Cloned meat "safe to eat" in the UK

EF, only a racist would care if food was prepared by blacks or not, and besides, food is already labelled with country of origin. It is a completely vacuous statement.
You say people should have freedom of choise, but how can they choose between cloned and natural meat if it is not labelled? They can't, so your arguement is false and disingenuous.
There is no economic reason to omit the source of the food from a label. What are you afraid of? That it won't sell? Well too bad.
Your "arguements" simply do not stack up. As you say, all you are doing is trolling.

 

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I am totally with EF on this one.

First, we should realise that the issue is kinda ridiculous anyway. Cloning is not going to be used as a technique for meat animals any time in the near future, anyway. Which means the issue is not likely to arise with today's batch of superstitious consumers.

Second : cloned meat is totally and completely the same as non cloned meat. Meaning there is no issue in which one you eat, if you happen to be rational in your thinking.

So : Ultra is demanding that we label food with something that reflects pure superstition. If this is acceptable, then we are totally within our rights to call for the zodiac sign of the animal supplying the meat. If superstition is so respected, then lets go the whole way.

My conclusion, and I think UF's, is that we should restrict food labels to information that makes sense. No cloned/uncloned and no signs of the zodiac. Come on guys. You are supposed to be scientific rational thinkers. Let's see a bit of sense.

 

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Are you saying racist aren't people? That they aren't deserving in their right to choose what they buy? Labeling by country is not the same thing as labeling by race, and as Skeptical has point out there are other frivolous things we could label with like zodiac signs. I'm sure there are astrology nuts out there that if given the choice would prefer meats slaughter under a specific set of stars.

You say people should have freedom of choice, but how can they choose between Taurus and Leo meat, or Libra and Aquarius meat if it is not labeled?

They can't, so your argument is false and disingenuous.

Yet you refuse to provide an argument for why we should label it cloned meat over any other label we have suggested, so either you agree it should have labels describing its zodiac sign and/or the race of its preparers, or your the one with the argument that does not "stack up".

I'm afraid of choices based on superstition and/or illogical that leads directly or indirectly to the starvation of millions.

Say that to this child:

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Aren't we all?

 

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It's not a fallacy to admit that we don't know everything.

You don't think that what will be the case - that cloning animals for food will become more widespread? I thought that was exactly what you were advocating. What happened to 'the solution to world hunger'? D'you think we're going to feed the whole of Africa with a couple of sheep? And how exactly is this going to become commercially viable?

If someone didn't want to support that, then fair enough I say.

I simply meant certain brands or companies, which are obviously clearly labelled.

 

Oh don't be ridiculous. The fact is that cloned meat probably is perfectly OK, but the consumer should have as much information about the origin of their food as possible. In fact, the only reason that you seem to be arguing that the public should be kept in the dark is that somehow that are too stupid to make the 'right choice'. What's the point of cloning anyway? It's too expensive and whilst cloned meat may be of no worse quality than non-cloned meat, it's certainly no better.

 

Cellar

The point has nothing to do with the consumer's ability to choose. It is about stupidity. If you want food labelled with maximal information, that is fine. But labels are limited, and there is already, to my observation, more information than anyone but a nutritionist can absorb. If we add more data, let us at least make it important data. Whether meat comes from a cloned animal or not is utterly pointless.

Of course, as I have said before, it becomes even more pointless when you consider that cloned meat in the human food chain is seriously unlikely for a long time to come.

Cloning of animals is done today mainly for research pruposes, and the number of animals involved is minimal. Cloning will likely be used in the future to replicate GM animals with vital genes. The animals involved would cost, maybe a million dollars plus each. Not something you would do for just meat! Perhaps you might clone a goat that makes human growth hormone in its milk, or something of similar value.

 

No, but it is a fallacy to be concerned simply because you don't know.

I can't say exactly where the technology will take us. Perhaps toward meat growing in vats instead of animals, in that case "cloning" would become big (as its just growing tissue), I think in that case it would probably be label. As for animals cloning provides a way to increase breed selection as now you can make many copies for example of a "perfect" cow or bull with some rare or artificial trait and then breed them, as such cloning would still not represent the majority of the meat animal population and the clones would be raised and treated no differently for other meat animals, no need for labeling.

Ultimately animal meats are not a solution to world hunger, but since cloning has also raised the attention of Anti-GM and natural foods nuts, any many on even this forum seem to think they are the same, I'm just equating them as well.

Not if those someones cause directly or indirectly the starvation of others because of it.

Well that not really the concern of this thread.

 

The only people to even mention superstition are you and EF. I don't even know what you mean by this as neither of you have defined it or its' context. Its irrelevant. Hallal is superstitious, but you are willing to allow that to be labelled. Totally disengenuous double standards.
What's all this crap about the zodiac about? It's like trying to argue with 5 year olds, honestly, grow up.
You still haven't explained why you are so determined to try and deny people thier God-given right to eat or not eat whatever they want to - or not. Labels are not so desperately cluttered that "cloned meat" or "natural meat" cannot be printed on it somewhere. To suggest otherwise is total fiction.
You talk about being rational thinkers, but I cannot see any evidence of it. No, you clearly just want to force this meat on people. Bad science and bad ethics aren't going to win anyone over.

 

Ultra

I am interested not in forcing meat on people, but in encouraging people to think in a rational manner. There are a number of issues in pseudo-science which people get to believe, even though they are wrong. That is, they have a superstitious belief.

The belief that cloned meat carries some kind of harm is just as superstitious as the belief that breaking a mirror means 7 years bad luck. I oppose the mirror belief in the interests of encouraging rational thought, and in the same vein I oppose the equally stupid belief that cloned meat is magically harmful.

The halal thing is equally superstitious, but not something I can do anything about, whereas, with a bit of luck someone reading what I, or EF, says about cloned meat, might wake up to a little bit of rationality.

I oppose irrational thought, as exemplified by pseudoscience and superstition.

 

Many of the concerns about cloned meat would qualify as superstitious.

Hallal or Kosher are not enforced by the government. If your asking for "cloned" labeling to be optional like Hallal and Kosher are, then I don't see what your arguing about.

This is not a valid counter argument. A child could tell you 2+2=4 and if you disagree its not the child that is wrong simply for being a child.

And you still have not explained why we should not label with zodiac signs as well! We aren't denying anyone anything, we merely asking if you want a "cloned" label why not a zodiac one, or a racist one, I'm sure there are people out there that would like to know that, yet you refuse to support that position making a clear hypocrisy in your argument.

What the fuck is "natural meat"??? Today domesticated animals are so heavily breed they could not possible survive in nature. Most are conceived through artificial insemination. You want natural meat, go out and shoot a deer!

I disagree on three counts, one is that bad science and bad ethics have won people over many times, take the atomic bomb. Second, since we aren't talking about an issue of "bad science and bad ethics" this claim of yours is irrelevant to the discussion, and third: I not trying to win anyone over.

 

You really should admit defeat before turning to the absurd.

 

Again not any more absurd then "cloned" labeling, and that fact you and Ultra refuse to challenge this argument is your defeat not mine.

 

You haven't made an argument.

Our argument is consumer choice. You are merely being absurd.

 

Our argument is consumer choice as well: Why should the consumer not be presented with the choice of meat based on the zodiac sign the meat was birthed on if we are also presenting the consumer with an equally absurd label like "cloned"?

 

The problem with some of the arguments is the assumption that "Non-cloned" livestock generates diversity, to be honest that's not completely the case. You see they have epidemics then they destroy livestock that's posed a threat, this lessens the gene pool for that particular stock.

Believe it or not the "Mad Cow Disease" epidemic is not something new, historically their use to be be other occurrences of maladies centuries past.

What I am getting at here is while livestock is itself artificially manipulated in number with an already limited gene pool which gets more limited every time a malady occurs. While the numbers of livestock aren't dwindling the same way as endangered species like Leopards, where the limited gene pool is actually a concern for their survival.

The point here is that genetic manipulation with cloning is actually the only true way to diversify such narrowing pools, leaving it down to "evolution" will take too much time for the gene pool to self correct, in fact the time period will either mean a particular group will die out or likely get diseases that spread easily because of their gene table lacking diversity so they are technically all "clones" genetically.

 

FDA website on Animal Cloning.

 

Then why on earth is it important that people buy cloned meat when it becomes available in supermarkets and aren't put off by its label?

 

Never said it was, this is towards a broader discussion on labeling.

 

If I can just refer you to one of your previous posts:

" Labeled how so? Ingredients, vitamin, fatt and carb and protein content? Sure! Or labels with no direct chemical meaning but of philosophical usage so that people can out of their own ignorance and fallacious logic forbid them selves from purchasing a superior and even safer product? Take irradiated foods for example, if it was called and labeled "irradiated" do you think people would buy it, despite the fact that is probably safer to eat irradiated meat for example then non-irradiated meat. Of course they won't buy it, they to stupid to overcome their thoughts to "radiation bad!" over the risks of food poisoning. "

And this is a thread about cloned meat, after all.

 

All of which hardly matters. Cloned meat will not be a significant part of the human food chain, apart from a minor accident, for many decades to come. By the time this is an issue, with luck, all those who are superstitious about the name 'cloned' will have died off and been replaced by people with a more modern, and more rational outlook.

And this future generation will look back on the current idiotic attitude and laugh themselves silly over the weird old superstitions.