Credit: NorthIowaToday.com
Oh, to be a beef producer that has to slaughter 1.5 million more head of cattle and raise prices on poor consumers to accommodate retailers and school lunch programs that no longer wish to add the pink-slime-ammonium-hydroxide-laced additive that makes ground beef leaner.
And, guess who’s to blame? WE ARE!
We are the consumers who sit around all day on social media channels attacking this brand and that brand with our onslaught of detractions to effect change in the corporate world that has been doing the same thing for 20 years to unsuspecting families.
Alas. Social media is the corporation’s nemesis; well, it’s only the nemesis for those organizations that have something to hide, right?
I don’t eat red meat; I’m a flexitarian (look, Microsoft Word doesn’t even recognize that word) – I’ll eat meat on occasion, but I prefer to be a veg head – that’s what I crave (some say it’s because my blood type is A+ … the grades I got in school every day). I digress.
We’re talking about the pink slime debacle that the USDA is saying will cost…WAIT! There isn’t a cost in the Wall Street Journal article today; did that reporter fall down on his job? I bet he tried to get a price tag beyond “effectively slaughtering 1.5 million more cattle” to add to the story.
Hmm, can you put a price tag on healthier eating versus the risk of ingesting ammonium hydroxide filler in cheap cuts of meat sold by lower-value grocers to people without ability to purchase high-priced organic health foods for their families?
So, five governors in states that produce this poorly-labeled-and-pummeled (waahh) pink slime filler are lining up to defend “this unwarranted, unmerited food scare” according to the Governor of Iowa Terry Branstad alongside Texas Governor Rick Perry. They’ve both vowed to eat the product…hurray!
What’s missing from the story that also has the Nebraska governor upended is the number of jobs at risk for suspension of pink slime production (in Texas and Iowa, as well). I’m sure the reporter asked that question, too; after all, this is the Wall Street Journal reporting.
And, so, dear friends and consumers who sit around all day writing blog posts, posting detractions on social media and essentially rabble-rousing the entire population of Americans against an industry that has long functioned without consumer watchdogs…keep on. No sense crying over spilled pink milk, eh?
I, for one, applaud you.
