Poll: Cloned meat

[Gary_C]

I'm thinkin' maybe all this is just experimentation, and they're wanting to clone humans someday. Is Rosie O'Donald behind this?

I think you are right. Both Rosie and Trump are hoping to keep this up forever.   

Some years ago I read about some of the early work with Holstein cows. The hope was to reproduce a clone of a superior bull that would be worth a lot of money. You can see the obvious financial benefits if they could clone a top bull or superior race horse, etc.

If that was sucessful, they would also duplicate genetically superior cows that produced a lot of milk. One of the obstacles was the question of the acceptance of the cloned animals in the meat market. Apparently they are close to answering that question. 

[DR Buck]

As a beef breeder, I say yes.   It taste just like the last one!   ;D

Anyone ever look at EPD's for cattle?   Breeding for specific traits, including meet quality. It's almost cloning already.

[DanG]

As I said, I have no fear of eating the meat.  It is the motive of the whole project that worries me.  In this country, I think there is enough moral courage to prevent our using cloning in really nefarious ways, but that isn't true of all countries.  What would have happened if Hitler had had the technology?  Could he have cloned a hundred Von Brauns?  A million super-soldiers?  I think we need to rein in the nutty professors before they make a bigger mess than we already have. >:(

[beenthere]

Cloning would be akin to putting a movie sequel out........never as good as the original and get tired of them fast.  And a lot like sitcoms on a weekly basis.....same routine, slightly different lines and an occasional new character.  But then, there are many who will watch that....week after week after week ad nausiam.  

And cloning Rosie is frightening, to say the very least......

I agree with DanG  (I do that on occasion  ;D )

[Radar67]

DanG, I agree with your view. Just because the good Lord gave us the knowledge to create this technology, doesn't mean we should use it. People been breeding animals for meat for years. I don't know of a good reason to slap Mother Nature in the face, she's been doing an adequate job so far.

Stew

[Gary_C]

Yes, there is certainly reason to worry. But even now, if you knew all the things that could be done and to some extent have been done in genetic selection, you would be even more concerned. However, there are enough males in this world that are not about to be cut out of the reproductive process that there is not that much to fear.  ;D

On the other hand, there are enormous benefits to be realized. I know there is research underway to figure out how to grow cartilage and spinal cords. Just imagine the benefits if you did not need new joints, you could just "trick" your own joints to repair itself.  8)

[DanG]

Enhancing regrowth of tissues with stem cells is certainly an attractive prospect, and I don't object to it.  That isn't what I think of when you mention cloning, though.  I think of cloning as creating a whole new being by other than conventional means.  Back when "Dolly" first came along, there was talk of wealthy people cloning themselves just to get new body parts for themselves.  I, along with most other people, find this notion repugnant and detestable, but there are plenty of people who would do it.

[BigTrev]

I voted yes, if they can make stronger herds out of copies of the one animal that proves the best for a local environment then all the better. Think of the increased food supply if you could take that one animal and skip 400 gestation periods to make a 'batch' herd. Within a couple of years you would have a fully functioning herd.

So long as they leave genetic modification out of it, I see no problem with cloning.

The human agate idea is a creepy one, I highly recommend the recent movie The Island for a look at how that could turn out. Its all action and suspense but a real good movie to get you thinking about this stuff.

[Ron Wenrich]

My understanding of cloning is that although you have a new being, the cloned one (clonee?) will age faster and have more defects.  That's what happened to Dolly II.  I wonder if they tried to clone a clone.   ???

Also, if the FDA gives their stamp of approval, then they won't have to tell you whether its cloned meat or not.  I think the consumer should decide whether they want it or not.  Truth in advertising.

[Don_Papenburg]

Cloned meat is ok  what I don't want is radioactive meat,from irrariating it to kill bad germs /bugs from sloppy slauder/packing plants.

[Tom]

That's something I've never been concerned about is Irradiation.  It certainly makes properly sealed food products have an indefinite shelf life.

[Mooseherder]

Irradiation never took off. We only have 3 items in a Store with 25,000 different products. Dats a mi-nute percentage. Only one of the three actually sells. It isn't selling because most know it is irradiated. It sells because it is in one the prettiest boxes in that category. :D

[Tom]

It will be a life saver for disaster victims, wars and storage of expendables for leaner times.

[beenthere]

Too many objectors and too much hype of fear put to the irradiated foods.
I think it a good way to make food safe. It will happen, just a matter of when.
Some even think they will get some left over radiation treatment from irradiated food. 

[fat olde elf]

I ate US Army food for three years and loved it.....It was also free !!!!! The cloning issue is beset with emotion and misinformation. I have sold many millions of plants that were cloned... Many of these were covered by US patent. I continue to clone plants for fun in my retirement and love giving them away.  I look forward to eating all sorts of cloned food as long as I continue to get my social security check to pay for it........

[Ron Wenrich]

Seeing the success of the irradiated foods is why the cloned meat producers don't want their foods labeled.  Irradiated foods would have made the recent ecoli a non-factor.  But, if you had the irradiation, farming practices would get even sloppier.  Its all industrialized food. 

[Gary_C]

But, if you had the irradiation, farming practices would get even sloppier. Its all industrialized food.

It's not farming practices that are sloppy. The problems with contamination come from packing plant practices. Those processors save every scrap of tissue (not necessarily meat) from the carcass of every animal they process. 

Even with that, we have the best, safest food supply in the world. Yes, there is always room for improvement, and irradiation IS one of those improvements. Most of the food contamination incidents are due to accidential contamination and irradiation would eliminate those problems. But if people do not want their food to "glow in the dark" like the opponents have claimed, then so be it.   

[Ron Wenrich]

I'm thinking that spinach thing they had in the fall.  I know that Chi-Chi's had problems with Mexican onions that gave ecoli.  It ended up that it was in the irrigation water.  I'm not sure that was the same problem with the spinach.

[Tom]

Well, Ron, Spinach is poison.  I know for a fact that it is because my Botany instructor at the University of Georgia stood right there at the foot of the auditorium in the Lecture hall and said so.  He said it contains a deadly poison of which there is no anti-dote.  Yessir!   If you eat about three big truckloads of that stuff at a sitting, it'll kill you deader'n a hammer. :P

[DWM II]

Tobacco is poison too. I prefer the spinach!!! 8)

Aint never tried smoking or chewin spinach though.

[Max sawdust]

I voted no NOT because I am against cloning.  But because it just gets the big corp farms richer and puts more small guys in the city.  Food should be produced and processed locally. Not shipped across the world, manufactured in some mega corperate farm that has a deal with the wal-mart type stores of the world.
max

[Chris Burchfield]

Long as it don't effect the taste of beef (rare & red), chicken fried, baked or grilled, pork (the other white meat) fried, grilled or smoked, turkey, baked or smoked I'll be just fine. My beef goes to tasten like turkey, chicken or pork, "NASA, We have a problem." Next thread, we'll cover cloned grits.  :D :D :D Where I'll get serious!

[Jason_WI]

But because it just gets the big corp farms richer and puts more small guys in the city.

The big corp farm only seem richer because the corp owners skim there salary off the top to by a new truck every year with a mansion for a house with a gas well needed to heat it. They are all 6 and 7 figgers in debt. The american consumer is the one who will suffer to bail these guys out.

My dad made a dang good living with 400 acers and 52 cows. Sure he had debt but he paid it all off and every thing he has is his and paid for. With 12 dollar milk the young small guy can't make it go no matter how sharp your pencil is. The big guys are having to apply for grants just to stay alive. The only small ones that can make it today are the ones that had the farm handed to them from their parents with very little debt.

Jason

[srt]

I don't think I'd care to eat cloned meat, but that's just probably ignorance on my part.  I'd have no problem with meat that had been irriadiated.  Played with reactors for about 15 years, and (think) I have an understanding of radiation and therefore am not afraid. 

Just loaded up 2 steers to take to the butcher in the morning.  Now that's the best meat - homegrown with nothing added it doesn't need.  Butchered by a guy who has to look you in the face when you pick up the meat.  Since we started raising our own about 10 years ago, we have become "beef snobs". 

Now as to the Navy feeding lobster...........well, I don't remember any of that, and I was on a sub, where we were supposed to eat better than the rest of the navy.    Do remember those nasty Alaskan crab legs.  Never did acquire a taste for them.  Also remember "grissel chunks and snot sauce".  That was the crews name for any pre-cut meat that was thawed/cooked  in the steam table and then had some sauce poured over it.  They had official names like "pork adobo", "yankee beef stew", "beef terriyaki", etc... it all tasted about the same, and had about the same texture.

[Tom]

It's the bit ships that get the good groceries.  I ate like a king on an aircraft carrier and a Tender. 

We ate good on our destroyer too, but I have to hand most of it to the cook.  He would vary the menu for the day, assigned by the Navy, to fit his own menu.   Stuff like the Navy's Salad would be chopped up vegetables in a big serving tub would be slopped on your tray on most Cans.  On our Can it was changed into indiual servings of a slice of tomato on a bed of lettuce with a dollop of his special sauce on top.  That's what made our ship special. 

I ate on sewer pipe in Key West and it was good.  The best part was that it was an open mess.  You could eat anytime your were hungry.

We ate steaks and lobster on the tender. 

We ate hotdogs on my tin can.  ....but we had steaks and ham and good stuff too.  When we pulled out of a foreign port, we would have pastries from that country for a couple of days too.

Yep, it paid to have a good cook.