Thursday, January 24, 2008

Who benefits?

"I will not be eating cloned meat. The reason has nothing to do with my personal health or safety. I think the clearest way to understand the problem with cloning is to consider a broader question: Who benefits from it? Proponents will say that the consumer does, because we will get higher quality, more consistent foods from cloned animals. But the real beneficiaries are the nation’s large meatpacking companies — the kind that would like it best if chickens grew in the shape of nuggets. Anyone who really cares about food — its different tastes, textures and delights — is more interested in diversity than uniformity." (Thanks D.)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

the thing is, it's not really up to Klinkenborg to decide whether to eat cloned meat or not. It's generally understood that the progeny of cloned animals have already entered the food chain, and at present anyway the FDA have refused to condone labelling of cloned meat on the ground that it is actually no different and would therefore be misleading (never mind that plenty of other things that are no different are labelled every day--ever hear of brands?). The economics are presently such that cloned animals are being preserved for breeding rather than slaughter, but that is just a matter of time. For now, and probably more so into the future, the only way to be sure you're not eating cloned meat is to avoid eating meat altogether.