“meatatarians unite”

When we were driving across the country recently, we saw lots of billboard signs, mainly in the middle bulge of America, displaying “meatatarians unite.” This I realized later was a Wendy’s ad campaign done about a year ago, promoting the consumption of meat.

The Highly Esteemed Council of Meatatarians is an establishment of meat lovers and eaters whose goal is to eat meat, and only meat, without the inclusion of other non-meat products, while celebrating meat with the utmost regard. Our goal is to continue our dominance atop the food chain and bring meat lovers to a new understanding of their nature, their calling to become true Meatatarians.

Wendys even created viral videos around the campaign like this one in which a head of lettuce devours a hamburger.

I think this is supposed to be funny as is the whole campaign. I find it a bit ridiculous and irresponsible with all of the recent issues of livestock production, food safety and obesity epidemic/fast food industry influence.

the conundrum of meat

As good as meat tastes, it is definitely better to eat less of it. is that stating the obvious? well, it is still being contested and from the recent new york times article, there is growing pressure on how to handle the immense demand for meat around the world, which has risen 200% in the last 30 years. This of course has created havoc for the environment, with meat production contributing 18% of emissions pumped into the atomsphere via our friend CO2 production. Not even sure if that number factors in processing, storing and shipping of the tasty flesh.

What to do? Steak tastes good. Chicken tastes good. Someone once told me that a true foodie is not a vegetarian. hmmm…sad. So, how to change this dilemma or at least tread more lightly on the earth? Some say to eat organic, grass-fed beef for example. I recently saw a news piece on BBC about Argentinean cattle farmers who produce some of the tastiest meat in the world. Why? because their cows dont come from the large cattle lots that we see in the U.S. Instead, they eat grass. But for some odd reason, during the entire news piece, i only saw cows in tight stalls, mooing constantly at the cameras looking much like the ones you see in the US. No grassy knowles, no red barns, now cows eating grass on knowles next to barns…