Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Mom, can we have cloned meat for dinner? by gimleteye


For years I was mad about supermarkets that tried to pass tomatoes grown in South Dade as tomatoes. No one seemed to mind as the perfectly red and round tomatoes tasting like the telephone book took over the grocery shelves. Then there was the FDA approval of genetically modified food crops to get me hopped up. Now the FDA is approving food from cloned animals, a bonanza for industrial food chain suppliers.

In the blissfully ignorant United States, freedom means nothing left to alter for profit. Mom, can we have cloned meat for dinner?

The “experts” at the FDA, probably mid-level executives from the farming industry, have proof we have nothing to fear from cloned animals.

What ordinary people feared about GMO food crops has come to pass: GMO altered organisms that scientists and their advocates guaranteed would be segregated from the food supply have infiltrated farmland never intended to host them.

As a result, there is no turning back from GMO, nor from any adverse consequences that arise from tampering with nature, or, only at a very great cost.

Approving the sale of meat from cloned animals is another drastic step for consumers, promoted by industry.

I will never, ever buy cloned meat from an animal, but I also don’t trust the US government to properly label food.

My choice is to shop for food nearly exclusively at supermarkets that advertise as organic. The “green” section at Publix and other chain supermarkets strike me as false advertising.

So far I have been able to afford to pay for organically grown produce and meat but I’m still angry at the way our government has allowed the food supply to be contaminated by industrial products.

Our nation may not always be so rich and wealthy to afford the ways we have abused our food supply.

The road to perdition is paved with this sort of demonstrated competence. Please pass the cloned brisket.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the tomatoes suck and the wine is worse: If you want agriculture, you had better get used to it and support our local produce.

Anonymous said...

We try to support local agriculture, but the farmers all want to be developers and the county commission just bends over to let them have it.

Anonymous said...

MMMmmmm, altered meat...aaaaaarrrhhhggg...

Anonymous said...

I am truly shocked. I thought you and most of the readers were bright enough to have some knowledge of scienc. When you clone an animal or even a human all you get is another animal or human with many of the formers genes. If you would eat the first animal or person depending on our preference there is no reason not to eat the cloned product. Shame, shame on you. I shall now look upon your writings with a very careful eye.

Anonymous said...

Note that in my disgust I wrote very fast and misspelled without checking. Sorry.

Anonymous said...

Again with the broad brush; not all farmers are developers in overalls. Some of us support family farmers that farm for good produce, love of the land, and sustainable incomes. Farm Bureau Insurance types and corporate mega-farms are the ones that don't give a damn about the quality of food/plants; money rules.
A farmer friend said, "why the quest for more and more dollars? I can only eat so much and drive so many cars." He's is a farmer, not a farmer turned developer.

Anonymous said...

You don't buy locally grown vegetables, you do not support farmers!

YOU are the reason that farmers are in the predicament that they are in.

Anonymous said...

How can anyone believe anything that comes out of this administration that has shown itself to be time and time again to be in the back pocket of business interests.

Mensa - you forget that eating products that are exact genetic matches might do things like undermine our immune system. Furthermore, genetic cloned animals will act to reduce the genetic diversity of our feedstock and thus our food supply is much more at risk of an animal disease wiping out whole herds.

Anonymous said...

Another opportunity for the pharmaceutical and chemical industry!

Anonymous said...

Maybe we could clone the politicans: 2 heads = 2 brains are better than one! No?

I find that pic yukky.

Anonymous said...

The continuing population explosion only adds to the rationale that industrial scale farming operations use for producing an ever-expanding surplus. Question for all: is there sufficient capacity to provide organically produced food for everyone?

I'm not as worried about ingesting meat produced from cloned animals as I am about the long-term impact of pesticides and hormones once we ingest them. Your thoughts?

Geniusofdespair said...

My Thoughts: Your favorite movie is really a History of Violence? But a person who likes Marvin Gaye...you have got to be okay!

Anonymous said...

Hey! Homestead tomatoes aren't all bad.Just the ones that they pick hard green for shipping. Come on down to one of the Upick fields and pick your own ripe 'maters.
We picked some lovely sweet strawberries the other day from a great mom and pop stand on Krome south of 288th.