Bring Home the Biotech Bacon 216
Wired is reporting that researchers may have found the key to "heart friendly bacon." From the article: "Geneticists have mixed DNA from the roundworm C. elegans and pigs to produce swine with significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids -- the kind believed to stave off heart disease. Researchers hope they can improve the technique in pork and do the same in chickens and cows. In the process, they also want to better understand human disease."
Fatty (Score:3, Insightful)
Risks? (Score:5, Insightful)
good for us (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait 20 years (Score:5, Insightful)
Trade-offs (Score:5, Insightful)
You can devote a silly amount of time trying to eat an optimal, low-calorie, lowfat, high-protein, perfectly-whatever sort of diet.
What does that gain you? Is all that time and energy worth it, when, if you get it right, you'll probably just die of something else instead? Sheesh, live a little. Have some bacon once in awhile, have some ice cream for dessert now and then. If you eat too much of something, your body will let you know anyway.
Respect your body's intuition, and get some exercise. There's millions of years of research to back that up.
Re:Risks? (Score:5, Insightful)
Know any smokers?
Re:Fatty (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:What about the animals? (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at the poultry industry [ciwf.org.uk] (pdf warning) I'd say, any effects to the Pig's wellbeing (good or bad) will be irrelevant to the agribusiness owners & the vast majority of consumers.
Quite sad - I have no problem with people eating meat, but knowingly choosing to eat something that's the end result of a life of torture is shocking.
Re:good for us (Score:3, Insightful)
You're going to get a million people replying to you saying variations of "what does it matter? The pig is going to die"
It's a question that society has to start thinking about - many people (like the parent poster) have no problem eating meat, but are concerned about the life of the animal prior to it being butchured.
Its a valid concern, and not hypocritical at all - there's an enormous gap between an animal that lives a relatively healthy, natural life prior to an (early) death and an animal that lives in pain, fear and misery prior to an early death. (for starters the first will taste much better).
So, in answer to your question, noone really cares how it effects the animal - but we should.
Re:How about NOT bringing home the bacon... (Score:2, Insightful)
Define bad. Where do you think sugar comes from? I'll give you a hint, it's not from pigs. Avocado's are also fairly fatty. Many fruits eaten to excess can cause diarrhea. Vegetarians, especially women, need to be very careful of what they eat to ensure they get needed vitamins and trace elements commonly found in meat - like iron.
We would certainly be able to feed more people with plant farms, than animal farms.
Meat has far more energy, weight for weight, than fruit and vegetables. Depending on how you farm the animals, you can provide more energy per hectare off animals than off most crops.
Another plus is that we wouldn't ruin our environment with plants farms as we would with pig farms.
No, you'd ruin them with other farms. Growing plants puts a strain on the soil. That's why you have crop rotations - you need to give the soil a chance to regain it's nutrients before you stick some more crops in it to start sucking them out again. If you increased the fruit and veg farming industry to the point where society could function totally without meat, you'd most definately have an impact on the environment. It'd just be a different one.
And how is the taste ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sounds like a rabbit's foot (Score:5, Insightful)
I really can't let this one go by.
"Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal."
No. When humans are confined without the means to stay clean (think gaol) they too sleep in shit. Does that make humans filthy animals? Clearly not. Equally clearly, when pigs live out in the wild they shun excrement just like you and I do.
"I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty."
No. A dog is merely doing what other animals do with a food which is difficult to digest: they re-digest it. Cattle do the same; but they don't have to shit it out first because they have multiple stomachs. It's called 'cud'. Do you drink milk? Do you eat butter and cheese?
If freshly dropped shit was harmful, you'd be ill already, wouldn't you? Please remember that your own, personal, filthy shit just came out of the middle of your nicely-clean-on-the-outside body. You and I are both literally full of shit.
Special thought for the day just for you: "I am glad and grateful to be full of shit."
Thanks for your time.
what planet are you from? (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm surprised that someone can be so wrong. Meat takes very roughly ten times the energy to produce than vegetables. Livestock have to eat plants to survive. Mostly, they are fed low-cost-high-yield plants like maize, soy, and castor bean, and various animal wastes, but livestock still require a great deal of land. You think livestock feed on air or something?
By going to a fully vegetarian society, though there would still be an environmental impact, the impact would certainly be much less.
Re:Fatty (Score:3, Insightful)
Which is exactly why I've been saying the next step should be to genetically engineer a pig with multiple stomachs so it can chew it's cud. Mmmm...kosher bacon.
Re:Trade-offs (Score:3, Insightful)
It's amusing to observe what was considered healthy throughout history. "Drinking donkey urine/bathing in virgin blood will grant you eternal youth!", "High-fiber diet reduces colon cancer risk!"
One of the recent ones was sent to me by a dentist friend - a radioactive toothpaste (1940ies):
http://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/quackcures/too
From the advertisment sample that I have:
"RADIOACTIVE TOOTHPASTE - CREATES NATURAL FRESHNESS"
"Gentle rays of Radium are active for 4 hours after application. It will remove plaque and oral inflammations, strengthen blood flow, keep your gums pink and strong, and your teeth as white as snow!"
Re:the kind believed to stave off heart disease (Score:2, Insightful)
And, repeat after me: Correlation is not causation.
The most obvious difference to me between Greek and Inuit cultures (the high fat, low heart disease reason for the fishing expedition) and "ours" is that theirs is poor, but low stress with a bit of a fatalistic, what will be will be, view of life and death.
Skip the salmon and the Frankenstein's pork. Just mellow out dude.
And maybe get a little aerobic exercise a few times a week.
Of course nobody can get a headline out of that, or take out a patent on it to make a financial killing. . .
Oh, wait, nevermind. Excuse me, I have to go call my lawyer and patent a method for "MellowCise (tm)".
KFG
A farm kid's perspective... (Score:2, Insightful)
A couple facts:
The pigs wouldn't exist save for being produced to be eaten by you and me.
Think about the last time you were beaten/sick/etc. Did you eat well? Did you gain weight? Producers know that treating an animal as humanely as possible results in a better product and a larger profit.
For further information, you might inspect the National Pork Board's website for information about the Pork Quality Assurance program: http://www.pork.org/Producers/PQA/PQA.aspx [pork.org]
Another point: As a scientist, if the concerns for animal testing have been met, I see nothing but good information coming from such experimentation. People may be concerned about 'mutant' animals and their effects on humans who consume them, but without experimentation, we'll never find out.
JGG