This week, the FDA approved meat and dairy products from cloned animals as safe for sale and consumption. And to that I say, freaking finally! In this carnivore's opinion, meat technology has a long way to go to catch up with my expectations of what I imagined for 2008: The Future.

I have long been daydreaming about all of the formats in which meat should be available for purchase at the corner store. For instance, why can't I buy meat in a cone? Or in a squirty can, like cheez whiz? That sure would help me fit it on my Ritz. My friend who just moved to Berlin tells me about buying a jar of "Party Balls" (actual name), which are little balls of cooked hot dog meat. I am insanely jealous. And another thing. Why do little goodies in wrappers or boxes have to be sweet, or minty? Why not savory? (Bacon Bits don't count, because that's not real bacon, and Beggin' Strips don't count either, even though dogs don't know it's not bacon.) I dream of someday sitting in a movie theater and unwrapping delicious individual steaks the size of Milk Duds. Will you join me in this dream? This is America!

People, we have so far to go in the world of meat technology. Yes, yes, what a thrill to go online and order a big wooden crate of steaks and have them overnighted from a ranch in Texas, right? Yawn: I do it every weekend. The introduction of Turducken to the masses was exciting...for a week! And Spam is great, and so is that freeze-dried stuff that they give astronauts, blah blah blah. We're way past that now. It's been a whole year and a half since Professor of Meat Sciences Henk Haagsman of Utrecht University grew his first artificial pork meat cells out of pig stem cells. Come ON, people! It's the two-thousand-aughts! And did I mention this is America?

Apparently, some consumer advocate groups are weirded out by cloned cattle, dairy cows, goats, and delicious pigs, because of its possible ramifications on our "trade market" or "ethics" or "general health and well-being". But according to the Washington Post:

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.

Translation: we're already eating cloned meat, and have been for years. I believe it! One time my friend Sara, while making breakfast, cracked open three eggs in a row that all had double yolks. To that I say, bonus! Triple-egg western omelet? Make that a sixer! ("Sixer" is what I call it when I make an omelet out of six eggs.) As you can see, the benefits of little surprises of plenteousness far outweigh any "risks" that test tube meat might lead to.

This new technology isn't limited to meat alone. Oh, no. Check this out: I drink a lot of milk. It's full of protein and calcium, it's delicious with all kinds of food, such as cookies or a wooden crate of shrink-wrapped steaks. Would I be able to do 50 push-ups in a row without stopping without a steady diet of nutritious milk? Not likely. But here's the problem: it's pricey. And it goes bad, so you can't buy in bulk. Why do I want to go to the grocery store and pay $5 for organic milk when I can milk my own personal-sized hydroponic cow? They're breeding little lap dogs smaller and smaller these days, right? Why can't I have my own pet dog-sized cow that produces delicious fresh milk for me every morning? Kind of like a personal-pan pizza, but a cow? What about a tiny self-cleaning pet chicken that lives in a goldfish bowl and lays double-yolked eggs for breakfast? A goat that lives in your kitchen and also helps you with the dishes? I'm just brainstorming here; I'll work on these. But the possibilities are endless! It's 2008, the future of meat technology is now, and it's about freaking time!