Farm to Table...

At the start of this year, the FDA declared that the meat and milk from cloned cows was safe. Last week, as Gourmet.com reported, they admitted that it was “’theoretically possible’ that the meat from the offspring of cloned cattle was already in the food supply.”

This is still unproven because there’s no requirement that cloned beef, or meat from cloned animals’ offspring, be labeled, nor is there any monitoring of where, when, or how the offspring of said cloned cattle are used and sold. Indeed, according to Gourmet's Politics of the Plate, thousands of bioengineered cows and their offspring may be in the general cow population, just waiting to be slaughtered and sent to our plates.

In their defense, USDA spokesperson Bruce Knight told reporters that so few cloned cows had been slaughtered that its “highly unlikely” that any of us have eaten cloned cow. But, is “highly unlikely” a risk that you want to take when it comes to your next burger?

Photo from the Leigh Valley Live blog.