Do you think that these are still vegetarian?

Question

1)animal derived genes which eventually are engineered into plants which will be eaten?
2)animal gene derived genetically engineered plant, extracted enzymes and other sources of food,minerals or vitamins?

Answer 1

Vegetarian yes, but vegan no.... as it was derived from an animal source.

Answer 2

Genes are basically made up of nucleic acids and no matter where they come from the only essential thing is that the animal from which it was taken should have been treated in a humane manner i.e. it mustn't have been harmed/tortured in anyway ethically or it mustn't have been killed for the purpose of getting its genes. That allows the product, here Genetically Modified crops, which have those animal derived genes to be totally vegetarian. And when all organisms die they become a part of the carbon cycle and the carbon from the body of a dead animal becomes assimilated as a part of a plant and even in that case you shouldn't consider it to be vegetarian but we do consider them as vegetarian. But i won't argue that extracted enzymes or other sources of food are vegetarian in such a case, of course they are non-vegetarian. If you think that people who don't eat carcasses are vegetarian none of us are vegetarians because when we were in our mother's womb the nutrition is derived from the mother's blood. So isn't that similar to consuming cow's milk which is its blood. In any case everything is a part of the biogeochemical cycle (carbon, sulfur, phosphorus, nitrogen, oxygen and water cycles), so it totally depends on each person's perspective.

Answer 3

Its a struggle to trace back the source or development of every raw food source.

As we get many years away from the initial development it becomes more difficult to know if any of the varieties used in the development of the current version were tested on animals or merged with thier genes in some way.

Those products would still be vegetarian, but people who are against animal testing and expreimentation would want to shun them. However, who can honestly say that the chick pea variety they buy in the market was not tested on animals in the 1950's ??

Enzymes, minerals and vitamins that are directly extracted from slaughtered animals would not be vegetarian,

Answer 4

Good question. I suppose technically, so long as what is consumed does not contain anything that was actually directly extracted from an animal, it is vegetarian.

However, some vegetarians aren't comfortable consuming something that resulted from or in any way contributes to the death of animals. (Another example would be eggs. Some vegetarians don't eat eggs because on some farms, the spent animals and male chicks are slaughtered.)

I think it's a personal distinction and up to the individual vegetarian.

Answer 5

They're vegetarian in that they contain no meat.

They're an animal product, but a vegetarian wouldn't care, because they still wear leather, fur, wool, buy products from companies that conduct non-required animal toxicity tests, and frequent zoos, rodeos, circuses, and other places where animals are held in captivity or forced to perform, so what's wrong wtih contributing $ to a little more exploitation?

Answer 6

Yes, growing the plant doesn't kill any animals. The initial research did, however.


But I honestly wouldn't trust genetically modified foods from different species.

Answer 7

No

Answer 8

no