A New Reason to Become Vegan - Cloned Meat!

[stankley]

Hey there everyone,

This is my first post to the forums, but I just had to share this. The FDA is going to approve cloned meat for human consumption this week. There won't be any labels for the meat either, so you're on your own to guess which food is frakenfood and which isn't.

Check it out here:

digg - A New Reason to Become Vegan - Cloned Meat!

When will Americans wake up and ask where their food comes from?

Oh, and hi. I love these forums and the work Steve is doing.

[Jim]

Care to share any links regarding the dangers of cloned meat vs conventional?

[WanderingOak]

The link from DIGG (http://wiz.sc/afbdC7)wouldn't open for me, and had the caption 'Hide Your Real Links'. To me, that makes it sounds as if this is probably not a real story.

[Bruce Achterberg]

Originally Posted by WanderingOak

The link from DIGG (http://wiz.sc/afbdC7)wouldn't open for me, and had the caption 'Hide Your Real Links'. To me, that makes it sounds as if this is probably not a real story.

The link (Hide Your Real Links) opened fine for me (I use FireFox 1.5) and as far as I could tell from reading it, it was a legitimate article (I'm not saying it has any truth to it, but it's a real article, regardless of whether or not it is accurate). WanderingOak, if you (or any other members/readers) still have trouble accessing the article, give this link a try:

Traveling Forever Blog » Blog Archive » A New Reason to Become Vegan - Cloned Meat!

I've no idea what the "Hide Your Real Links" thing is about (maybe a Digg "feature"?), but if it is intended to "hide links", it doesn't do a very good job.

Either way, I didn't find the article very helpful, nor is it very accurate (no offence Stankley, it's just not that good). The article includes the text "The FDA is going to approve cloned meat for human consumption", which is linked to an article on the ABC News website which states:

Dec. 27, 2006 — The Food and Drug Administration is expected to make an important ruling this week on the future of meat and milk from cloned animals.

[...]

If FDA approval goes through, the question is how and whether cloned meat and milk will be clearly marked so consumers know what they're buying. Experts say that may be unlikely.

Source: ABC News: FDA Expected to Rule on Cloned Food This Week

While I don't think eating meat from a cloned animal sounds like such a good idea (you seriously have to wonder what effects all this "food" we’re so keen to engineer, with our extremely limited knowledge no less, has on the exeedingly complex human body), about the most useful thing I think one could take away from the article (not the ABC News article, the article Stankley posted) is part of the finishing paragraph:

Get educated. Learn where your food comes from [...]

Source: Traveling Forever Blog » Blog Archive » A New Reason to Become Vegan - Cloned Meat!

Take that for what you will.

[WanderingOak]

Originally Posted by Bruce Achterberg

The link (Hide Your Real Links) opened fine for me (I use FireFox 1.5) and as far as I could tell from reading it, it was a legitimate article (I'm not saying it has any truth to it, but it's a real article, regardless of whether or not it is accurate). WanderingOak, if you (or any other members/readers) still have trouble accessing the article, give this link a try:

Traveling Forever Blog » Blog Archive » A New Reason to Become Vegan - Cloned Meat!

Hunh. That link wouldn't work either, but I've had problems viewing other blogs as well. This is my work machine and I have no control over how it does anything. You are right about us needing to be educated as to were our food comes from though. I buy Organic and Humanely raised meat from a local butcher whenever I can, and have been known to go without when I don't have the oportunity.

[stankley]

I can't post direct links to my site from Digg for some reason. That link is only a site forwarder.

Sorry, I wrote that post in a hurry, and I'm in the process of rewriting it. I just couldn't believe the FDA is really thinking about approving cloned meats. It sounds so rediculous, having worked and lived on organic farms for over two years.

There's a really crazy bunch of people out there who thinks the answer to all the world's problems is more and more technology. I just freaked out on it and had to share.

[TheColonel]

Mmmmm. Frankenfood.

[Cron]

I recommend this respectful, non-preachy, fact packed site for learning why people become vegan:

TryVeg .com - A Guide to Vegetarian and Vegan Eating

[impaul99]

Originally Posted by TheColonel

Mmmmm. Frankenfood.

THat's freaky. All of a sudden everyone will develop the same disease, due to something found in the original animal being cloned. Oh man, this does not sound good. Something just naturally tells me that we're not supposed to eat the same meat from the same DNA and nothing else. THere's probably something bad that happens if you don't have the diversity of different genes.

Well, it's all good. Just another reason for me to stop eating meat. I already stay away from milk, although I haven't fully cut out all dairy products yet.

I wonder how many people the military have already cloned on some secret island somewhere. It's like Star Wars. I wonder if I committed a crime if I could produce reasonable doubt by claiming a secret military clone of mine did it, and that's why they found my clones DNA, lol. It's just a matter of time before that kinda crap happens in the court rooms.

Does anyone know if the same ruling is being made in Canada?

[TheColonel]

Originally Posted by impaul99

THat's freaky. All of a sudden everyone will develop the same disease, due to something found in the original animal being cloned. Oh man, this does not sound good. Something just naturally tells me that we're not supposed to eat the same meat from the same DNA and nothing else. THere's probably something bad that happens if you don't have the diversity of different genes.

Well, it's all good. Just another reason for me to stop eating meat. I already stay away from milk, although I haven't fully cut out all dairy products yet.

I wonder how many people the military have already cloned on some secret island somewhere. It's like Star Wars. I wonder if I committed a crime if I could produce reasonable doubt by claiming a secret military clone of mine did it, and that's why they found my clones DNA, lol. It's just a matter of time before that kinda crap happens in the court rooms.

Does anyone know if the same ruling is being made in Canada?

I don't know, Paul. If it instills you with fear, then you should avoid it. Personally, it doesn't scare me one bit.

Science or not, I try to be very selective of what I'm gonna fear. And I try to keep it to a minimum.

[WanderingOak]

Well CNN has an article on the same topic. It goes into a bit more detail as to the technology involved and the reasons behind sending clones to the slaugherhouse. I still think it is a bad idea. Rather than cloning an an animal of good stock, I think it would make more sense to breed it conventionally.

[ahimel]

Scott Adam's Take:

Highlight: "I sure enjoy eating Bob the cow, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable eating Bob the other cow."

We have no reason to think that cloned food will be any different from non-cloned food. Your body doesn't check the DNA, it only pulls the proteins apart into amino acids and then builds completely different proteins from those building blocks. Diseases can't be carried in amino acids, since bacteria are bigger than amino acids.

If you owned a diseased cow (for example) and had to pick a way to get tons of beef from it, you'd do better to clone it. The clone wouldn't have the disease, since mad cow disease (for example) is transmitted by ingesting a diseased protein, and the clone wouldn't have done that. It's entirely possible however, that the disease could be sexually transmitted, and all "safe, healthy, natural" offspring would have the disease in perpitutity.

The only disease you can pass on to a clone is a genetic disease. And you can't catch a genetic disease from eating meat. You can't catch a genetic disease.

And even if everything I said above was wrong, and if the FDA decides to approve it, that's an argument for becoming vegetarian. It gives you no reason whatsoever for giving up eggs or honey.

[Baltar]

Originally Posted by ahimel

We have no reason to think that cloned food will be any different from non-cloned food. Your body doesn't check the DNA, it only pulls the proteins apart into amino acids and then builds completely different proteins from those building blocks. Diseases can't be carried in amino acids, since bacteria are bigger than amino acids.

As a food it won't be any different whether cloned or not; people are just spooked by the concept. But the repercussions for the environment are very frightening. Some farm animals can become feral if they escape (including pigs, horses and goats). If they start interbreeding, or cross breeding with their wild ancestors it'll create a mess of the gene pool in the wild. There is already an issue with genetically modified farm raised fish escaping into the wild. I think if this sort of trend continues, humans are going to be responsible for great disruptions in the natural ecosystems of this planet.

I have a very bad feeling about the future with the way things are going now: land, water and air pollution, greenhouse gas induced global warming, genetic modification of both plants and animals, and now cloning. I think human extinction by cybernetic Terminator-style machines can be safely considered to be the least of our worries when compared to everything else on our plate.

[smallstar]

Originally Posted by Baltar

As a food it won't be any different whether cloned or not; people are just spooked by the concept. But the repercussions for the environment are very frightening. Some farm animals can become feral if they escape (including pigs, horses and goats). If they start interbreeding, or cross breeding with their wild ancestors it'll create a mess of the gene pool in the wild.

A quick note. Cloning, as itself, does not equal, or require, artificial genetic alterations, and will not, as itself, produce new types of genes, or even new genetic recombinations.

If you are afraid of domesticated, bred animals messing the gene pool, the threat has existed as long as they have been domesticated and bred in the first place, about 5000-7000 years ago.

[impaul99]

I saw it on the news today and some scientist was saying "It's not like we're modifying the DNA by adding or removing anything from it." and the first thing that popped into my head was "YET".

That's obviously going to be the next thing. Woo, lets turn on this gene, lets turn this one off. Hmm...maybe we can make a cow with 24 nipples and 3 udders.

What's troubling is that the FDA can approve such things without any actual research done. I mean, they have no basis to say it's safe for human consumption. Nobody has ever eaten one animal over and over again for their entire life. Ah well, I guess it's not that surprising. They allow for a whole bunch of things that aren't healthy already, so what's another one.

[escapee]

HA ! I know what the mad scientists are going to do next with the FDA approval. They are going to clone bunch of headless and limbless Biologically engineered chicken, cow, pig for the livestock industry to meet the ever-increasing demand. Guys in Peta would have a new undercover mission soon .

[ahimel]

Originally Posted by escapee

HA ! I know what the mad scientists are going to do next with the FDA approval. They are going to clone bunch of headless and limbless Biologically engineered chicken, cow, pig for the livestock industry to meet the ever-increasing demand. Guys in Peta would have a new undercover mission soon .

On the plus side, we wouldn't have to worry about those animals escaping into the wild and interbreeding with their wild counterparts.

[tropicality]

Originally Posted by Baltar

I have a very bad feeling about the future with the way things are going now: land, water and air pollution, greenhouse gas induced global warming, genetic modification of both plants and animals, and now cloning. I think human extinction by cybernetic Terminator-style machines can be safely considered to be the least of our worries when compared to everything else on our plate.

Heh.. this movie comes to mind (on the whole topic)

Apple - Trailers - Children Of Men - HD (Trailer link)

[bgmark13]

so does this short clip...

YouTube - Topol-M (2)