Poll Results are in.... Conclusion

This Poll has garnered much more attention than any others. Perhaps general readership has increased, or this is just a hot topic. The topic seems closer to me than most since I’ve spent more time in my life thinking I would be cloning animals instead of cooking them. For this reason I hope I can bring what I know to the table with my foodie friends and chef friends and help them feel comfortable with new bio-technologies. As the mechanics of cooking, and the chemistry behind it become more important to how a chef works, there are correlated advances in the production of the basic building blocks a chef has to work with, namely vegetables, fruits, and animal protein. While chefs across the globe are warming up to the molecular gastronomy, those of us with a solid, basic understanding of genetics, cloning, and GMO have a mission to help educate those around us with the truth.

It seems perfectly reasonable that while introducing something new like cloned food products people will have their reservations about them. I think it is important to let people chose what they want with regard to the quality of the food they purchase. I am in complete agreement with the majority of the pollsters that cloned food products should be labeled as such. For example there are plenty of people who want to know if their food is ‘organic’ or not, and it should be a producers duty to label his product as ‘organic’. Should that producer be made to label his product as organic by law, I think so. As mass producers continue to make a farce out of the idea of ‘organic’ and hide behind minuscule gaps in the legislature it is important for consumers to know, one way or the other, this piece of lettuce is ‘organic’ or it isn’t, and if it isn’t mandatory to label ‘organic’ as ‘organic’ then how will we know?

The above reasoning might seem a bit extreme, but the legislature in the state of Pennsylvania has recently restricted the dairy industry in describing on their labels whether or not they are users of specific growth hormones with specific and studied effects on humans when ingested. So you have to assume that the users of this dangerous technology had just enough lobbying dollars to make the use, or un-use of this product as vague as possible. This is wrong. This is what across the board mandatory labeling of hot issues would solve. This is something that can’t happen with cloned food products.

I think that cloned food products are safe to eat. It seems clear that GMO are a very different topic, and there must be a clear distinction here. Cloned animals, used as farmers intend to use them presently, which is in breeding seems completely reasonable. From what I can assume leaves actual clones one generation behind the production line. For this reason cloned food products should appear on supermarket shelves as soon as possible with a proper labels including the fact the product is from a cloned animal as well as the lack of hormones and or antibiotics.

The animal farmers in the country have a lot of cleaning up to do. The factory farm is inhumane and cruel to the animals involved. We could shut them all down for the animals sake, but the price of meat would skyrocket, and the majority of the people revolt, eat veggie burgers, or die of starvation. $1.99 a pound ground beef doesn’t roam the wild range and get wrestled by a cowboy before being petted and laid to rest, and if you have this vision of where you food comes from you have a lot to learn. Cloning brings to the table a higher rate of infant deaths, failed pregnancies, and premature aging, all these things we can live with if the resulting adults are as expected, which is the strongest animals available.

In conclusion, 9 of the 20 respondents where willing to try cloned food products already which seems to imply there is a market for these products forming. On the other hand the second highest conclusion was a complete ban of cloned food products, which means with enough money and persuasion this side of the debate can implement it’s plan of banning these products trumping the majority who where willing to give it a try at least. Sound like a presidential election here!? With the information put forth, I wonder if any of the pollsters would change their opinion???