Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Meaty words

It's all the consumer's fault! Bullshit about horsemeat.

The K-landnews resident vegetarian and former entrepreneur reports.

German retailers have joined the ranks of the Irish and the British, and German media has become serious about the meat crisis.

Bild online is screaming with its miniature font size of 72 dpi or so, and the normally sedate publications ZEIT, SPIEGEL, and others are off their rockers.

"Meat must become a luxury again", hollers one. "Consumers are the culprits because they demand ever cheaper meat", fingerpoints the next.

"Meat must become a luxury again" is well meant and, at the same time, ridiculous, says me the vegetarian.

Yes, you can bring up all these correct facts about how many resources go into meat production, how bad that is for the environment, how it is not the healthiest choice of food.

But that is not fundamentally different from so many other foods. You can make those arguments for sugar and salt as well, just to name two.

Horsemeat is not used because beef is inexpensive!

It is used because there is a price differential and because the average palate cannot taste the difference in prepared meals.

Like sawdust in bread, or high-fructose corn sirup in soda, it is 100% percent pure unadulterated business logic.

"Consumers are the culprits..." is a pathetically condescending view of the world.

All of a sudden, the poor food industry is the victim of a mob of consumers?  Come on, people! Yes, consumers have some power, but are you telling me that your choice of putting undeclared ingredients into our food is not a decision made by people at a food company?

That reasoning is the mode of thinking of a junkie!









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