Food News: How to Convince Everyone Beef Will Save the Planet
The newsletter that may or may not support milk shaming.
hi hi,
From global circumstances to personal ones, life continues to be a lot.
(If you’re not here for the personal life updates feel free to scroll straight to the news, I’ll never know the difference.)
The past few weeks most of my time and energy—not spent on work—have gone into dealing with a fairly extensive mold issue in our apartment. Dealing with it has mostly been in the form of throwing out a lot of moldy personal items, schlepping ourselves and most of our non-moldy personal items between Airbnbs, and trying to make the property management group responsible for our building adequately address and remedy our situation.
Some of my usual food news reading time has gone into reading local tenant rights laws, San Francisco city code, and learning about mold remediation. I can definitively say that I much prefer my usual reading fodder of food regulation, new studies, and endless articles about burgers.
I am not an optimist (shocking for someone who is always ranting about something on the internet) and I’m definitely not a look-on-the-brightside kinda person but I am trying. Trying to appreciate what I do have, and keep doing little things like letting myself zone out in front of the TV for a few hours, taking long walks with Ginny, grabbing ice cream with a friend, and taking advantage of the free washer and dryer in our current Airbnb. I still feel overwhelming anxiety and stress during these little things, but at least I have clean clothes!
Just gotta keep chasing this return-to-normalcy thing I’ve heard so much about.
A meme to match my current state:
A meme just for lolz:
-k
What I’ve Read
How meat and milk companies are racing to ease your climate guilt - I have never heard of Hopdoddy Burger Bar. Apparently, this is a burger chain that encourages customers to eat their burgers to fight climate change. The restaurant offers gluten-free buns, vegan options, and burgers made with “ethically sourced meats”. The company wants to push back on the narrative that eating animal meat is bad for the planet. So their narrative is that sourcing “100% grass fed, regenerative beef & bison,” will, “‘save the planet, one bite at a time.’” Hopdoddy is not unique in their use of greenwashing, environmental marketing claims, in fact, they are on par with the entire animal ag industry. Some advocacy groups are trying to bring accountability to these claims, including the EWG petition that the USDA should prohibit ‘climate-friendly’ claims on beef products. For now, burger joints, from Hopdoddy to McDonald’s, and multinational food conglomerates, like Nestlé, Cargill, and Tyson, can use clever marketing claims that confuse consumers just enough to make them doubt that industrialized animal agriculture is bad for the planet.
See the next article for a complete 180 from burger chains that market themselves as saving the planet.‘Climate-Friendly’ Meat May Not Sell in Europe, Literally - The European Parliament adopted new rules that aim to mitigate or prevent misleading and unsubstantiated environmental marketing claims (AKA greenwashing). The new laws would require producers to use only, “‘clear, objective, publicly available, and verifiable,’” marketing claims. Vague claims—climate-neutral milk, climate-friendly beef, responsible chicken, etc—that cannot demonstrate concrete environmental performance will fall under the new rules. Companies would need to provide detailed and realistic plans for implementation, specific and measurable targets, and what resources are allocated to achieve these claims. California is attempting to bring accountability to greenwashing claims through AB-1305 Voluntary carbon market disclosures, which will require businesses who make marketing claims about carbon offsets to disclose specifics to back up the claims on their website.
Unlikely Allies Want to Bar a Brazilian Beef Giant From U.S. Stock Markets - JBS, the world’s largest meat processing company and the biggest meatpacker in the U.S., wants to list on the NYSE. Interestingly, taking issue with this plan unites some Dems and Republicans and has even given the United States Cattlement’s Association pause. The gist of the opposition to this listing is that giving JBS access to more capital will fund more of the company’s devastating environmental impact and further its anti-competitive actions. JBS’s side is that listing on the NYSE would require stricter scrutiny of JBS’s governance and add more responsibility to pursue sustainability measures. Sure sure sure. This article also offers research and additional articles to learn more about climate change and the impact of the cow beef industry.
If this story interests you I recommend reading Raw Deal by Chloe Sorvino. It goes into the history of the industrialized animal agriculture and meat industry and how it became such a behemoth.
Inside the Beef Industry’s Campaign to Influence Kids - Remember the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) MBA? Well, the American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture (AFBFA) is doing its best to get kids on track to pursue that MBA by targeting, excuse me I must mean equipping, STEM teachers with lesson plans, learning resources, events, and webinars. You know, because “The need to provide support and resources to educators that scientifically accurate, unbiased messaging about the science of beef production is at an all-time high.” Who better to provide unbiased scientific communications and Farm STEM programs to teachers and students than the animal ag industry’s PR group whose entire purpose is to grow consumer trust in the beef industry? The AFBFA’s Beef-Based Curriculum Resources & On the Farm STEM program plainly states that one of its goals is to create stronger relationships between industry and teachers and promote, “a deeper understanding and appreciation of the beef industry”. Additional financial contributions to this program come from Dairy Management Inc. and include Checkoff-funded resources (AKA the federally funded program to market beef and beef products). AFBFA is giving Big Pharma lovebombing doctors with free meals, vacations, golf trips, and gifts.
Upside Foods’ Lab-Grown Meat Is Off the Menu at Bar Crenn, Its Sole Venue - When Upside Foods Inc and Eat Just Inc got regulatory approval to sell their lab-grown meat products last year it was huge news. It still is, even though their big plans haven’t quite been able to live up to the hype. More on Upside’s drama back in “What I’ve Read” from my September newsletter. Upside was offering its chicken at Bar Crenn for people who were able to score a reservation for, what appeared to have been, a once-per-month seating.
Should a Plan to Curb Meat Industry Water Pollution Consider the Business Costs? - The industrialized animal agriculture industry is terrible for the environment in many ways—land use, greenhouse gas emissions, water pollution, deforestation, etc. In January the EPA proposed the Clean Water Act Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Meat and Poultry Produce Category, which is open for public comments through March. This Act aims to reduce “the discharge of nutrients and other pollutants to the nation’s surface waters.” The estimated cost for the EPA is $232 million annually and estimates it will reduce the pollutants by 100 million pounds annually. According to Civil Eats, both the animal ag industry and environmental groups are concerned about the EPA’s plans. The animal ag industry is being pissy about the increased costs they will incur to meet these new standards and the environmental groups are anticipating the EPA will relax some of these standards or exempt certain facilities to minimize the costs for the industry. This article provides a further history of the EPA and pollutant regulation for animal agriculture, the logic from environmentalists, and actions by industry and legislators leading up to this public comment period.
Team Cow or Team Soy? The Milk Wars Roiling America - The dairy industry is just asking questions, ok guys? Remember Wood Milk? Well MilkPEP, The National Fluid Milk Processor Promotion or Fluid Milk Checkoff Program, is at it again. This time with Queen Latifah and dramatic YouTube videos of people who are the victims of “milk shaming”. Not much else new on the fight over milk labeling, the dairy industry and its supporters are still really pissed that plant-based milk dares to use the word milk even though they have permission and guidelines for use from the FDA.
If you can’t access any of the article links due to paywalls, please email oyveyitskay@gmail.com and I’ll be happy to share them with you. Many of the sources I reference offer the option to create a free account to read their content.
P.S.
As I mentioned in the last edition of Food News, I’ve donated the proceeds from January’s paid subscriptions to World Central Kitchen. Thank you to everyone who made this possible, your support—either monetarily or by sharing this newsletter with others—is deeply appreciated.
I encourage you to check out the work World Central Kitchen has done and continues to do to feed people in times of crisis and disaster. All people everywhere deserve to be fed and food secure.
“For now, burger joints…can use clever marketing claims that confuse consumers just enough to make them doubt that industrialized animal agriculture is bad for the planet.” This is frightening. Thanks for highlighting such an insidious issue.
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