Do Grasshoppers Dream of Cloned Meat and Mango?

“We must use our purchasing power collectively to carve out the things we value most, do a little bit of investigation on where our money goes and support those companies that support our best interests.”

If you think that dystopian science fiction novels portray the craziest outcomes, think twice. Did you know that cricket flour has been already put in many of the foods we daily consume? We just need to read the labels and see for ourselves. Cricket flour has been incorporated into existing food groups and has been used as a protein source to enhance the nutritional profile in a wide range of processed food products including baked goods, snacks, meat analogues, and drink. Its name on the labels may not be familiar as they use several alternatives, the most common being the scientific-based generic name Acheta protein or Acheta powder.

What is coming next? Cricket flour today, cloned meat tomorrow and they have been already working on vaccinated produce. “In recent years edible vaccine emerged as a new concept developed by biotechnologists. Edible vaccines are subunit vaccines where the selected genes are introduced into the plants and the transgenic plant is then induced to manufacture the encoded protein. Foods under such application include potato, banana, lettuce, corn, soybean, rice, and legumes.”[1] Apparently creating edible vaccines and supporting revolutionized local vaccine production initiated by a device that goes under the code name MANGO (Manufacturing on the Go) will “save millions of lives and dollars as a result.”[2] Maybe science kits for children will emerge so that they too can create their own vaccines.

Since I was knee high to a grasshopper I was taught to question everything and it has served me well my entire life. Needless to say, after living through and experiencing the overhanded, controlling overreach of COVID-19, and how the government pushed the “trust the science” narrative with their treatment bypassing informed consent, I have become quite apprehensive in offering blind trust to the things they deem safe. I recall how genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were introduced; they also sold the notion based on “trust the science” and promising to feed the world. It sure did, it has been feeding the world poison camouflaged as safe food ever since.

Should we trust the introduction of cloned meat just because Health Canada has decided it is no longer considered a novel food? If cloned meat is equal to farm raised farting livestock, why not label as such? Let the people decide, that would be novel. My spider senses are tingling: cloned meat will be displayed for sale with traditional, because it is the same. “Trust us, we have your best interests in mind.” Sorry, that trust boat has sailed long ago.

A 2024 Health Canada post stated that it had conducted a consultation on whether cloned cattle and pigs should be considered novel foods anymore. Health Canada then concluded that “foods derived from SCNT [somatic cell nuclear transfer] cloned cattle and swine and their offspring would no longer be considered novel foods and as such would no longer be subject to pre-market notification under Division 28, Part B of the Food and Drug Regulations.”[3] According to the Government of Canada, a novel food[4] is any food that meets at least one of the following criteria:

New substance: It contains a substance that has no known history of safe use as food.
New process: It is made using a new production, preparation, preservation, or packaging process that has never been used for that food before and that significantly changes the food.
Genetic modification: It comes from a GM plant, animal, or microorganism whose characteristics are either new, missing, or outside the expected normal range for that organism.

I wonder what cloned meat is if it is not even novel food, and what has been actually going on in the food industry if cloning cannot be considered new?

Another question comes with lab-grown meat and how it is made. “Lab grown meat starts with animal cells, typically muscle or fat cells, or stem cells that are forced to differentiate into muscle cells. These cells are cultured using the appropriate growth medium that contains nutrients that promote its growth and survival. To aid in the growth of culture as it begins to expand, edible scaffolding is sometimes used. Finally, cells are allowed to divide and expand until ready to use, all the while being monitored consistently for harmful bacterial contamination.”[5] It is promised to be more environmentally friendly, more ethical and also healthier but is it really true? We do not know much about any of its potential nutritional value but the bigger problem is that “while a reduction of cattle farming would decrease methane emissions that contribute to climate change, recent modelling studies have suggested that lab-based meat production could generate problematic levels of CO2 emissions over the long term. Producing cultivated meat requires significant energy input.”[6]

At Memphis Meats, the first cultivated meat company in the world, you can “meet the new meat” which is “[d]elicious meat grown directly from animal cells.”[7] What is more delicious than that? It has got to be because according to Memphis Meats one pound of lab beef costs $2400. So unless we start lab-growing money, we will not be buying this “new meat” anytime soon.

Another ambiguous term to invade our food supply is “bio-engineered.” Food processing giant Campbell’s has recently come under fire when a top-level executive was allegedly quoted as saying that meat in their food offerings are “bio-engineered” and “unhealthy,” even going so far as to say that he would not eat it and that it was made “for poor people.”[8] It is difficult to maintain trust in the protection of our food chain when such information comes to light.

This scenario is the perfect opportunity for consumers to join together and protest. I know what your think: not after what happened to the Freedom Convoy, I do not want my bank account frozen. I do not blame you, that sort of treatment is hard to forget. But this situation is different, you can take your stand based on how you spend. Talk to the butcher where you shop for meat and ask this person if they are selling cloned meat. Maybe they do not even know but they soon will if people ask. Keep in mind that it may not come from Canada yet—since cloned meat was only recently approved—but it could be imported. “The United States and parts of Europe have already classified cloned animal products as equivalent to conventionally bred ones, provided they meet the same safety and traceability standards.”[9]

If enough people take a stand at where you shop, store owners will need to decide. If they are not willing to label cloned meat, then find a butcher that will, like the ButcherBox.ca, where transparency is non-negotiable. If we do not take our stand against things we do not agree with as consumers, then it will be interpreted as if we agreed to what is being offered. We must use our purchasing power collectively to carve out the things we value most, do a little bit of investigation on where your money goes and support those companies that support your best interests.

Life Choice will never purchase cloned or lab-grown cattle. We purchase glands for our products—Adrenal Gland, Thyroid Gland, Thymus Gland, HGH+ Homeopathic and Thydracut—from New Zealand grass fed bovine that are antibiotic free and unvaccinated.

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