We can build whatever animal you want to eat, say scientists

news.com.au ^

[Scythian]

TINKER with the genetics of salmon and maybe you create a revolutionary new food source that could help the environment and feed the hungry.

Or maybe you're creating what some say is an untested "frankenfish" that could cause unknown allergic reactions and the eventual decimation of the wild salmon population.

The US Food and Drug Administration hears both arguments this week when it begins a two-day meeting on whether to approve the marketing of the genetically engineered fish, which would be the first such animal approved for human consumption.

The agency has already said the salmon, which grows twice as fast as conventional salmon, is as safe to eat as the traditional variety.

Approval of the salmon would open the door for a variety of other genetically engineered animals, including an environmentally friendly pig that is being developed in Canada or cattle that are resistant to mad cow disease.

[Opinionated Blowhard]

What about a turducken? Can they create one of those?

[utherdoul]

Well if it brings down the price of meat I certainly won’t complain. Blocks of lab cultured meat would certainly help free up cropland.

[Smokin' Joe]

The agency has already said the salmon, which grows twice as fast as conventional salmon, is as safe to eat as the traditional variety.

I guess the fourty year study results are in? How do they claim this? On what basis?

[Smokin' Joe]

A lot of grazing land isn’t really good for crops, which is why it isn’t being tilled.

[556x45]

Concepts and systems we barely understand, questions we’re not smart enough to ask and to top it off govt employees are going to pass final judgment. LOL, what could possibly go wrong!

[mongo141]

The flat earth, Chicken Little are going to start sniveling in 10...9...8...

[a fool in paradise]

I want low fat unicorn steaks.

[fruser1]

Possibly the best consequence of this stuff would be able to make endangered species at will.

That should reduce some of the burden placed on us by the eco-nazis.

Don’t have to worry about wiping out species (their main argument) if we can just pop ‘em out like Pez.

[Ramius]

yeah... but it all tastes like chicken.

[freespirited]

Perhaps based on lifetime feeding studies with lab animals.

[KarlInOhio]

Give the pig a couple of extra stomachs and teach it to chew its cud.... presto! kosher pork.

[Scythian]

Possibly the best consequence of this stuff would be able to make endangered species at will.

I think we should call them on their bluff and request Wooly Mammoth Stakes

[utherdoul]

really? I don’t know much about framing I always thought that grazing land for cattle was about the same as land used to grow wheat and corn.

[Scythian]

Considering they feed our beef and even farm raised fish corn it really doesn’t matter, it’s crap food either way ...

[avacado]

I’m plenty happy with the hamburger-cow, rib-eye-cow and the bacon-pig.

[Vigilanteman]

The Frankenfish sniveling is total bunk. Before farm-grown catfish, all catfish were caught from public rivers and streams. Catfish farms were such a roaring success that trout farms soon followed.

Both are now raised on commercial farms with great success and have been for years with no effect on the wild populations. In fact, farm raised catfish and trout both took much of the overfishing problem off the wild populations. There is no reason to suppose it would be any different for salmon, lobster or any other aquatic life.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I want a tomato plant that yields lightly-marbled beef sirloin tomatoes.

[Hodar]

yeah... but it all tastes like chicken.

Currently, chickens have been modified that they go from hatching to skillet in 8-10 weeks.

Even Chicken doesn't taste like chicken anymore.

[utherdoul]

I want a bread and butter tree ... might as well throw in a cigar shrub as well if I’m dreaming.