Would you eat cloned meat?

Tucking in to a cloned meat steak could soon be a reality. Meat and dairy coming from cloned cows may soon be available from your friendly local supermarket.

Back in January the United States food and drug administration reported that meat and dairy sourced from cloned animals was safe for human consumption. Already across the US people are eating meals prepared with meat derived from the young of cloned cows, pigs and goats. Even the milk that is poured on their breakfast cereal could have come from the offspring of a cloned animal. It is expected that the final barrier preventing the sale of cloned meat will be lifted in a matter of months allowing meat and milk from the actual cloned creature to sit side to side with conventional products on supermarket shelves. As with GM foods there will be nothing on the label to identify them as coming from a clone.

So should we in Europe be worried? Could we soon be eating cloned foods without even knowing it? It does seem that it is recognised that Europeans are not keen to embrace unnatural foods. There has been massive resistance to GM crops, particularly in Ireland and it will be a hard sell. According to The Guardian the term cloned will soon be replaced by 'agricultural genomics' a term which makes it sound much more palatable!

But why should we be concerned? A study conducted by The Centre for Food Safety in the USA produced a report in March 2007  which found that:

Despite FDA’s [food and drug administration] claim that there is “no difference” between food from clones and their progeny and food from naturally-bred animals, most of the studies they reviewed found troubling abnormalities and defects in animal clones which could pose food safety risks.

There are several key concerns that need to be addressed. Firstly not enough is known about the effects of cloning. It is thought that:

...the cloning process could cause different genes to be turned on, which could cause unknown substances to be expressed in the clones. The substances could escape detection because scientists don't know what to look for. Live Science

There are also worries that cloning could create a species that because of its lack of genetic diversity, is susceptible to the swift spread of disease which could wipe out masses of clones. 
On top of this there are animal welfare issues, cloned animals are prone to abnormalities, disease and early even pre-natal death. Although clones seem to be identical there can be genetic differences that occur in the host egg.

I don't eat meat but I do eat dairy products, as a vegetarian I already have to accept that a certain amount of the soya based foods that I consume must contain some GM soya. I'm not happy about it but it is almost impossible to avoid. European labeling law already allows a product with up to 0.9% GM content to be labeled organic, the reason for this is that it cannot be guaranteed that cross contamination hasn't occurred. If cloned milk is allowed into Europe the same could be true of organic milk. Once it's here there is no going back. 

More information?

The Centre for Food Safety Report

Ed Pilkington in The Guardian

ABC News

Live Science - What's The Beef?

The FDA

Organic & Local Shopping at Naas Farmers Market

Castleruddery Organic Farm (above)

Andrea's Tasty Treats (above)

The view from the Feelgood Organic Hampers stall (above)

The best place to find seasonal, local and organic food is your local farmers market. There are so many dotted around the country now that it is almost impossible not to have one close to where you live. To find your local market check out Bord Bia's list of Farmers Markets In Ireland.

I have a stall at the Naas Farmers Market, and of all the markets I have worked at the Naas one has the nicest atmosphere. Located in the grounds of the Storehouse Restaurant it is small yet perfectly formed. The stalls, to name but a few, include two organic vegetable stalls, 'Vegi Snacks' a great vegetarian food stall full of tasty foods which are made using organic vegatables, 'What's Cooking' where those of us short of time can purchase healthy pre prepared meals which are prepared using local meat and organic vegetables and 'Choc O'Neill' divine chocolate handmade locally in Naas.

You will also find all your weekly staples: bread, cheese, eggs, cakes (well they're a staple to me), olives, meat and fish.

It's also a great place to have lunch. Aside from the Veggie Snacks, you can choose from deep fill pies and decadent rostis from 'The Gallic Kitchen', Noodles, hot soup and soon crepes. The coffee stall sells locally roasted coffee, and for desert you can grab a smoothie from Annies Apples or my favorite Belgian chocolate brownie from 'Andrea's Tasty Treats'.

If you live near Naas it's always worth dropping in on a Saturday to do a bit of shopping, we are open between 10am and 3pm don't forget to drop by and say hi to me! For those of you further afield, make sure you support your local farmers market, the more people who shop at them the better they get.

The Complicated Issue of Food Miles

When I first came to Ireland over 13 years ago I was impressed by the countries commitment to buying Irish.

Recently the local food trend has become a growing phenomenon worldwide with some people choosing to only eat foods that were produced locally. There are many reasons why buying local makes sense: it supports the economy, ensures the traceability of what we eat and most importantly cuts down on food miles and the carbon emissions associated with them.

So, due to the carbon emissions associated with airfreight, and considering that one of the key objectives of the organic movement is to protect the environment, should we allow food that is flown around the world to be certified organic? The Soil Association, the UK’s biggest and longest established organic food certifying body has been considering just this. In May 2007 they released a discussion document which is available online here.

So what are the arguments against buying exclusively local foods?

For me there are there are four key arguments. Firstly there can be no doubt that it makes sense to buy local when you are buying according to the seasons. The Irish apple is a great example as a recent article in the Irish Independent explains:

‘Apples mature as autumn fruits, they are picked in September and October. During those months you can buy locally produced fruit that will have very little carbon emissions attached to it.
But as the months go by, that autumn glut of fruit is stored in chill warehouses which, of course, use fossil-fuel energy to power them.
When you do the maths on this you find that by the following August those stored apples will account for more carbon emissions than apples shipped in from Australia and New Zealand.’

Then consider the Nitrogen based fertilisers that are used in non-organic farming. Nitrogen is a much more harmful greenhouse gas than CO2. So if you are buying non-organic local foods the impact on the environment can be just as great if not worse than imported foods.

Another strong argument, which to my amusement even made it into Ken and Deirdrie’s living room in Coronation Street last year, is that by driving out of our way to buy local food we are generating more carbon than it would take for the same food, as part of a consignment, to be air freighted around the world.

Probably the most compelling argument for buying foods from overseas is the impact that this has on communities. It is one of the major considerations outlined in the Soil Associations Green Paper:

‘Airfreight enables producers in some of the poorest regions of the world to supply high value fresh fruit and vegetables to Europe, creating jobs and opportunities to add value.’

One compelling example of this is outlined on the Natural Choices website:

‘Blue Skies is one Soil Association licensee that uses airfreight. Blue Skies specialises in the export of pre-cut, ready-to-eat fruit transported in the hold of passenger flights.
The pineapples are grown by small-scale farmers in the Central Region of Ghana and processed in their fresh-cut production facility in Nsawam, in the Eastern Region. In Nsawam Blue Skies employs over 1500 people and, through salaries alone, contributes around £2 million to the local economy. In the Central Region they have created vital jobs where unemployment is currently 70%. According to Wikipedia Ghana produces 7,513,000 metric tonnes of co2 emissions, less than 0.1% of the world’s total, which is less than 0.37 of a tonne per person in 2003.’

Finally it should be remembered that not all food is air freighted. Many companies like my own choose to transport by road or sea.

So it seems in order to be kind to the environment we should try to buy local, seasonal organic foods. But to be kind to the world in general we should support overseas suppliers andd shouldn’t always shy away from buying imported or even air freighted produce.

To find out more follow these links:
The Observer
The Times
The Irish Independent
The Soil Association
Natural Choices.