I haven't posted on this topic, waiting for the now released FDA approval of the use of meat and milk from cloned animals safe for human consumption. Thanks to Celsias for the reference to this quote from Michael Pollan in the NY Times.
For a long time, I thought nothing of GM foods, since humans have been practicing genetic control and hybridization since the origin of agriculture. (check out the history of corn for example). However, the more I learn about how GM foods are being developed and the traits that are being engineered, I'm much less sanguine about consuming any produce that is on offer at the market.
What do you think?
“I think the bigger concern with cloned animals is not personal health.I can't think of any way to "prove" that these products are not indistinguishable from non-cloned versions of the food, but something about this just doesn't fill me with reassurance. We already have monoculture crops with little genetic diversity, is the rest of the food supply about to follow in search of the perfect docile, high yielding milk or beef cattle. And how long till someone is tinkering with those clones to improve upon them, yet they'll still be indistinguishable.
It’s what will it take to keep a herd of genetically identical
chickens, horses or pigs alive? Sex and variation is what keeps us from
getting wiped out by microbes. If everything is genetically identical,
one disease can come along and wipe out the entire group. You will need
so many antibiotics and so much sanitation to keep a herd of these
creatures going. The bigger concern should be antibiotic resistance.” —
NY Times
For a long time, I thought nothing of GM foods, since humans have been practicing genetic control and hybridization since the origin of agriculture. (check out the history of corn for example). However, the more I learn about how GM foods are being developed and the traits that are being engineered, I'm much less sanguine about consuming any produce that is on offer at the market.
What do you think?
Posts
2 comments:
Good for you for keeping up with your blog after starting work!!
I am torn about this issue - I think that we can make disease resisant strains of corn, etc or help poverty by making it easier to raise certain foods in arid zones....
I do get a bit more nervous, for some reason, when we start talking about livestock though....
From what I can tell, at least from the environmental/sustainable writers that I read, focus is less on making disease/heartier/healthier crops (supercarrots not withstanding) but rather making crops better able to stand up to heavy dosings of herbicides, insecticides, or making the plants themselves exude insecticides.
There have been some products, such as rices that are supposed to have improved nutritional value, and off hand, I can't recall what the issues are, but what I do recall is that there is a very low adoption rate.
if we're going to clone livestock, may as well just grow synthetic protien in a vat, market it as Profu and be done with the entire nasty business of breading and growing a complete organism.
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