Cloned Meat and Milk
This is a photo of a whole roast pig as part of a ritual performed while visiting my ancestral village in China. Now that I have your attention, let’s review what the FDA is currently up to.
The FDA is getting ready to announce approval of meat and milk from cloned animals. Thus, going against recent legislation (farm bill) passed by Congress recommended delaying this approval without further studies. Interestingly enough, other countries such as New Zealand and Australia are supporting cloned meat and milk, with Canada and Argentina soon to follow. There are no plans to label cloned products as is currently the case with genetically modified foods and irradiated foods. If this is not what consumers want, why the big push for these foods? Given a choice or ability to choose, if these products were labeled, most consumers would select the more “natural”, as occurring in nature-type foods at equivalent prices . I would prefer my food to have more of a history of successfully feeding a population for many generations without ill affects. The acceleration and propagation of new foods such as artificial sweeteners, preservatives, genetically-modified organisms (GMO’s) and foods enhanced with vitamins and minerals leave us wondering what new ailments await us in the future. Without proper labeling and control how can we track it back to the food. Why do we need our meat and milk to exactly the same as the previous, do we need that much predictability for our taste buds? Don’t we need more predictability in our health? Right now the only action we can take is to ask congress to support labeling of these cloned products. To do this go to: http://ga3.org/cfs/advocacy.html
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