Customize your cow

This past week, the FDA announced that they were approving the sale of meat and dairy products from cloned animals. This news has sat on the sidelines because of more critical issues such as the presidential primaries and the current economic downtrend, but food critics and connoisseurs have not been so silent. They are concerned that by allowing cloned animal products onto the market, a great deal of diversity will be permanently lost. There will no longer be an element of surprise when biting into a particularly succulent cut of tenderloin, they claim, as one will already know exactly what quality of meat to expect from each cloned animal. While the variability of meat and dairy products will certainly decrease, the variety of such foodstuffs will not. Retailers and consumers will be able to order exactly the type of meat they desire, giving rise to a new type of livestock diversity based on consumer demand rather than the whims of nature. Wealthy connoisseurs will be able to customize each animal to fit their appetite. They’ll just have to wait a few years for their order to arrive.