Mouse Pork Anyone?
By CraftyCorner
@CraftyCorner (5600)
United States
November 23, 2008 5:44pm CST
Your next pork chop may have the smallest hint of mouse in it in as early as 2009. Pigs bred with mouse DNA appear to be coming to your grocery store with out labels.
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Admittedly, according to the makers, these pigs don't look or act any different than the critters of the past. Their primary difference and reason for being made is that their...ahem...poo is much better for the environment than old fashioned pigs. The scientists hoped the mouse gene would make the pig produce an enzyme to help it better digest plant phosphorous, a vital nutrient in their feed. The mouse DNA was used to kick start phytase production in the pig's salivary system where digestion starts. Their poo contains up to 60 per cent less bad elements than ordinary pigs Hence their name, Enviropigs. Cleaner poo is fine and good, what will the tinkering do to consumers is the asked question.
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The Food and Drug Administration released draft guidelines that outline how genetically engineered animals will be regulated two months ago. Human trials are not included in these preliminary guidelines. I hope they are preliminary!
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Proponents of transgenic critters say they sweep in a new era of food production.
5 people like this
13 responses
@irishidid (8688)
• United States
23 Nov 08
Today mouse sausage, tomorrow Soylent Green. 
3 people like this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
23 Nov 08
Amen to that! Nothing is safe. What's worse, these mutants are getting loose.
2 people like this
@irishidid (8688)
• United States
24 Nov 08
I was also thinking of "To Serve Man, it's a cookbook!"
1 person likes this
@newtondak (3946)
• United States
24 Nov 08
All the more reason to purchase directly from the family farm and not from factory farms that are using genetic technology to mass produce.
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
Yes, provided that family farm has not been contaminated by traveling GM crops that like to interbreed with other cultivated strains.
1 person likes this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
I've not figured out a solution yet! I just hope I don't glow...
1 person likes this
@newtondak (3946)
• United States
26 Nov 08
....and your solution to the problem is?
2 people like this
@sudiptacallingu (10879)
• India
24 Nov 08
NO NO NO God please take me away before the day comes! The very idea is so repulsive and nauseating that I would rather become vegetarian, thank you.
BTW the other day in the local newspaper I was reading about a scientist and minister in India, propagating eating mice as a healthy source of non-veg low cost food which compares to chicken meat in many ways. Don’t know if this was serious or a grand joke on our Food Disctubution System…nevertheless, ewwwwwwww as I said, I would rather die first.
3 people like this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
I think it was rats they were talking about. Your right about the eww factor...
1 person likes this
@celticrogue (450)
• United States
24 Nov 08
Interesting choice of 'selective breeding'! OK, so a mouse and pig didn't get it on and produce offspring, but the selectiveness of the genes used is essentially the same concept of selective breeding. Just faster. BTW, greater idea in using a gene to produce an enzyme to help in a more complete digestion.
What will the tinkering do to consumers? Nada. Well, maybe the taste won't be as good. But our stomachs teardown everything we eat into those compounds that we can absorb. Therefore, that DNA will be broken down into its amino acids wince the "DNA" is no longer recognizable as such.
But, FDA will need to propose guidelines and regulations concerning genectically engineered foods, both plant and animal, just to make sure a genetic modification didn't actually produce a plant or animal that turned poisonous.
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
The problem is the guidelines coming out with the mouse-pork is only 'suggestions' so...anything can go and probably will.
1 person likes this
@brenbelmonte (113)
• Philippines
24 Nov 08
This experiment, as well as others of the same kind only means one thing...a large majority of people all over the world is leaving the farms and this is alarming. I think our governments should organize a program to entice enough people or a majority of people to go back to their farms and produce.
I think it's high time that I should indulge myself into farming and raise my own pigs and chicken. I'll leave the cows to Australia.
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
You might want to start out smaller with a Victory garden. They are easy to maintain and can be done in containers which don't need land.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (157427)
• United States
24 Nov 08
It may just be time for me to go vegetarian and to grow my own at that. I wish they would quit meddling with the DNA of everything. It is scary. I do not think they really know what they are getting into.
2 people like this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
Vegetarians get to worry about corn with fish DNA that has contaminated all corn. Oh, don't forget those mutagenic spuds. Yummy!
2 people like this
@drknlvly6781 (6246)
• United States
24 Nov 08
Well, at first glance this may seem disgusting, but if you have been around enough Muslims in your life, you have heard the speech at least once that pigs are derived from a cat, a rat, and a dog; so throwing in a little mouse DNA really isn't that sickning lol. As long as the pork tastes the same, I don't think I will be eating any less.
2 people like this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
I didn't know that they thought that! They share their pork aversion with Jews.
1 person likes this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
2 Dec 08
In biblical times I think that pork had some diseases it doesn't have now...although the adding of mice into the mix...
1 person likes this
@drknlvly6781 (6246)
• United States
30 Nov 08
Yeah, it all goes back to the bible somehow. My rationalization is that its in the Old Testament, which the New Testament nullifies somewhat lol.
1 person likes this
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
24 Nov 08
The idea of growing my own vegetables and raising my own livestock is looking better and better every day.
We'll be eating pork with wacked out mouse DNA for better poo? Just WHAT will they think of next? Don't answer that.....
2 people like this
@irishidid (8688)
• United States
24 Nov 08
I'm reminded of the time I was with some people and someone mentioned the amount of bugs allowed in fig newtons. I said that was the little crunchy things in it. LOL
1 person likes this
@irishidid (8688)
• United States
24 Nov 08
On the writing forum I belong to a fellow writer dubbed me "Queen of the grue". I do gruesome very well.
1 person likes this
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
24 Nov 08
Yep, your new avatar fits you juuuuuust fine!
1 person likes this
@murderistic (2278)
• United States
24 Nov 08
That... is really disgusting. I mean, it's great that they're trying to do better for the environment and all, but I think it would be better to not genetically alter God's creation and it would be better if we didn't farm animals the way we do now at all.
Looks like I'm done eating pork. Not that I eat much of it anyway, my husband doesn't eat pork so there's never any in our house.
2 people like this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
I don't eat pork cuz it's expensive, but if they start wanking with turkeys...I'm in deep doo doo.
1 person likes this
@murderistic (2278)
• United States
24 Nov 08
Oh also I would like to add that pretty much all the meat we eat that we buy at the grocery store has a hint of mouse in it... mouse poop lol yay for poor regulations!
1 person likes this
@spalladino (17891)
• United States
24 Nov 08
I did read once about the official acceptable level of mouse and rodent droppings that were permitted in food processing plants but I try not to think about it too much......
1 person likes this
@murderistic (2278)
• United States
24 Nov 08
I try not to think about it either. Unfortunately I am poor and in debt and buy the cheapest lowest-grade meat available. I guess the highest grade meat you buy, the less rat poo you will find, but apparently it is almost impossible to avoid rats in meat packing plants... I have to wonder though, if they get close enough to the meat that they can poo on it, don't you think that they might get into the grinder sometime? It's not like the meat packaging plant workers are making enough money for them to care......
1 person likes this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
Poop is one thing. DNA is something else again. At least the poop is grade A original rodent...
1 person likes this
@Troublegum (641)
• United States
24 Nov 08
Ok, if it makes you feel any better or worse, you (as you are) share a huge amount of genetics with both pigs and Mice already. So given that you, mice and pigs are already so closely realted what is one more gene amounst friends.
So the pig now poo's like a mouse. Its poo was already more like a mouses than not, and it already sees in the same way, eats in the same way, contracts its mucsles (which are the same incidentally) in the same way, and shares all of the same bones, reproduces in the same way etc. etc. Now it just has one new digestive enzyme and we worry that the world is comming to an end. By the way, if you wanted to, you could eat mouse, and you can eat pig. I would like to see a study to see if you eat a lot of mouse if you poo like a mouse. I would guess that you wouldn't, but I don't know.
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
Mouse-pig is what we know about. It's what we don't that keeps me up at night.
1 person likes this
@CraftyCorner (5600)
• United States
26 Nov 08
Wimpier my underwear! A mouse can fit in the palm of your hand but a mad mouse can put the fear of the rodent in you.
1 person likes this
@Troublegum (641)
• United States
26 Nov 08
At least in this instance they are making the animal whimpier. It is when they start putting a little Tiger in with my cow that I start fearing for my life.
2 people like this
