Cloning: Vitually indistinguishable shit

Not alone about the clone

Whilst the science of cloning might be fascinating and amazing the reality of the same does leave one rather concerned about the consequences.

Just imagine my angst when I arrived in Europe to notice that the can of plum tomatoes could be kept in my larder for another 3 years.

Coming from Nigeria then, where the slightest discolouration on a fresh tomato consigned it to the gutter without sympathy for the seller.

I thought, if we were all being pumped full of E numbers there would be nothing natural left of us - after a while, our blood metabolises to contain formaldehyde properties – someone took my thinking to a conclusion and released the film – Death Becomes Her.

It starred Meryl, Goldie and Bruce, you should know them – the ladies chanced upon this elixir of life (for example, cloned food?) that kept them immortal as their bodies disintegrated, Bruce as plastic surgeon patched them up.

Virtually indistinguishable?

Before I digress, what worries me more is the conclusion of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the United States that cloned foods are virtually indistinguishable from conventional sources.

Despite the concerns that people still have about the possible long-term effects of ingesting cloned foods, the FDA after a 5-year study has also decided that foods do not need to be labelled, disallowing customers from discriminating between the sources of food.

If I were to view this decision from a very fundamental perspective I could say just because I have identical twins or even identical quadruplets, I would give them the same name since they are virtually indistinguishable.

Obviously, when it comes to food, the analysis goes deeper than visual inspection, it does not however mean the ability to choose between cloned and conventional foods be removed from the opportunity of the general populace.

I must join in the hysteria about cloning because our democratic right to choose has been taken away and our economic right to pay what we deem the cost of produce based on full-disclosure of what we are purchasing has been curtailed.

Clone taken out labels

I would expect that certain food manufacturers who do not subscribe to the cloning ideal might just go for counter-labelling, indicating that their foods do not contain cloned sources, then charge us more.

However, I cannot but recall that a nursery rhyme (Hey Diddle Diddle) might just paint a picture of the dangers of cloning and what the reaction of normally inanimate objects might be – I never thought any of this might become true, but with cloning – the reality would be beyond expanse of delirium.

Here goes the nursery rhyme:

Hey diddle diddle,

The cat and the fiddle,

The cow jumped over the moon

The little dog laughed to see such fun,

And the dish ran away with spoon.

Go figure! Cats playing fiddles, cows in astronomical dressage, dogs laughing and the terrified plates and cutlery refusing to take the food – that is the nightmare of cloning – I had better boil my eggs before I crack them open and find mangoes.