What's After Mad Cow? Attack of the Killer Tomatoes?

Ever-hysterical, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) claims that any animal with a brain can get mad cow disease. Eat the tainted meat, they claim, and you get it too. But guess what folks? Science Daily reports that even tomatoes may not be what you think they are.

"If you eat meat," say PETA's intrepid animal activists, "you already have to worry about salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, heart disease, strokes, high blood pressure, and cancer, as well as your weight. Now, add mad cow, chicken, fish, pig, and turkey disease to the listóthat's right, if there's a brain, it could have a spongy brain (spongiform encephalopathy); we've already identified mad cow disease variants in humans, sheep, mink, cows, elk, deer, and cats."

I'm a vegetarian. I try not to eat anything that blinks. But what if you are a carnivore? Gee, whatever would we do without PETA? They offer a free vegetarian starter kit will help you learn to love tofu, tempeh and other healthy yummies.

Attack of the killer tomatoes
But don't think vegetables are safe. Science Daily reports that The University of California, Davis, is recalling about 30 tomato seed samples, distributed during the past seven years to research colleagues in the United States and abroad, after recent tests showed that the seed was not the intended variety, but rather a very similar variety developed through biotechnology.

The mutant seed contains a commercially approved biotech trait, referred to as the PG trait. That trait, which improves the thickness of tomato paste, had been approved in 1994 for use in human food. "It is unclear when or where the seeds were mislabeled." Or whether you'll get mad tomato disease if you eat them.

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