Bring Home the Biotech Bacon

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."

Comments

Risks?

[mtenhagen]

And then in 20 years we will discover that this 'adjusted' meat will cause cancer or 'mad-human disease'

Re:Risks?

[Aranth Brainfire]

Nobody cares if something causes cancer, or some disease in 20 years.

Know any smokers?

Sounds like a rabbit's foot

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Good for us... Not so good for the pig or the rabbit.

Vincent: Want some bacon?
Jules: No man, I don't eat pork.
Vincent: Are you Jewish?
Jules: Nah, I ain't Jewish, I just don't dig on swine, that's all.
Vincent: Why not?
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don't eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I'd never know 'cause I wouldn't eat the filthy motherfucker. Pigs sleep and root in shit. That's a filthy animal. I ain't eat nothin' that ain't got enough sense enough to disregard its own faeces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces.
Jules: I don't eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn't go so far as to call a dog filthy but they're definitely dirty. But, a dog's got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we'd have to be talkin' about one charmin' motherfuckin' pig. I mean he'd have to be ten times more charmin' than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I'm sayin'?

Re:Sounds like a rabbit's foot

[dalroth5]

Hello folks.
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. :) So is everybody else. In fact, the only humans who aren't full of shit are the starving millions in the Third World. Do you want to cleanse yourself? Stop eating for about a week. OK? No, I thought not.

Special thought for the day just for you: "I am glad and grateful to be full of shit."

Thanks for your time.

Re:Sounds like a rabbit's foot

[Liam Slider]

A dog is merely doing what other animals do with a food which is difficult to digest: they re-digest it

Uh-huh....now explain to me their whole cat shit fetish Mr. Wizard. They'll snarf that shit down like it was candy.

Doh !

[sane?]

You can just imagine all those marketeers and press people who were planning to use Omega-3 as a marketing tool when they read this recent article.

As they say in the marketing rulebook: Timing is everything

the kind believed to stave off heart disease

[Threni]

> omega-3 fatty acids -- the kind believed to stave off heart disease.

Er...no it's not:

http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,1738 599,00.html

good for us

[pintomp3]

not to sound like some peta activist (i'm carniverous to a fault) but how does it effect the life of the animal? i guess it's kind of like veil where not do you live to be slaughtered, but perhaps also live bad life too.

Wait 20 years

[CosmeticLobotamy]

I doubt regular bacon would disappear overnight or anything, but virtually every time someone comes out and says, "X-inol in corn prevents fin rot," five years later it's common knowledge that X-inol just makes food taste funny. If in twenty years, Omega-3 is still thought to make people healthy, then go adding it to things. For now, odds are you'll just end up with birth defects and adult acne.

Trade-offs

[quokkapox]

Is it just me, or are we trying to over-optimize our diets? Why not just try to eat what we evolved to eat, what you in particular tolerate well, whatever makes your body run reasonably well.

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:What about the animals?

[tpgp]

Whats the effect on them?

Looking at the poultry industry (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.