“Eurogroup for Animals” says people don’t want cloned, Frankenstein food: Another example of ideological and idiotic scare-mongering
(There’s some good eatin’ on them monsters)
Bless their stupid little hearts:
The majority of Europeans believe cloned animals should not be used for food, according to a new survey. The Eurobarometer poll of 25,000 people said 58 per cent see animal cloning for food production as unjustified while only one in four would accept animal cloning for food production in some circumstances. The survey, conducted in July, was commissioned by the European Commission to help decided if it should approve the practice within the EU.
The Eurogroup for Animals, which speaks for animal welfare groups in Britain, called on the EC to act on the survey. Director Sonja Van Tichelen said: “Consumers want natural and healthy food, not Frankenstein food.”
Now, this is so dumb on so many different levels that I don’t know where to start.
First, let me begin with stating that I don’t think we know enough to go all out with a mass market cloning industry. There are obvious benefits but also some dangers, and some worries expressed by serious people. So, we could do with more research before we go there.
I have to say though, that this Eurogroup for Animals doesn’t belong to that latter group of serious people. Of course, anyone who uses the word ‘Frankenstein’ automatically disqualifies him- or herself for any serious discussion about this topic. As an indicator of stupidity, the F-word is right there with each blonde Miss Potato Crop (with Miss World aspirations) who ever confessed she wanted to work for ‘world peace.’
Still, for all those Frankenstein groupies, I’ve got some worrying news: We are already eating the products of this monstrous experiment – and we’ve been doing so ever since the first humans left their caves. Since homo sapiens started the whole farming business, he’s been manipulating his food, for as much as his technological know-how allowed him. From crops to animals, humans have bred, selected, pruned & sliced every bloody thing and species that thus became a staple food.
Of course, it’s not just Frankenstein food we’re talking about. Almost each and every flower we grow or buy to bring home is a Frankenstein hybrid. Every ‘Fido’ you walk and buy dog food for is, in fact, a Frankensteiner. We’ve been messing with mother nature to such an extent that I’m amazed that those NASA pictures of planet Earth don’t reveal the stitches and those two huge bolts.
Back to Eurogroup for Animals Director Sonja Van Tichelen and her “Consumers want natural and healthy food, not Frankenstein food.”
Since when did people crave for this ‘healthy’ food, precisely…? It’s certainly true – as the survey shows – that you can frighten them with these silly Frankenstein stories but the rise of the fast food and TV dinner industry does not exactly speak of a mass desire for healthy products. Anyone who’s ever looked at the figures for obesity in the West, knows that, en masse, we don’t care what we stuff in our collective mouths, as long as it’s cheap and as long as it contains enough salt, sugar and/or fat to give us our daily fix of comfort.
Neither do people particularly insist on ‘natural food’, of course, whatever the Eurogroup for Animals claim. The only thing people ever ask is that they are more or less familiar with what they eat. Which makes it so easy to scare them with these stupid Frankenstein horror stories. These negatives, however, do not translate into a positive desire for ‘natural’ food – whatever that is precisely, since humans have been tinkering with the stuff for as long as we started to have and needed to feed our ever-expanding communities.
What’s natural about our fishing methods, or our fishing farms? What’s natural about the chemicals we’ve developed to ensure that our processed food doesn’t rot away on its, sometimes worldwide journey from the factory to the supermarket shelves? What’s natural about a cow, which can’t survive without humans milking it? What’s natural about our whole, quite gruesome bio-industry?
Anyway, when you’re living with billions of people on a rather small planet and expect to feed most of them at least moderately well on a more or less regular basis, ‘natural’ simply won’t take you very far. We need to manipulate our food, from seed or sperm to the stuff that ends up on all of our plates. As I said, we’ve been doing that for a very long time already. It’s just that now, with our ever developing technical know-how, we are beginning to do this in yet another, new manner, through industrial, laboratory-based cloning.
Humans scare easily – and humans are also reckless. We’re a contradictory species in many ways. So, yes, we shouldn’t rush into things without accessing possible risks – but neither should ideologically informed organizations like Eurogroup for Animals resort to these crude scare tactics. Neither reckless nor reactionary behaviour will serve us well.
End of sermon.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe today to get free updates by email or RSS.
