good time to go vegan

[notnotabouthim]

So, as you've probably heard. The FDA has announced that food (meat,dairy, etc) from cloned animals & their offspring is safe for human consumptionHow did they do this? By examining the nutritional quality of the food produced by these animals

Comments

[t_c_da]

where they're much more aggressively careful with the food manufacturing process.

Funny thing.... On the bus on the way in to work this morning I was idly thinking about how the yanks keep banging on about corruption in third world countries? The USistan political system seems to me to be at least as corrupt as those of Africa, it's just called "lobbying" instead of "bribery". In particular I was thinking of a case where some flunky modified a bill relating to something entirely unrelated to include a clause making it easier for the RIAA and it's ilk to prosecute song downloaders. This modification took place AFTER congress had approved the bill and BEFORE it was signed into law by the president. I can't quote references, unfortunately... It was a process similar to the so-called 'earmarks' that get hung on bills to help a particular members constituency - another process that appears to have got somewhat out of hand in recent years.

[notnotabouthim]

oh, I couldn't agree more.

USA doesn't really have a democracy, for all their banging on about it.

It's... an interesting case study to watch. A new brand of corporo-fascism? Only time will tell..

[knighthorse]

A new brand of corporo-fascism?

There are many here who do call it that way. Corporations get all sorts of bills passed that help them out. All those who try to stamp it out are stamped out or silenced in some way. Hopefully, a new president will try to turn it around. I'm not holding my breath.

I, for one, have always felt that we should put an end to lobbying and rampant corporatism.

14 points of Fascism. Very lengthy. A good skim will give lots of good info. The name of the website is a take on what is known as PNAC.

But I digress.

I believe that we are heading down a dangerous path with cloning. Sure it has some possible great benefits (you could grow yourself a new heart when yours gives out, etc). But with something like this, there is the probability of misuse and corruption (unhealthy meat/by products making it out to the market, etc). Time will tell.

[fringekitty]

Here in the U.S. if you talk that way, you get labelled a "conspiracy nut".

[ferrouswheel]

I doubt there is any health risk to humans for eating cloned animals.

However, there are plenty of concerns about survival and the health of the animals themselves. They'll live shorter lives, and be more susceptible to disease (no genetic variation in a population to ward against a pathogen = mass herd death). I don't know why they'd bother with it, surely it costs more than natural breeding?

[notnotabouthim]

I understand the plan is something like "find THE super breeding animals, and clone them"..

Wendy told me about a sheep she had that would routinely have triplets (whereas normally twins are kinda rare). THAT would be the kind of animal they'd breed.

Regardless, it's still a "how much do we REALLY know about this?" kind of situation. And, IMO, wayyy too early to be feeding it to, say, human children "drink your milk! It's good for you!"

[ferrouswheel]

Humans have been naturally selecting livestock for certain characteristics for thousands of years, so I don't have as much problem with genetic modification of animals as I do with cloning.

IMHO the main problem with GE in crops was legal issues between Monsanto and farmers, plus preventing it from becoming a wild species.

In animals, cloning the animals is just dumb. Homogeneity is bad - but that seems to be the way that agriculture in the US has been going. Huge fields of corn = huge insect break outs, no disease resistance.

[notnotabouthim]

Well, GE & cloning are slightly different.

I agree that homogeneity is dangerous.

Even "natural selection" of livestock is problematic. Did you know that there are only a dozen or so main kinds of sheep left? And of those, only a small handful are predominant. That's some serious in-species extinction going on.

[ambilevous]

Most bananas are clones.

[notnotabouthim]

I think they all are.

However, after (how many?) years of people all over the world eating the same cloned banana, I think we can be statistically certain that it's a safe procedure.

much, MUCH less so with cloned animals.. which, after all, are significantly more complex entities.

[ambilevous]

I think that all of the "standard" bananas that we eat are all clones; but there are also wild bananas still kicking about in hard to reach places.

(I gather that there are some fruit trees (lemons, I think) which are mostly grafted on to other trees. Mmm. More acceptable frankenfood. (And then there are the absurd trees where multiple varieties are grafted onto a single root stock for the purposes of.. well.. one tree with multifruit!))

[notnotabouthim]

Actually, yeah, I read the other day about a guy who (for no particular reason) grafted THIRTY different fruits onto the same tree.

I'd mention something about "needing a hobby".. but I think he's already found one :)