Clone Wars

We interrupt Cookbook Friday for an important newsflash.

The FDA recently approved food from cloned animals for human consumption!  Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!  It's about time.  I always refer to my steaks as Bessie, and now it really will be Bessie every single time.  Will the clones come complete with a gene for special sauce, I wonder? 

To pile good news on top of good news, the FDA has also said that they don’t expect to require labels specifying that the meat came from a clone.  Which is good because that’s a lot of work.  Seems safe enough, they say, after testing the dietary effects for a whopping 3.5 months.  Wow.  Some of the most dreaded diseases in human history won’t kill you in that time span.  But, thanks.

So, maybe cloned meat is fine to eat.  Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t.  But what about meat from a clone of a clone?  Or a clone of a clone of a clone of a clone?  I’m just asking.  Because you know it’s going to come up eventually.  We humans aren’t so good with the setting of the boundaries and the sticking to them.  What if a clone is fed a diet composed entirely of clones of itself?  And what if I had my own clone over for dinner and we ate meat from that clone-fed clone, all while watching Star Wars: Attack of the Clones?  Could happen.  Have you thought about that, FDA?

Here’s another hypothetical situation.  Have you ever made a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy on a crappy Xerox machine?  The final product turns out a little muddy, kind of crooked, with the bottom cut off.  And it tastes terrible.  I wonder if DNA is built to withstand triple overtime?  Oh, who cares, I bet the flesh of zombie genetic code is delicious AND nutritious.  Mmmmm, the undead. 

But just on the off chance that it’s not, wouldn’t it be nice if that meat had a label?

Comments

[Jess]

bleh. One more reason for me to stay away from fast and medium-fast food. It's not like their burgers come with a provenance to begin with. Who knows what (or who) will end up in a Whopper in the months and years to come.

1 more month and I get my 1/10th of a locally raised cow, born of a genetically different mother cow who was knocked up by a genetically different bull. Mmmmmm, local cow.

[Alecto]

Um, yes, Michael Keaton in...Multiplicity (1996) where we learned once and for all that a copy of a copy of a copy is about as degraded as you can get. I believe that # 4 shaved his tongue and put pizza in his wallet. Yup. I'm sure I want to eat that!

[cookiecrumb]

Well done, Tammy!
I'm staying out of Safeway. Well, I already do.
I hate my FDA.

[joey]

McClone meals ? Can we purchase meat with cloned money? Will butchers need degrees in genetics ? Maybe squash is the way to go .

[Karen]

Good thing we won't have to worry about that as of tomorrow afternoon!

[Jim]

Remember when cloning first became a real, exciting possibility? Remember how doctors said we'd soon have off-the-shelf organs for those in need?

Now we've gone from a new kidney for Grandpa to creepy-cloney-cows.

The Future is awesome.

[Karen]

Whoops, I meant Sunday. CSA pickup.

[Tammy]

Jim: I know. If you can't explain WHY something is a good idea in 25 words or less, then it's probably not.

Karen: Damned right. That's my next post.

Joey: Cloned money. Now, there's an undervalued technology.

CC: I'm especially looking forward to watching the mad dash to the patent office to see who gets to own these cow clones. I'd like to officially take myself out of the running.

Alecto: Never saw that movie and now I never will. But, is there something wrong with pizza in your wallet?

Jess: Lucky duck. And I think you've stumbled onto the perfect non-clone labeling campaign: Naturally Knocked Up! What say you, FDA?

[Mary]

I plan on buying my meat from little 4H kids at the county fair. Sometimes I say things like this and it sounds ridiculous, but really there are 4 of us who are going in on an organic cow next summer. For once I'm happy to live in the country.

Unless those little 4H kids do cloning as a science project or something...

[Helen (Food Stories)]

Eventually they will develop clones that self-prepare, self-sauce and hop right into the pan and cook themselves. Then we can really not give two hoots about what we are eating. I think that is disgusting and also insulting....

[Tammy]

Helen: Agreed. Except for the self-prepare part.

Mary: Wow, the kids where you live sell cows? They only sell candy bars round these parts.

[Bri]

Amen sistah! Great point on the copy of the copy of the copy on the Xerox machine. Heck, get a fax, sign it and fax it back and it's illegible. Playing with fire here, cloning animals, feeding the population with it's products and not even telling us what's what. Glad you got yourself a meat CSA. Much better way to go. Maybe all of this with just push us deeper into the pockets of "Big Family Farm", as we run away from adulterated food. You know they're taking over.

[Belle]

I am so afraid of the cloning and the gm foods. Frankenfoods anyone?

[Walter Jeffries]

Well said! And I loved that movie by Keaton. The thing that they just don't get about cloning is that from an animal breeder's point of view, which I hold, is clones are dead ends. There is no improvement in them. There is always room for improving the genome through selective breeding and the process is fun, an intellectual challenge. To just copy the same animal over and over turns my farm into a factory. Boooring. I would rather keep improving. Keep moving forward. Evolution doesn't favor dead ends.