Chuck's Chat-Welcome to May!
Seems as though it was just the other day we were battling record cold temperatures and record-breaking energy bills. And yet, here we are, one-third of the way through 2021.
May is nationally recognized as “Beef Month”. For many Midwestern cattle raisin’ folks like me, every month is beef month. However, there are those that walk among us trying to not only replace meat with synthetic, laboratory devised, chemical laden substances, but also shut down animal agricultural production as we currently recognize. Not only are they serious, they’re active as well.
MeatOut Day was started in 1985 by the Farm Animal Rights Movement, a nonprofit animal welfare organization. Since then, MeatOut Day proclamations have been issued by state and national authorities around the world. Gov. Jared Polis of Colorado recently declared March 20 to be “MeatOut Day,” seeking to decrease meat consumption and encourage meat eaters to consider plant-based diets.
You can now pop into any Walmart, Target, or any grocery store along with some popular chain restaurants and actually find fake meat products on shelves and menus. There are several aggressive companies jumping on the beef bashing bandwagon. Beyond Meat prides themselves on being the first in the world to create a plant-based burger that “looks, cooks, and satisfies like beef without any of the GMO, gluten, or soy”. Impossible Foods is another popular fake meat brand that specializes in fake burgers made from soy and potato proteins. You can find Impossible burgers and other products at chain restaurants like Burger King, Red Robin, and Little Caesars.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the agriculture sector was responsible for 10% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions as of 2019. Some want to blame cattle for this, because they belch on one end and fart on the other. Actually, according to the EPA, cattle account for 2% of the total US ghg emissions. By the way, transportation and industry sectors were found to be responsible for a combined 52%.
On April 26, Epicurious, a popular social media recipe site, made the following statement. “Today Epicurious announces that we’ve done just that: We’ve cut out beef. Beef won’t appear in new Epicurious recipes, articles, or newsletters. It will not show up on our homepage. It will be absent from our Instagram feed.
We know that some people might assume that this decision signals some sort of vendetta against cows—or the people who eat them. But this decision was not made because we hate hamburgers (we don’t!). Instead, our shift is solely about sustainability, about not giving airtime to one of the world’s worst climate offenders. We think of this decision as not anti-beef but rather pro-planet.”
I’ve seen many bloggers, agricultural advocates, and just plain pissed off people respond publicly with well thought out, exceptionally written responses. Friends, you don’t have to be a professional writer to express your concern. You don’t have to be a food scientist, a dietitian, or a carnivorous consumer like me to share the positive story of animal agriculture. Follow the Montgomery County Farm Bureau Facebook page everyday this month for posts highlighting the many health benefits of beef, byproducts, recipes, and other general information about beef, cattle production and sustainability. Feel free to share as you see fit. We (beef supporters) need all the help we can get.
It’s not just wealthy East or West coast big city fashion trending socialites we need to worry about. They’re in the legislature, they’re in the schools, and they’re in our own communities as well.
They walk among us.
God Bless America
Until next month,
Chuck Voelker