How do you alll feel about this?? I know they splice animal genes with plant genes for different qualities (I have heard a rat gene is spliced with a corn gene for some reason, not even sure how true that is), but with the announcement by the FDA that cloned meat is equal to natural, I am creeped out by the whole thing. We dont use much packaged food here, try to buy organic and grown vegetables (we even have chickens for eggs). Something else that creeped me out was a story on the local news where the reporter was in a local supermarket, and was discussing this issue with a customer, then pointed out thier package of chips a hoy is made with genetically engineered wheat. Yuck pooh.

I think it's a crime. I believe food should be *closest to the natural source*.

I think it should be banned. I would NEVER buy a meat that was cloned! Problem is, I don't think the FDA is going to require the source of the meat to be disclosed. I think when you "play God" so to speak (as with cloning), you are simply asking for trouble.

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Proud to say I haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart since Sept 2003

I figure if its going to be raised to be slaughtered and killed for meat it might as well be cloned .At least that way if they clone a cow for example that is perfect,with no genetic faults of perfect health,and is very lean and tender, then we wouldn't have to be so picky at the super market because all the cuts will have came from the same perfect cow.
But for any other reason other than food I don't like cloning and I hate thinking about the poor animals that are abused and slaughtered cruelly to put meat on the table.

I'm all for gentically altered fruit and vegetables if it makes them taste better than whats out there now.I would not mind having the perfect orange,watermelon, or other veggy.

Supposedly it's safe, but I don't think I like the idea. They say they won't require it to be labeled as such, but that that will cause all that isn't to package their's as "not cloned." I will look for that.

Lisa

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"It's not having what you want,
It's wanting what you've got"

I agree with you. My 8th grade daughter just mentioned this to me today and said that her teacher is just eating fish and chicken because of the cloned beef. I do think that we consumers have the right to know what might be cloned meat before we choose to buy it. I would hate to think that years down the road, we hear of a potential risk associated with this. (And even that might not be disclosed!)

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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

Makes me mad that they don't have to label it as such!!!
I may have to stop eating meat.

No problem for me - can't be any worse than the preservative and additives I've eaten all my life. I say, hell, bring on the cloned beef - Hey, maybe it'll be cheaper.

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Mary

Maybe it will cost more since I saw one guy talking about his prize $25,000.00 cow he wants to clone.

I don't agree with it, I don't think they have enough research behind it and who says that 10 years down the road they won't find that it does something to us. Like the horomones in milk that now supposidly has an effect on young girls and puberty. I think if it has to be done it should be clearly marked as cloned.

Even if it isn't bad for us per se, I think just the loss of genetic diversity in our food supply would be something that sets off warning bells. What if the cow(s) they decide to clone happen to be suseptible to a certain disease? I bet the price of beef would really skyrocket if that happened!

It now looks like I did just that at a good time! Give it a try, grannyshirl, it is well worth it (the lifestock thinks so, too )

I just heard a story online about a 3 YEAR OLD girl who is going through puberty! They are calling this precocious puberty and they really do not have an answer as to why this is happening. No one is standing up and saying that this just may have something to do with cattle being pumped up with steroids, but I think this is exactly what is happening. Wouldn't want to hurt the beef industry, of course.

All this has me seriously considering eliminating beef from our diet. We only eat about 3 times a month anyway, so it wouldn't be a huge sacrifice for us.

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I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!

Disgusting. I don't eat the chemicals in food now why would anyone want to eat something like this?

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The political system is broke and it's a joke.

I am amazed they can get away with this. They should at least require anything genetically modified to be labeled as such. Goes to show who actually is in control of this country, big business and not the people. It really scares me. Remember when they were pushing trans fats as a great alternative to natural saturated fats. We are using the American public as guinea pigs and it is showing. Our life expectancy is going down for the first time and our general health and well being with it.

getting off my soap box now.

Honestly, I don't know enough about it to have an opinion. I'm no scientist and don't pretend to be one. I do know that it is easy to hear something hyped and get on the bandwagon without full knowledge of the facts, and usually it's the position with the most disturbing sales pitch that gets people up in arms, regardless of the merit of the position. Regardless of the issue.

In general, the idea of a genetically engineered plant doesn't freak me out. I have a relative who worked to develop wheat hybrids that were disease and pest resistant, and needed less water during certain phases of growth than one would normally expect. Nothing in the descriptions of his job freaked me out. It sounded more like cross-pollinating than anything, something that happens every day in nature. In his case, they were controlling what mixed with what, rather than letting nature randomly decide.

People are so certain that we need to do stem cell research with aborted fetus material because they are certain it hold the key to curing many diseases, but isn't that actually going down a similar path? Growing parts to put in someone, messing with their genes to save their life... and then when they have children.... what? Will their children have issues we can't forsee? Their grandchildren?

I don't pretend to know all the answers, which is why I'm hesitant to jump on a bandwagon against food that has been modified. It may be terrible and it may be benign. And I don't think any of us really has a clue which it is.

Very well said -- much better than I could have said. I think along these lines as well... I DO have a science background with many hours in college and being raised by my father who had a PhD in Genetics.

Hate to break it y'all but genetic modification has been going on with plant crops for years and years. Corn, wheat, etc has been genetically modified to make it resistant to disease, increase yield, etc. Genetic modification basically means taking the best genes of individual and combining them with the best genes of another individual to create an offspring that has the best qualitites of both.

I have no problem with cloning either. Its not like scientists stick a cow in some sort of pod and zap it with radiation to create a second cow. It involves taking genetic material from one animal and placing it in a host cell from another animal that is an exact copy of the animal the genetic material was taken from. Cloned animals don't have to eat weird food/be injected with chemicals/etc to survive.
I think there are many things that still need to be worked out about cloning such as what happens when you try to make a clone of a clone, etc. But it is an exciting field that could lead to some great advances in how food is produced.

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