PCC says no to cloned animal products

PCC Natural Markets is prohibiting suppliers from using cloned animal products in their food. It also wants them to disclose where ingredients are from and what they mean by terms such as "natural flavors."

These moves come months after the Seattle chain eliminated high-fructose corn syrup from its eight stores and began identifying the countries of origin for its meat, seafood, peanuts and fresh and frozen produce.

Although the 2002 Farm Bill called for mandatory country-of-origin labeling for those products, the law has not been implemented and is being reworked as part of the 2007 Farm Bill still being considered in Congress.

"The failure of our regulatory agencies to mandate full disclosure of food ingredients makes it incumbent on leaders in the natural-foods industry to step forward and provide what our consumers want," PCC Chief Executive Tracy Wolpert said in a news release Tuesday.

PCC will continue selling food from China, unlike Trader Joe's, which said last year it would phase out single-ingredient food items from mainland China by April 1 because of customer concerns.

Much food that is certified as organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture comes from other countries, including China. Read more..
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/businesstechnology/2004179295_pcc13.html

Cloned food and milk

The FDA says it's safe to eat cloned meat and drink milk from cloned cows. What I find interesting is that no matter what the FDA or any other public or private agency says about edibles from cloned animals, ultimately it will be you, the consumer, who determines the success or failure of cloned food in the marketplace. Read more..
http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/blogs/paging.dr.gupta/2008/01/cloned-food-and-milk.html

USDA Recommends That Food From Clones Stay Off the Market

The U.S. Department of Agriculture yesterday asked U.S. farmers to keep their cloned animals off the market indefinitely even as Food and Drug Administration officials announced that food from cloned livestock is safe to eat.

Bruce I. Knight, the USDA's undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs, requested an ongoing "voluntary moratorium" to buy time for "an acceptance process" that Knight said consumers in the United States and abroad will need, "given the emotional nature of this issue."

Yet even as the two agencies sought a unified message -- that food from clones is safe for people but perhaps dangerous to U.S. markets and trade relations -- evidence surfaced suggesting that Americans and others are probably already eating meat from the offspring of clones.

Executives from the nation's major cattle cloning companies conceded yesterday that they have not been able to keep track of how many offspring of clones have entered the food supply, despite a years-old request by the FDA to keep them off the market pending completion of the agency's safety report.

At least one Kansas cattle producer also disclosed yesterday that he has openly sold semen from prize-winning clones to many U.S. meat producers in the past few years, and that he is certain he is not alone. Read more..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/15/AR2008011501555.html