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Does that steak look strangely familiar? It may not just be you.

Food made from cloned animals may become a regular part of the North American diet after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced yesterday that it's safe to eat meat and drink milk from cloned livestock.

It's a highly charged ruling that has prompted a swarm of ethical questions as it paves the way for the introduction of new products on grocery-store shelves in coming years.

The FDA's assessment, based on several years of study, will open the door to companies that want to market food products from cloned cows, pigs and goats, or their offspring.

Still, some industry experts and advocacy groups have serious doubts consumers will be able to overcome their stomach lurches and science fiction-fuelled fears and eat cloned food.

"The stuff has such a powerful yuck factor," said Joseph Heath, a University of Toronto philosophy professor and co-author of The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't be Jammed. "Presumably the best way to market cloned meat is to not tell people it's cloned meat."

That may be what the industry is betting on. The FDA has decided that since food from cloned livestock is as safe as that from conventionally bred animals, those products won't require special labels before they are put on sale. However, companies that want to label their products as clone-free can make a request to the FDA.

Health Canada made no comment yesterday except to say there are no cloned food products approved for human consumption in Canada.

But it seems unlikely the country will continue to restrict cloned food products from entering the marketplace indefinitely, since top health officials in the United States and European Union have deemed them safe.

The EU's food-safety authority made its decision public earlier this month, but hasn't yet approved cloned food products for sale.

Most animals are cloned through a process known as somatic cell nuclear transfer, in which an animal cell is added to the nucleus of a female egg. Once the egg has become an embryo in a lab, it can be implanted in the uterus of a surrogate carrier.

Cloning offers major advantages to producers by allowing them to make copies of animals with the most desirable traits, such as strength, disease resistance and high milk production.

In the United States, the government has asked producers to adhere to a voluntary moratorium to allow for a period of adjustment. The government has not indicated how long the moratorium will last.

After the freeze is lifted, it will probably take a substantial amount of time before cloned food products make their way into North American grocery stores, as it is still costly and time-consuming to produce cloned livestock.

But many producers could start using cloned animals to breed high-quality livestock, which can produce offspring through traditional sexual reproduction that will eventually make its way into grocery stores.

"I think if the technology proves to be safe, which seems to be the case, I don't see a major problem there," said Vilceu Bordignon, a professor in the animal science department at McGill University. Last year, Mr. Bordignon and a team of researchers became the first to clone pigs in Canada.

Some groups are opposing the FDA's decision as a result of ethical concerns over the welfare of cloned animals that die before birth or suffer serious health problems.

"This is the most brutal way to make an animal," said Jaydee Hanson, policy analyst at the U.S. Center for Food Safety.

The group said the FDA should have studied the issue longer and used a wider array of peer-reviewed journals before making a decision.

Some companies, such as Dean Foods, one of the largest food and beverage companies in the United States, have decided not to wade into the highly contentious market.

"Numerous surveys have shown there just isn't an interest in food products from cloned animals," said Dean Foods spokeswoman Marguerite Copel. The company also won't accept any milk products from cloned animals.

In coming to its decision, the FDA spent more than five years studying published reports and information on cloned animals, including their size, behaviour and biological characteristics, to determine whether they could present a health risk to humans.

The agency concluded that food products from cloned cattle, pigs and goats have the same composition as conventional products. It said it had insufficient information to give an approval for sheep.