Steak from non-cloned animal
Steak from cloned animal
When it comes to food, particularly ground beef, what you don’t know can indeed hurt you. If you don’t know enough to cook your burger properly, for instance, the bloody thing can kill you.
When it comes to cloned beef, however, the FDA has declared officially that beef and milk from cloned cattle is no different than any other beef.
That’s good enough for the National Restaurant Association. But, according to the L.A. Times, it isn’t for the big grocery chains. Neither Safeway nor Ralphs want anything to do with cloned meat.
The public’s fear of and/or rejection of cloned beef is equated by many experts to the mob’s fear of the monster in “Frankenstein.” Judging from some of the other things that Americans put in their mouths, the experts are probably right. (Of course, the one way to turn the mob around is to prey on a bigger fear: develop a cloned animal that is more resistant to E. coli.)
But here’s the twist. In an era of increased monitoring of the food supply in general and ground beef in particular, you may never know if your steak is descended from a cloned animal or not. The FDA has determined that products derived from clones do not need to be labeled.
If you are one of the aforementioned mob, don’t worry! As long as you actually cook that meat to the proper temperature, what you don’t know really won’t hurt you.