Oy Vey It's A Food Newsletter - Vol 2, Issue 9
A true-to-form newsletter made with mushrooms, sweet potatoes, carrots, farro, quinoa, and existentialism but none of that tech burger bullshit!
Hi,
My mood lately is perfectly encapsulated by a signle Bob’s Burgers scene. as per usual. (Also did anyone watch their mother’s day episode?) Anyways, we’ve made it to the end of May, which is also the end of Mental Health Awareness Month and Jewish American Heritage Month but don’t worry. I plan to continue being a mentally ill Jew year round! Time flies.
Hope you also have your okay faces on! If you don’t I’m sending okay vibes your way. I’ll catch up with you in a couple of weeks.
-Kay
What I’ve Read
Inside big beef’s climate messaging machine: confuse, defend and downplay- Thinking about going back to school and getting my MBA (Masters of Beef Advocacy) ha ha ha good one National Cattlemen’s Beef Association! This article gets into some of the strategies, PR, and propaganda employed by the cow beef industry to spread bullshit pseudoscience and misinformation and keep people consuming cow beef. This insight, while extremely frustrating, isn’t that surprising as I attended a webinar during NYC Climate Week last September that was sponsored by the Beef Checkoff program called “The case for including beef”. If you’re a newer subscriber you can review my webinar takeaways here.
More cow beef related news:Curious about Marion Nestle’s thoughts on the Beef Checkoff program? What a coincidence she wrote about their ad earlier this week. I will say that I definitely take issue with one of her concluding thoughts saying, “the beef industry is under siege these days from people who care about health and the environment.”
The Environmental Working Group petitioned the USDA to prevent animal meat producers from making low carbon claims as well as requiring the independent verification of climate claims on food in general.
The Prevalence of the “Natural” Claim on Food Product Packaging - This is a report from the USDA ERS that conducted a literature review and used data from 2018 provided by IRI InfoScan and Label Insight to evaluate the prevalence of “natural” claims on food labels and consumer understanding of the meaning of the label. Shockingly, the report disclosed that there is very little federal regulation of the “natural” label claim yet consumers perceive naturally-labeled products to be well-defined and have certain health and environmental attributes.
Editorial: Got free speech? An LAUSD student is restricted from promoting non-dairy milk - Marielle Williamson, a 17 year old student asked permission from her school to “distribute literature that described the health and equity problems associated with serving dairy milk to students” outside the school cafeteria and was apparently told she could not without also providing literature that includes its benefits. Williamson had previously gotten permission from school administrators to hand out samples of oat milk and pea protein milk and discussing the benefits of nondairy milk but was denied permission in this recent event. Williamson joined a lawsuit filed by the Physicians Committe for Responsible Medicine against the USDA and LAUSD on the grounds that her first amendment rights were violated.
Undercover audio of a Tyson employee reveals “free-range” chicken is meaningless - This is a longer piece that is really worth the read as it provides a deep dive into the advertising and labeling claims of animal meat, dairy, and eggs as well as an overall look at the cruelty throughout the system. The article also provides information from an undercover investigation, catching a candid conversation by chicken factory farm workers acknowledging that free range is essentially meaningless. The breeding practices, conditions, and lives of animals on factory farms, or animals in general that are raised for human consumption, are unnecessarily horrible, most of us are lucky enough not to come face-to-face with exactly how terrible their lives and slaughter are. The work of undercover investigations like this are extremely important. This information should be more well known but as we know, animal agriculture has many strategies and virtually unlimited resources to maintain their power and the status quo, Tyson especially. If you do consume animals or their secretions while having the choice and ability not to do so, please do not skip this article. If you consume chickens and think that “free-range” means higher welfare, you’re kidding yourself and farm workers have now been documented proving so. In case their recorded words aren’t enough, the article also includes the gist of the depressing USDA definition for chicken producers using the free-range label—that the producers “must provide birds ‘continuous, free access to the outside’ for over 51 percent of their 6.5-week lives.” Note that “free access” does not guarantee access and the USDA does not aduit free-range farms to enforce such specific requirements. 6.5 week lives spent knowing nothing but the horrors of a factory farm. Can you imagine?
Op-ed: Black Women, Architects of the American Kitchen, Deserve a Rightful Place in the Sun - Unsurpisingly, I knew almost nothing of the history that was shared in this Op-ed and have very little commentary to offer, other than a few quotes that I hope will persuade you to read it for yourself. "Black women’s contributions to the project of American cookery hasn’t been reflected in a way that even begins to scratch the surface of the true history. And the industry seems content with this fact.” According to the article citing the 2019 census, the amount of American restaurants owned by Black women is about 0.33%. “Today, almost a third of Black women are employed as service workers, compared to one fifth of white women.” The author, Mecca Bos, offers a compelling takeaway that despite the history and current lack of recognition and equitable opportunities for Black women in the industry and foodways they created, we shouldn’t stop, “imagining an America where the legacy of Black women’s intellectual property and centuries of culinary know-how gets applied to the restaurant world and a true American cuisine emerges that hails from the actual founding of this nation—the arrival of enslaved Africans to the colonies.”
Court upholds California animal-welfare law - If you are not familiar, Proposition 12 was passed by 60% of California voters in 2018. The Proposition requires that pig pork products sold in Califonia must come from breeding pigs that have at least 24 square feet of usable floor space as opposed to being confined to their gestation crates that are about 7’x2’. Prop 12 also outlined regulations for egg-laying hens, and cows being raised for veal. These guidelines extend to any of these animals that are raised for consumption to be sold in California, meaning out-of-state animal agriculture producers must comply with these standards or lose out the California market. Opposition has been strong from the animal agriculture industry over the last few years and earlier this month the Supreme Court upheld Prop 12. As this post states, this will likely set a precedent for other states to pass similar animal-welfare laws, though Justice Kavanaugh may have issued this as a warning I see it as hope. Hope for harm-reduction to make the lives of animals farmed for human consumption a little less miserable.
Q&Kay
I’m interrupting this Q&Kay to share an interesting event next week. It’s a free 90-minute webinar called Making the Climate Connection: A discussion on how to improve media coverage of the food-climate connection hosted by Sentient Media.
As someone who frequently complains about how the media covers food and climate issues, the least I can do is amplify an event addressing exactly that! This is not sponsored in any way, I also signed up for free to see what they have to say. One of my initial impressions is that there should be greater diversity and representation of people from minoritized and marginalized communities on this panel. I am excited to see what information and resources these experts, who come from a range of professional backgrounds, will share.
Let me know if you sign up so we can learn together!
Also, be sure to submit a question for the next newsletter! Maybe I’ll answer 2 to make up for this interruption and the newsletter I skipped.
Submit your anonymous question here!
Kvetch Sesh
Thank God, Veggie Burgers With Actual Vegetables Are Making a Comeback
Of course, I saw this article shared by a non-vegan nutrition professional in a post that stated, “I’m an omnivore but I love ❤️❤️❤️plants and vegetables. Real plants 🥗 Real beans 🫘 Real vegetables 🥕 🥦🍠”.
I read this article two or three times to try and summarize it in the What I’ve Read section and I couldn’t. It’s not really worthy of news but it irked me to the point where I felt the need to offer a paragraph-by-paragraph analysis. For the sake of this kvetch, I’m going to generously write from the assumption that this isn’t just some fluffy PR for Shake Shack that is pandering to the “real food” foodies.
Paragraph 1:
With the rise of Impossible and Beyond burgers, the veggie burger has been in a bit of an existential crisis on American menus lately, as restaurants (and fast food chains in particular) quickly — and, for some, controversially — adopted the new products. In the Washington Post in 2019, Alicia Kennedy, author of the forthcoming No Meat Required, posed the question: With tech burgers taking over, “will true veggie burgers go extinct?”
A very dramatic start by pretending this is an “existential crisis”, this hyper-focus on fake meat feels very moral panic-y. Also “tech burgers” is a new-to-me term, I find it odd to describe Impossible and Beyond burgers as such without adding descriptors like “CAFO-raised” or “factory-farmed” for cow burgers. And yes, I get the play on words by asking if “true veggie burgers” will go extinct, but I also think it’s in poor taste considering how early American colonial agricultural practices and forced relocation of Indigenous peoples actually decimated animals Indigenous to this land, like bison, to near extinction.
Paragraph 2:
But today, in a sign that the pendulum may be, on a large scale, swinging back in favor of old-school, actual-vegetable veggie burgers: Shake Shack announced that it’s launching the Veggie Shack, a true-to-form veggie burger made with mushrooms, sweet potatoes, carrots, farro, and quinoa.
This really just really makes it hard to maintain the assumption that this is not just PR.
Paragraph 3:
Despite fast food’s eager adoption of the new fake meat products, the category appears to be in a slump. Over the past three years, Burger King has struggled with its Impossible Whopper, McDonald’s has dumped its meatless McPlant, and Dunkin’ has found that Beyond sausage floundered. The New York Times reported that between 2021 and 2022, Beyond Meat’s stocks dropped nearly 83 percent. But real vegetables, flavored well — that’s a veggie burger option we ought to return to. And Shake Shack seems to agree, rolling out its new veggie burger across the country this week.
Eager adoption? Impossible Foods launched in 2016 and the Impossible Whopper didn’t debut until 2019. Beyond Meat products first launched in 2012. Dunkin’ didn’t debut the Beyond Sausage until 2019. The McDonald’s McPlant was a Beyond Meat patty, made from pea protein, rice, and potatoes (are those ingredients real enough?) that aimed to mimic the texture of beef. It was tested in the US in late 2021 and early 2022, though much more widespread in international markets, the McPlant never launched nationally in the US. The source cited by this author mentioned that the McPlant was a genuinely bad product calling it, ‘floppy,’ ‘soggy’ and ‘gloopy’” with other coverage of this supposed failure citing the likelihood that people who don’t consume meat are not big fans of McDonald’s and its reputation. The McPlant, like other fast food iterations of animal-free burgers, was also served with cow-dairy cheese, non-vegan mayo, and cooked on a grill with cow burgers (cross-contamination, an actual contentious if not borderline existential debate within the vegan community). As for the Beyond Meat stock prices, that’s hardly a good indicator of the true demand of everyday vegans, vegetarians, or even flexitarians. From the little I do know of the stock market, it seems to be frequently out of touch with the general public.
Paragraph 4:
Unlike its other burger-slinging competitors, Shake Shack has notably resisted tech burgers; the primary vegetarian option on its menu before this week was the fried, cheese-filled ‘Shroom Burger. It has previously tested other variations on the Veggie Shack for limited periods in select locations. Chik-fil-A took a similar approach earlier this year, testing a fried cauliflower sandwich as a vegetarian option (instead of, say, a fried fake chicken cutlet).
Seriously, is “tech burgers” a popular term that has somehow gone over my head even though I read at least three stories a week about animal-free burgers? If you don’t read as many news stories published every time a fast food company exec sneezes, Shake Shack nationally launched non-dairy desserts and a meatless burger at the beginning of this month. Calling their go-to-market approach notably resistant seems pretty overstated considering they have had a ‘Shroom Burger for years, trialed meatless burgers in 2018, and collaborated with Slutty Vegan in 2021, in addition to their other products tested in international markets. Shake Shack’s current non-dairy desserts are a collaboration started in 2022 with The Not Company, which prides itself on using AI to create plant-based versions of animal products. Would this make them tech shakes? In case you were curious, the new Veggie Shack burger is not vegan by default as it’s served with animal-based cheese and mayo. As for Chick-fil-A, they do not even consider their cauliflower sandwich vegetarian. Considering this article was written on May 2nd, it seems pretty early to sing its praises in the same paragraph where you note the supposed failures of other fast food competitors.
Paragraph 5:
Its many problems aside, corporate fast food is a good indicator of consumer interest. What it puts on the menu is what it assumes to be appealing to a broad swath of American consumers. (It’s clearly not always right, as is the case with its unsuccessful fake meat experiments.) But this big reappearance of the definitely-vegetables burger suggests that people are interested in a return to form after trying out tech burgers.
I’m honestly surprised the editor left this paragraph in, I guess they felt the article needed some fluff. Fast food companies may be an indicator of consumer interests, but let’s not kid ourselves, they’re not a good indicator of them and these companies are not altruistic and whatever PR stunts they pull, they continue to engage with and fund activities that go against the wellbeing of many consumers. Wading through the fluff, I get stuck on the last sentence. Calling this product launch a suggestion that, “people are interested in a return to form after trying out tech burgers” would mean that people were interested in plant-forward veggie burgers before Beyond and Impossible hit the scene. I don’t doubt that there are plenty of veggie burger lovers out there, but I would love to see some data on the before and after picture impact the author is alluding to here. Anecdotally, I’ve been vegetarian since 2008-ish, I ate my fair share of Boca Burgers and limp, dry black bean burgers in restaurants. I can’t recall enthusiasm for those products so much as basic gratitude that we had a choice of protein when dining out.
Paragraph 6:
For one thing, good vegetable burgers are a little less contentious than fake meat. Meat is rife with cultural meanings, making plant-based approximations particularly polarizing; not to mention, not even vegetarians necessarily want fake meat either. Finally, fast food brands are recognizing what vegetarians have long known: There is so much potential in making real, recognizable vegetables and legumes taste good, in patty form, without the need to approximate beef.
Why is there so much contention in the first place? Could it be because food and industry media are constantly churning out takes like this; spreading chemophobia, Big Ag propaganda, and categorizing foods that aren’t made from animals, animal secretions, or pure whole, plant-based foods as “fake”? Of course animal meat is rife with cultural meanings, all foods and foodways have diverse and significant cultural and historical meanings. This includes plants, which have been staples of food and medicine for civilizations around the globe for thousands of years. These “plant-based approximations to meat” are polarizing, sure, because everything in our US white supremacist, capitalist, hellscape of a society is polarizing. We can acknowledge different preferences and politics without conveniently erasing the rich history of primarily plant-based cultures, some of which have been making and eating tofu and plant-based meats for centuries in various Asian countries like Japan, Indonesia, and China. Of course, there is potential in vegetable and legume innovation for those vegetarians who don’t want fake meat, just as there is potential to approximate beef and do so with more nutrient-dense ingredients, if that’s what you’re after. There is literally endless potential for what we can do with our food. But let’s also take a moment to point out that there is so much diversity within both vegetarian and vegan communities. Lumping us under these broad identifying terms and then tokenizing the opinions of some to prove a convoluted point about plant-based whole-foods superiority while simping for Shake Shack is so so strange.
So anyways, I’ve never been to or eaten Shack Shack. Are these new menu items worth all this fuss? How many times would I need to eat these Veggie Shack items (with no cheese and no sauce) to prove to fast food corporations that vegans are still here and need to eat, regardless of what their stock prices may say?
This week’s Ginny photo is extra special, it came from a custom portrait I was gifted by Portrait Me. This screenshot does not do the real life version justice but I am absolutely in love with the painting! They did create a discount code for to share, if you are interested in getting your own use code “OYVEY” at checkout. :)
Very interesting read as always. I especially liked the paragraph-by-paragraph analysis of the Shake Shack article. It is always so frustrating to me when people give me crap for liking ''''tech'''' burgers or other meat approximations. We're allowed to like yummy flavors?? I know lots of people appreciate a good black bean burger, myself included, but why can't we just like both?
Being vegetarian and vegan doesn’t require eating food that resembles or tastes like meat. Vegetarian food is rich in flavor and taste beyond the realm of meat. The faux meat that is available is loaded with chemicals and preservatives.
Enjoy the essence of the plant world without chemicals and laboratory created flavouring.