2 Comments

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  eelke

  Jan 23, 2008 - Reply

  The main reason to use cloned animals is that their DNA is exactly the same as the high meat/milk/eggs producing mammal they are cloned from so you can guarantee these animals produce the same amount.

  Hundred of years of breeding livestock focusing on producing more and more has clearly reached it’s limits of what is possible biologically and is actually showing reduced productions in traditional breeding.

  I’m a vegetarian myself but for those who insist on eating meat I don’t think cloning is a bad technology since maintaining a species of high producing animals is more efficient. E.g. less animals have to suffer in the meat industry and they will also be able to more efficiently transform plant protein into meat, saving rainforest or other areas that would need to be used to feed livestock.

  Then again, meat is a very inefficient source of food: it takes 4kg of plant protein to create 1kg of meat protein, but both proteins are just protein and meat is not more nutritious than the same amount of plant protein. So every 1kg of meat wastes 3 kg of plant protein that could have fed many people that are starving in other parts of the world. Lots of farming in third world countries is only focused on providing the plant protein to grow meat protein for the 1st world countries.

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  Anonymous

  Jan 25, 2008 - Reply

  *fires up barbecue*

  Bring it on.

  Kyle Weiss