone would be doing it.......imagine the problems then............
All I have to say is support local farm owners instead of Stop & Shops, and etc. Get involved in programs such as this.
What is a CSA?
Community Supported Agriculture (also called CSA or Subscription Vegetable Farming) is an innovative approach to the relationship between farmers and those who enjoy good food. With a preseason payment, members purchase a "share" of the season's harvest, a diverse assortment of seasonal vegetables each week. "Shares" enable farms to plant, grow and harvest crops as a business. Eat local to preserve the environment and support sustainable farmland stewardship in your region. Teach children where their food comes. Eat healthy with fresh vegetables grown by organic practices and principles. This CSA is located at Sweetwilliam Farm.
How much does a share cost?
A full share feeds a family of 4 and is $500.00 for the season. A half share feeds two and is $300.00 for the season.
Don't let the government tax them out of business!
We are currently working on our crop plan. Some crops will be planting are: lettuce, tomato, summer squash, raspberries, potato, watermelon, beets, eggplant, plus many more.
KELMER
humans are a pestilence to this planet..........
TICONDEROGA
she obviously has more money than sense.........
Kelmer, I never heard the $150,000 pit bull story before, and I have to admit I'm curious: why in the heck is a woman paying that much money to clone a dog?
Go vegetarian. Its the only sane and ETHICAL choice. Pro meat arguments dont work.
They are debunked all over the place including here: http://animalvegfaq.tripod.com
You jsut cant justify eating meat if you care about humans and non humans, global warming, deforestation, wildlife slaughter(check out how the Yellowstone bison are doing thanks to ranchers).
Thanks once again to the ahole idiots in labcoats who cause more harm than they claim to stop.
And someone needs to kick the woman in the rear who is getting a pit bull cloned in Korea for $150 000.
Talk about a waste of money and creating far more cruelty.
Humans are an embarrassment to this planet.
All this due to the government making us dependant on Corporate America so that the empire can conquer the world. How sick is that?
ticonderoga; Good points. I started on my 41st year this month.
Once again, one more reason to become a vegetarian.
Sure, consumers should know whether the meat they're eating is from a cloned animal or not, but, since it doesn't look like the FDA is going to insist that this information be provided to us, by far the easiest and simplest way to deal with this problem is to not eat meat or dairy at all. It's not all that hard to do, and it costs less, too.
"The FDA, while noting that livestock cloning produces many malformed or ill newborn animals, said cloned animals that survive for several months after birth can be healthy. They can reproduce normally and produce healthy young, the FDA said. The agency said it found no signs that food from healthy clones is harmful to humans, and predicted that sickly clones would be excluded from the food supply."
Right. They're going to spend $20,000 a pop to clone a calf, and if it doesn't come out just right, they'll just swallow the whole loss instead of pawning off the funky meat... If sickly non-cloned cattle make it into the food supply all the time, why would anyone believe that sickly clones would be excluded?
Although cloned food doesn't bother me as much as GM food, I am never comfortable eating in the US...the latest beef recall being just one example. Although it takes work, found food co-ops. IF there are any local small farms, make deals with them. http://www.localharvest.org/food-coops/ There are 2 million farms in the US still... find one and give it your business. To save time meet with friends, neighbors and coworkers to have one major delviery. Find a farmer to raise a pig, lamb or cow for you and then take delivery.
The FDA and every other agency conservatives touch turn to shit. Conservatives have prevented scientists from publishing studies that may save people, but affect big business' bottom line. As good regressives, they would also prevent us from being able to choose what we can consume.
The Food Biz has already lined up the political elite to sell their tripe to the public, as they do not want to see happen what is going in on Europe regarding GM food take place in America. It will be up to the consumers to demand strict labeling & boycott those companies who wish to push their untested Frankenfood on the public.
and will the people eating this cloned meat be aware of any cruelty towards these animals? 143 million pounds of frozen beef is being recalled that came from the californian slaughterhouse that is under investigation for mistreatment of their cattle........143 million pounds of misery.
"The Grocery Manufacturers of America estimates that between 70 percent and 75 percent of all processed foods available in U.S. grocery stores may contain ingredients from genetically engineered plants... Soybeans, cotton and corn dominate the 100 million acres of genetically engineered crops that were planted in the United States..."
Remember when "consumers" were "concerned" about eating Genetically Modified mutants without knowing it? So much for "concerned" - growers/manufacturers can't even label ANY food GMO-Free at this point, not because of some Fed rule (labeling is allowed) but because there is no longer anyway to prove a plant isn't a mutant, and every - repeat, every - single processed food produced in America contains GMOs.
So, let's do the farm math: we got a son of a Clone shot full of BHT hormones munching on GMO corn and grains, then it's slaughtered, irradiated, and sold as Prime Choice.
How can that new and improved Monsanto Food Chain be in any way unhealthy?
No humans will be allowed to stand in the path of Master's profits, even if the humans die. Master is above all your laws - until you cut off his head or restore the Roosevelt Legacy of taxation (neutering of Richfilth). Your choice: The sharp edge of the ax, or the sharp edge of the Law. Those are your tools. Decide. Who are you? What do you want? What are you willing to do to have it?
You already know the answers to each of those. People will dissemble and wax discursive but in the end, they will do Nothing and watch as the Empire becomes the smoking rubble of the Former United States of America. Besides, Freedom was an over rated concept anyway. Wasn't it.
Pieces of 8.