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I Don't Waqnt To Eat Clone - Leave My Steak Alone.
Recent reports that cloned beef will soon be on shelves set us thinking is there any point cloning animals for food. Why go to all the trouble and expence of cloning new animals when the animals themselves have a perfectly good way of making new, non clone animals that has woked for millions of years. If it ain't broke, break it seems to be the driving force behind so much science these days.

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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Food Will Cost The EarthA bid by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton to buy Potash Corp of Canada draws attention to food price inflation, rising commodity prices in world markets and an impending global food supply crisis. It is not just potash, essential in food production, but other finite resources like oil that corporate giants are bidding to gain control of that should concern us.
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GO TO Boggart Blog Back Catalogue for links to older posts...

COMMENTS AND RECOMMENDED REA.DING AROUND THE WEB

In this section we do not necessarily support the views expressed in linked articles but try to give a coss section of interesting and well written articles that we think are likely to stir things up a bit.

COMMENT:
(A random and ecletic mix of what we thought was worth reading recently)

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We’re being sent the bill for the euro crisis again – this time by the IMF - By Daniel Hannan First it was individual banks; then whole industries; then entire countries; now it’s the world. Western leaders have reacted to the failure of each bailout by decreeing a bigger one. Unable to admit their mistake, slaves to the defunct economist whose thinking dominates our economics faculties and central banks, they act like so many Nick Leesons,…

The Three Parent Family More on the progressive left's war on the family and the scientific dictaorship's attempts to dehumanize us all. Babies with three biological parents could be born within three years. Scientists have come up with an IVF technique that uses the undamaged DNA of a third party when couples risk giving their children a genetic conditions such as muscular dystrophy or ataxia. The Wellcome Trust has funded the research (the figures vary between £4 million and six million …

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Bullshit Sherlock
While other blogs are full of how great the cliff - faller ending of Sherlock Holmes was I felt a bit let down. The fake suicide was telegraphed all through the show. And the coda assured us Sherlock had survived. We should not forget of course it was the habit of ...

Will bringing back grammar schools boost social mobility? by Toby Young Daily Telegraph
The possibility that England may shortly see its first new grammar school in over 50 years has, predictably enough, re-opened the debate about selective education. Yesterday, for instance, Allison Pearson came down firmly in favour, while Fiona Millar shot back with an instant rebuttal. I’ll get into that argument in a moment, but first let’s be…

So Why Read Books Anymore
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Eric Holder and the Chicago Way In America Obama's Brownshirts are getting hysterical as they try to make race the major issue in the election campaign.

Dystopian Prophecies Are Coming True - The Government Will Soon Choose Our Wives
Thinking of this entertaining new literary award – “the Hatchet Job of the Year” – it was natural to turn to Macaulay’s Essays, for few reviewers have ever been less reluctant to wound. I had in mind two long review-essays, one on Robert Montgomery’s Poems, the other on The State in its relations with ...
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