Cattlemen Work To Protect Consumers and a Gutless Coward Mocks Them For It
“I never forgot that he had as much reason to fear my forces as I had his. The lesson was valuable.”
By Jim Mundorf
The U.S. Cattlemen’s Association have submitted a petition to the USDA. There's no way in hell I'm going to read a 16 page legal petition but I read enough to get the idea. Here are the key points:
“USCA has learned that some major U.S. meatpackers and companies in other countries are heavily investing in creating alternative products that may resemble in appearance and taste beef products, including synthetic “beef” and “beef” grown in laboratories using animal cells, known as “in vitro” meat, “bio meat,” “clean meat,” or “cultured meat. Such products, which are not derived from animals born, raised, and harvested in the traditional manner, should not be permitted to be marketed as “beef,” or more broadly as “meat” products. The labels of “beef” or “meat” should inform consumers that the product is derived naturally from animals as opposed to alternative proteins such as plants and insects or artificially grown in a laboratory.”
Read the full petition Click Here
Meats not meat til its in the pan By Charlie Russell
Its funny how every time one of these fake meat outfits put out a press release it seems to get picked up and trumpeted by every major national media outlet, but when the U. S. Cattlemen, the people who are actually feeding the world, do it, it is mostly ignored.
The one National media outlet that did cover the petition is Forbes. Michael Pellman Rowland wrote the article, Labeling Wars: The U.S. Cattlemen's Association Has Beef With Its Competition. There he says of the USCA, “It’s their argument that consumers are being confused and misled when they’re sold burgers and other meat products that contain alternative protein. Since this really doesn’t give much credit to the average Joe at the grocery store to be able to discern the difference between burgers made from ground beef or quinoa, it seems the real motivation is driven by fear.”
I'm not sure that's their argument at all, but since Mr. Rowland's article doesn't quote the petition or post a link to it, I guess his readers will just have to take his word for it, which is exactly how he wants it.
So maybe we should look at what ol’ average Joe is dealing with at the grocery store.
Beyond Meat boasts on their website that their fake plant meat can be found in the meat aisle of 650 Kroger owned grocery stores. So what kind of dumbass would pick up a package in the meat aisle that is packaged like meat, has the word, “meat” on it, and think that it is actually meat? It seems Mr. Rowland believes that, that would never happen so, “the real motivation is driven by fear.” On that point he just might be right.
Fake Meat is NOT FDA Approved.
Back in August, in Mr. Rowland’s own Forbes, Maxwell Arnold wrote this article, How The 'Impossible Burger' Revealed Some Disturbing FDA Practices. In it he tells of how Impossible Foods, another fake meat company, was selling their plant based burger called the Impossible burger, and even though they didn’t have to, they submitted it to the FDA to be inspected. When the FDA found that one of the ingredients could not be recognized as safe, Impossible Foods just kept right on selling it anyway. The crazy thing is that, that is completely legal. According to Mr. Arnold, “Even though the FDA specifically disapproved of the Impossible Burger’s key ingredient (soy leghemoglobin) for human consumption, expressing concerns that it may be an allergen, it came to light that the FDA’s approval was never even required in the first place, since food manufacturers can self-affirm ingredients as being safe under the agency’s GRAS (Generally Recognized as Safe) program. According to Pew Charitable Trusts, the FDA is unaware of some 1,000 out of 10,000 ingredients used in food, because companies self-affirmed their safety.”
So it seems Mr. Rowland is correct the USCA’s petition could very well be motivated by fear, because according to Mr. Arnold the Impossible Burger, “brings to light a massive issue that makes a lot of people uncomfortable… might we have been eating foods without FDA approval all this time? Moreover, might we have been eating foods all this time that were specifically disapproved by the FDA, but they were sold anyway? Yikes. These are scary thoughts to the average person.”
The “average person,” maybe his name is Joe and now when the, "average Joe" is in the meat aisle he has a choice between meat from animals, processed in a USDA inspected facility, and recognized as safe, or something fake that the, “FDA specifically disapproved of,” but is being sold anyway. Soon Joe might be finding meat that was grown in a lab and has been injected with God knows what. Maybe some labels do matter.
The Gutless Coward
It is obvious that Mr. Rowland’s article was written to convince readers that the fake meat will soon be taking over the beef industry and the USCA are a bunch of fraidy cats, shaking in their boots at the thought of it. The reason he writes this is because he doesn’t understand fear. He thinks that stating that the USCA is, “motivated by fear,” shows them to be scared. The truth is that being motivated by fear, and standing up to it by being honest and open about it, is actually the definition of courage.
The reason Michael Pellman Rowland doesn’t understand the concept of fear and courage is because he is a gutless coward. In truth, he is the one that is scared. Scared that his beloved fake meats might have to carry labels explaining what they really are. Scared that consumers will see the truth behind the fake meat industry's lies. Scared that his readers might find out that he is actually not a Journalist, but an activist.
Mr. Rowland doesn't want to stand up to his fears and confront them honestly, he prefers to hide like a scared little sheep behind the veil of Journalism. He pretends to report on the food industry while in reality he is simply an activist against the cattle industry. When reporting on the USCA's petition he did not link to the petition so his readers could see it. Instead he linked to the Good Food Institute, another cheerleader for fake meat. Just about everything he writes, either promotes veganism and fake meat or disparages the livestock industry. He does not report news, his articles are simply propaganda. The link on his Forbes bio, to his Twitter account conveniently doesn’t work. I would assume that is because he doesn’t want his readers to see that he is no journalist but a propaganda machine for the fake meat industry. Here are a few of his most recent tweets:
All of these are complete BS
These are not the tweets of a Journalist but those of an activist. The US Cattlemen's petition simply asks for honest labels so that customers will know what they are buying, and so producers, who work hard to create a safe, quality product, are not lumped in with people who obviously don't care if what they are selling is safe.
The media continues to rail against the term, "fake news," but how do you publish an article about a petition and not have one quote from it, or post a link to it? Hiding documents from readers and spewing your biased opinions on them is not reporting. Organizations like Forbes continue to employ and promote people like Michael Pellman Rowland. Who is simply a fake journalist, pedaling fake news, and promoting a fake industry. He does this all while hiding from the truth. Coward is the only label he deserves.