Dolly for Dinner?
When dining out, we choose our wines by variety, and the year and region in which they were produced. How would you like to choose your steak the same way? If you think 2007 was a particularly good year for beef, you're in luck.
The FDA has deemed meat and milk from cloned cattle, swine and goats as safe to eat as conventionally bred animals. It looks like Dolly and her descendants are in the clear, however, as there was inconclusive evidence to approve sheep and other less traditionally eaten animals.
Some snippets of the press release appear below:
"Because clones would be used for breeding, they would not be expected to enter the food supply in any significant number. Instead, their sexually reproduced offspring would be used for producing meat and milk for the marketplace.
"Due to their cost and rarity, clones are intended to be used as elite breeding animals to introduce desirable traits into herds more rapidly than would be possible using conventional breeding.
"The risk assessment finds that meat and milk from clones of cattle, swine, and goats, and food from the sexually reproduced offspring of clones, are as safe to eat as food from conventionally bred animals."
Just about 1 year ago, in an Opinion Poll question, we asked, "Would you eat meat from a cloned animal?" The results: 42 percent of respondents said "No," while 39 percent said, "Yes." With the FDA deciding not to require labeling of cloned food products, it looks like we may not have a choice.