Read my article for VegNews on why it’s time to pull the curtain back on Big Meat even further.
Big Food
Pink Slime Outrage is Not a Vegetarian Plot
The debate over the use of so-called pink slime in ground beef, what industry refers to as lean finely textured beef, is heating up. Over the weekend, the meat industry hosted a massive picnic in Iowa (with what else, free burgers) to show its support for Beef Products Inc, maker of the filler. The event was held, fittingly, at the Tyson Events Center.
BPI’s Response to Outrage over Ground Beef? 3 Governors and a T-shirt
In a surreal press conference yesterday, Beef Products Inc took its best shot at making up for its silence during weeks of public lashing over what has been dubbed “pink slime,” an additive in ground beef made through a high-tech process that BPI invented. (See my previous posts here and here.) The event came in the wake of major grocery chains announcing they would stop selling beef containing the filler.
10 suggestions for female judges for NY Times’ “ethical meat” contest
Yesterday, I wrote about how the New York Times’ contest for meat eaters is great PR for the meat industry. Upon sending that missive to the Times, I had an email exchange with Ariel Kaminer, the paper’s Ethicist columnist, about various aspects of the contest. When I asked why all the judges were male, Kaminer replied that she couldn’t find one female expert in food ethics with a fraction of the name recognition of the men. She argued that the famous male judges would bring far more attention to the contest, and in turn get more people to consider the ethics of meat eating.
New York Times’ “ethical meat” contest is great PR for meat industry
The New York Times is holding a silly contest for meat-eaters to have their say. Here is my entry.
Was this really a burning problem that needed solving, the lack of justifications to eat meat? What do you suppose has caused America’s love affair with meat in the first place? A rapacious and deceptive industry that has brainwashed people into thinking that life cannot be lived without meat.
It saddens me that given all the pressing problems of our day, many of which caused by excessive meat eating (global warming, contaminated air and water, chronic disease, worker injury, and yes, animal suffering, just to name a few) the Times is promoting such a self-indulgent contest.
I am sure the meat industry is jumping for joy.
Moreover, we don’t need even more ways to polarize people over personal dietary choices. Let’s stop the infighting and focus on the core of the problem: corporate control of the food supply. How about a contest on how to fix that?
A leopard like PepsiCo cannot change its spots
PepsiCo makes money selling salty and sugary foods and whatever the aims it has stated in Performance with Purpose, it cannot get away from this, says Michele Simon.
Whistleblower to Maker of Pink Slime: “Quit Harassing Me”
This past week, the media woke up to the shocking reality that our meat supply is in fact industrialized. Long gone are the days of your friendly local butcher grinding meat for your kids’ hamburgers. Taking its place is a corporate behemoth you probably never heard of called Beef Products Inc.
Is it Time to Define ‘Natural’?
Thanks to an increasing awareness of where food comes from and its impact on our health, shoppers are becoming more discriminating, especially when it comes to processed foods. In response, many product manufacturers, fearful of losing customers, are slapping the “natural” label on foods that are anything but.
Read rest in Functional Ingredients magazine.
PepsiCo: Master of Corporate Spin?
When I ask people to name the largest food company in America, most don’t realize the answer is PepsiCo. You may just think soft drinks when you hear the name, but PepsiCo actually owns a dizzying array of food and beverage brands across five massive divisions: Pepsi-Cola, Frito-Lay, Gatorade, Tropicana, and Quaker Oats. As I recently told CNBC for their documentary, Pepsi’s Challenge, perhaps the leading maker of sugary drinks and salty snacks should bear some responsibility for America’s bad eating habits.
SNAP: the Other Corporate Subsidy in the Farm Bill?
As Enrollment Increases, USDA Should Require Purchase Data from
Food Stamp Retailers to Better Evaluate Nutrition Intake
This week Congress begins hearings on the 2012 farm bill, the massive piece of legislation that gets updated about every five years and undergirds America’s entire food supply, but that few mortals can even understand. As nutrition professor Marion Nestle recently lamented, “no one has any idea what the farm bill is about. It’s too complicated for any mind to grasp.”
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