Is cloned beef and milk safe to consume?

Answer 1

You know, they say it is ... but I'm not going to buy any if I can help it because 1) It's not natural and 2) Who knows WHAT the long term effects could be. Cloning hasn't been done for long enough to know what a lifetime of consuming this stuff will do to your body.

Answer 2

Well the Americans have been eating it for years so we would know about medium to short term problems. In the long term the technology's quite new. The cloned animal produce on the market has already been sold and most likely eaten. There is no need to get into a panic about future purchases. This problem is already being resolved. All genealogy of the cloned cow can be traced thanks to cattle control legislation put into place in the this country. This is a problem that Defra should have picked up but, this is the issue with imports, you don't always know what you're getting. At £10,000 an embryo there are very few farmers who could afford that. But, hey if this does really bug you then the fact that you have more than likely already consumed genetically modified food may ease you as I'm guessing you're fine. When it comes to food if you want the best, you have to by the best, stick to the food labels.

Answer 3

I think the whole fuss over this is just an indication of how ignorant people are of basic scientific principles. 1.)Clones are no different than identical twins. Unusual, but certainly not unnatural. 2.) Humans have been manipulating the genomes of our foods since the dawn of time. Check out wild wheat and compare it to domesticated wheat. How did the modern wheat get to be so productive? Because for centuries, no millennium, farmers have held back the best of the crop for planting next year. This has nudged the genome in a specific direction: more seeds per stalk. And now we can feed a world of people (political strife aside...). 3.) Besides, cloning doesn't change the genome of the organism like genetic modification does. I can understand not wanting to eat genetically modified foods while you wait for confirmation of its safety, but refusing to eat cloned food is like saying you won't read a book from the library because it isn't the first copy right from the author's own printer.

Answer 4

Perfectly safe. Clones are not genetically modified, yet.
The main objections are that if every animal is a clone then they will be equally susceptible to the same diseases, since there will be no natural variation between animals. If it becomes cheaper, they may eventually replace ordinary farming methods, reducing the variation even further.
The milk is safe, since it is made in the usual manner, albeit by a cloned cow.
I do object to them not labelling it as such though.

It has been a long time since most of the food we buy has not had many unnatural additives in it anyway.

Answer 5

Of course! It's just creepy.... At last, we can have real freaky Franken-frankfurters from far-off Franken-farms! Mmm, biotech-licious.

Natural? We humans haven't been doing anything natural for a long time. Most Turkeys are artificially inseminated - test-tube Turkeys taste terrifically tasty!

All cloning does is remove the genetic information from one cell into an egg. Sometimes minor problems arise, but in general, cloned animals are perfectly healthy.

Answer 6

probably... would just be like a cow had twins... but im sure they'd test the milk to make sure nothing abnormal is in it...

but they havent cloned a cow, have they?

Answer 7

Yes, I have no idea why so many people make a fuss about it.

Answer 8

yes