Will you eat cloned food products?

moral and legal isues get confused sometimes. Reminds of a bit of history from the southwest. In the 17th century there were "trade fairs" around new mexico where various native tribes/spanish colonists and a few anglos would meet and trade whatever merchandise thay had. The navajo wanted to join in but had no "merchandise" so they walked the 5 or 600 miles (didn't have horses yet) to Nebraska where a number of other tribes lived (Cheyenne-Otoe-Pawnee-etc) and did battle winning and then rounded up all the children of the defeated tribes to march back to new mexico with new "merchandise" (slaves). The Viceroy of new spain sent a message to the then governor on new mexico (Vargas I think was his name) order thei
slave trade to be stopped as the pope had declared that the native population were humans. Vargas sent a militia to intercept the navajo and stop the "slave trade" and met the returning navajo still in Nebraska but the navajo refused to give up their "merchandise". The militia demanded that they would not return to their homeland in new mexico with slaves. The Navajo something to the effect " slavery is forbidden? Yes replied the spaniards. "How about killing?" said the navaho. "well, replied the spaniard", we have nothing that specific about killing" So while the spaniards watched, the navajo killed all the "slave' chiildren and then returned to their new mexico homelands.

Hmm...

I dont see a problem with it.
Meat is meat unless it is littered with chemicals we are not meant to digest.
Antibiotics, hormones etc.. are filling the meat on the shelves NOW, and it is killing us. Yet, we continue to eat it.
But clone an animal and people think - ' No, it isn't right to eat that'

Why?

Because it is the exact same genetic structure as its mother?

Because it has no soul?

We are eating , from one cattle farm, probally only a few branches of the same family tree of cows. In breeding, artificial insemination, and selective breeding has us eating brothers and sister cows who have mated with each other. Producing essentially.. retards.. ( as would happen if humans did it) but THAT is ok?
In fact, it is SO ok, that this practice is what fuels most cattle farms . It keeps them at capacity. Allows them to produce ( through birth) the same high milk producing cow over, and over, and over again. One cow is the Mother of her own Sister so america can consume that milk and meat.

Cloning is NOT that far away.

It wont effect the taste of the meat.
Hormones , antibiotics and improper diet do.

It isn't going to make it unhealthy to eat.
Letting the cow roam around in its own , and several thousand other cows **** does.
Pumping them full of drugs does.

You know a cow , if pulled off of a milk farm today and compared to a cow from a farmers back yard has less bone mass? Almost 45% less then what a cow naturally needs to be able to hold up its own weight and not break a leg. Most cows from cattle farms can not move more then a few feet with out cracking a bone. Essentially.. they could not survive outside the farm.

Less muscle mass.. almost by 65% ? Antibiotics they are given, break down the natural strength of their muscles and remove their stomachs ability to extract protein from plant matieral leaving them weak and unable to absorb the vitamins they need for survival. Yet, from that vitamin deficient animal, we drink the milk it produces calling it good for OUR bodies. Promote it as optimum health for our children's bodies as well.

Thier milk is meant to sustain a baby cow's life, not ours.
But, did you know that its milk has only about 30% of the nutrients it needs to sustain a calves life? If a calf was to have to survive totally on its mothers milk from a cattle farm, it would die. So, from birth they are loaded with supplements and antibiotics so that they can 'nurse' to stimulate a cows milk production.

Cloning?

That is the least of my worries.

I am not freaked by cloning per se, not worried about the safety of eating meat from cloned animals.

However, I'm more concerned about continued coning down of the diversity of live stock (and not just through cloning) for the sake of productivity.
Here's a quote from an article in the Dec. 29th Reuter's article.

Link to Dolly for Dinner article

"By copying the animals that give the most milk or provide the best meat, scientists will also be cloning illnesses or painful conditions that come along with productivity, he said. One example is the chronic inflammation of the udder that cows suffer from milking." I remember reading that that mastitis, besides being difficult for the animal, can possibly cause infections for us. Cowdoc would know more about if that is a real problem or not, and of course it happens with uncloned dairy cows.

Just as I like to see "heritage" vegetables remain available, instead of having only production of the most transportable, I'd like to not sail into some kind of standardized animal clone sunset. For that reason I'd be unlikely to buy from a source that used cloned animals. I'm guessing that places like Harris Ranch and Humboldt Grass Fed Beef wouldn't be dealing with cloned animals.

tissue culturing plants is cloning, thats been going on for a while now. I dont have much of a problem with cloning animals for food production.
There are however a whole raft of social problems that may arrise from factory production of animals.