Soy milk, rice milk, almond milk, hemp milk, oat milk, etc.: they all have one thing in common in that they don’t come out of a nipple, and I can understand some of the dairy industry’s concern over so many “fakers” taking control of “their” word. Frankly, with the growing number of options out there I’m almost as concerned as they are about dilution of the brand and consumer confusion, because I can see a time where it’s not going to be clear if the “milk” in a product or restaurant dish came from bovine mammary tissue.
That said, I don’t think we needed Fox News’ help resolving the issue:
All kidding aside, I will gladly take the dairy industry’s favourite words and rip them to pieces for whatever purposes I’m in the mood for. We’re talking about a group who, in Canada, made it illegal for margarine to be yellow because it could hurt sales of butter (that law was finally lifted a few years back.) I can’t find mention of this anywhere, but I have suspicions that it took a long time for fortified soy milk to arrive here because of industry lobbying – I do know that they fought the addition of soy beverages to the “milk and milk products” quadrant of the four food groups, and at the end of the day, it’s a marketing issue, not a health one. I don’t know about you, but I’m suspicious of any group’s nutritional claims when they’d willingly withhold nutrients from consumers because they don’t feel that they can compete.
Still, we’d better come up with a better name for soy milk than what Fox suggests. And probably soon: chocolate milk seems to have been replaced with “chocolate dairy beverage” lately, so I suspect something’s up. Or maybe they were just worried we’d come up with new names on their behalves for brown liquid products from an industry that tries not to talk about its other brown liquid byproducts [affiliate link].
I share this for no other reason than to gleefully mock those who propogate the “soy makes you gay” rumours: the president of Bolivia has declared that it’s chicken consumption that’s to blame for both homosexuality and baldness in men.
It turns out his theory didn’t come from a misunderstanding of the many uses of the word “cock” in English, but rather from a misunderstanding about hormones added to animal feed. I’d go deeper into the science, such as it is, but it’s pretty irrelevant since many countries have banned the use of hormones in poultry anyway. The ban was probably for health reasons, incidentally, but I doubt “Fear of Gayness” was one of them.
Anyway, he’s an idiot, clearly, but this is the first time I’ve seen chicken “linked” to baldness, so here’s an opportunity to make fun of my favourite cult science meme – the Sharks Don’t Get Cancer book. If you’re new here, the idea is that because sharks don’t get cancer, you should eat shark cartilage and you won’t get cancer either. By the way, sharks do get cancer, but still, there’s now nothing I fear more for the animal advocacy movement than a bestselling book of burger recipes called Cows Don’t Have Combovers, positing that since there are no bald cows, we need to eat them.
And by the way: on the soy/gay thing, to be honest, I think it’s encouraging. 20 years ago, it was vegetarianism that made you gay, according to idiots around the world. I like that we’ve gotten a lot more specific, since it’s a whole lot easier to disprove something like that. The next step will probably be soy eaten with a certain type of fork, and then the remaining scienticians will be laughed off the stage and we can keep enjoying the same meals we’ve been eating all along, with our boyfriends or girlfriends or whoever we like to hang with.
In last Saturday’s TVP, a few stories were shared about the joys of crossing the border when guards find out you’re vegetarian, and I thought maybe this was just bad luck, but then I saw “You are the Homegrown Terrorist Threat” and I’m not so sure. Granted, border crossing issues are by definition pretty orthogonal to domestic terrorism, but the sentiment is the same, especially if you read some of the criteria of things to watch out for. While the sample brochures mention animal rights and environmental extremism as considerations, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch for “not eating meat” to be considered “extremism” in the eyes of some people… On the bright side, we now have something in common with the infidel property rights advocates. Er, unless they’re ranchers.
pirhan reports that KFC has agreed to pay a $341,000 fine and warn consumers that their products contain a suspected carcinogen. The substance in question is called acrylamide, and it’s found in all kinds of things, but what’s really interesting to me is the lawyer’s spin on the situation: apparently paying over a quarter of a million dollars in fines and having to have health warnings on in-store posters is “win-win.” I can’t imagine what possible outcome the company was bracing itself for if they consider that a win. Oh, and if you’re outside of California, don’t hold your breath for warnings anywhere near you anytime soon – while this is clearly, by KFC’s own lawyer’s admission, a “win” for consumers, he isn’t aware of any laws elsewhere that would help KFC to “win” any further.
I don’t think it’s just the veganism talking when I say that the most appetizing parts of a hamburger when you see it on a billboard is the bright red tomato and the vibrant green lettuce – it’s just hard to make beige sexy. If you’re vaguely aware of the science of food styling, you might enjoy this look at several ad vs reality comparison shots of several (animal based) fast foods. Even when I order veggie burgers, I’m often disappointed with the product when it’s actually in front of me.
A Chinese legislator is quietly working on getting shark fin soup and other “unusual” animal-based dishes off of restaurant menus – at least while the 2008 Olympics are in progress. And maybe they just need to keep them away from foreigners. That’s right, while Xu Zhihong says that the dishes are an environmental issue, he’s more concerned with the image that they give China while the media’s in town. In other words, the only way to keep shark and snake off the menu is to get the Olympics permanently hosted in China, and maybe make it a monthly event. Link.
Jennypoo’s user name brought almost as big a smile to my face as her submission did: soft drink manufacturers are getting out of the soda business. Oh, they’ll still be making the same stuff, but in the future (oh, the glorious future!), they’ll be called “sparkling beverages” and, just like sugary cereal does, they’ll be working on fortifying their drinks with added vitamins. You know, one of these days the sugar companies will wise up and just start adding vitamins at the source, which will be weird. Anyway, the drink companies are stuck in a weird place, insisting that their diet drinks are part of a healthy diet (does this remind anyone of the McLibel testimony where a VP said pop was nutritious because it contained water?), but the general public tends to view diet pop as anything but natural. Clearly, adding more chemicals to the mix will fix the problem. What’s your soft drink consumption like? Link.
Peter sent word that the Australian government is planning on changing their laws so that the Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) can go after groups like PETA who organize boycotts against products or organizations. In PETA’s case, it’s in response to their campaign against Merino wool, which is produced using a process called mulesing, which involves ripping a strip of skin off of the sheep. That’s right, Australia wants their farmers to be compensated if it turns out nobody wants to buy their products. They’d also like a new rattle and a fresh bottle. I was looking up government responses to other boycotts in the past, and it turns out that this isn’t an uncommon reaction, or at least it wasn’t 50 years ago. Hey Australia, we’ve got this internet thing now, try pulling your heads out of your butts and recognize that consumers’ right to make informed buying decisions outweighs your farmers’ rights to make money through nasty practices like mulesing. Link.
You know how some omni cookbooks at least nod in the vegetarian or vegan direction by listing the substitutions necessary to take the kill out of cooking? Today, I am the spotter of the anti-trend. I don’t read a lot of cookbooks, but this may be a first: The Modern Ayurvedic Cookbook is a vegetarian cookbook, except for one little detail: “There also are suggested meat substitutions for non-vegetarians (Ayurveda is not exclusively vegetarian, although this book is).” Now, one could look at it as a loss of ground, with meat starting to seep into the veggie stock, as it were, or you could write it off as a basic attempt to increase a book’s audience, but I think there’s an alternate vision that could work here – what if this is the future, where healthy vegetarian meals take center stage and meat eating is destined to be marginalized like it’s the smoking section in the cookbooks of tomorrow? Thoughts? Link.
Nicole dropped me a note that (go vegan) suggests McDonald’s is running subliminal advertising on the Food Network. It’s more likely (go vegan) that this is some kind of editing or broadcast mistake, but if you need another reason to be angry at the arches, go ahead. My (go vegan) personal theory: since it’s the “Food” network and we’re talking about McD’s, advertising policy would (go vegan) only allow a single frame of content before the network would risk (go vegan) losing their license for stepping too far out of their mandate. Link.
