Cloned Beef? Unfair to Cows.
by Ian R Thorpe
April 22, 2008
CREATIVE COMMONS: Attribute, non commercial, no derivs.
KEYWORDS: science, scientists, food, beef, cows, bulls, cattle, animals, sex, clone, gene, genetic humour, humor
Cloned beef is on the way, it is safe to eat but is it necessary?
The first beef from cattle that have been cloned rather than bred conventionally will be hitting supermarket shelves in the U.S.A within the next few months.
The cloning process eliminates the need for sex, eggs are taken from females, all the genetic matter is removed and then the "voided" egg is fertilised from the nucleus of a cell taken from the ear of a prizwinning bull and implanted in the womb of a cow. The process may produce genertic carbon copies of animals that are the finest example of their species, but is it fair to females? Come to that is it fair to males. The sex act cannot be replaced by having someone tickle your ear for a few seconds.
Inevitably this new arrival in the food chain with spark ethical protests and we will be asked by organisations of the right and left, "would you eat meat from a cloned animal?"
Personally, I would not give a hoot if my dinner is cloned, a steak is a steak and we should remember the first animals ever farmed for food were snails and as they are hermaphrodites they clone themselves in a manner of speaking.
Archaeological evidence traces snail farming back to 10,500BC and in all that time the question of whether it is ethical to eat animals that have shagged themselves has never arisen. Whatever snails do to in the privacy of their shells is their own business.
I, myself would not eat snails but for aesthetic rather than ethical reasons. If I don't like the look of something there is no way it is going in my mouth. This probably goes a long way towards explaining why I'm 100% straight.
Having said all that, it is quite unlikely I shall ever eat cloned beef. While in my view it is not unethical, it is bad for the planet.
Prime quality beef from grain fed cattle has an enormous carbon footprint and is a huge drain on food stocks. About seven pounds of good quality grain is needed to produce one pound of edible meat. With a global food crunch lurking in the shadow of the credit crunch, to encourace meat eating looks like economic madness.
Considering the case of cloned beef, the adverse energy balance is even worse. I recently read a description of how many scientists are involved in producing beef this way. Add up the cost of feeding them, keeping them in warm, comfortable sheds and providing enough electronic gadgets to keep them amused and cloning is totally unfeasible.
The question need to ask then is how much harm are we willing to do to the planet just so scientists can prove their ability to do in the laboratory what animals have been doing in the wild for millions of years without any fuss.
When this was first posted elsewhere the first comment I had was from a "scientists" who patronisingly explained that my fears were unfounded and cloned been was perfectly safe to eat. As my first sentence says cloned beef is safe to eat that reply tells you nothing about cloned beef but a lot about scientists. Number one: They're not very bright.
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