Mickey Z
Cool Observer
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Don't fry for me, Argentina
(Since my Veg News column is not available on line, I’m posting my latest here for your perusal.)
Faced with runaway inflation (over 12% as of late March 2006), Argentine president Nestor Kirchner dared to suggest his loyal subjects adopt a voluntary reduction in beef consumption. This unorthodox proposal gave Monte Reel of the Washington Post the ideal opening for a pro-beef salvo called “In Argentina, They’ve Got a Beef.” Subtitled, “Many Incredulous at Call to Eat Less Meat in Bid to Curb Inflation,” Reel’s article reads like a press release for the cattle-slaughter industry.
First off comes a quote from Argentine Guillermo Ugartemendia who calls the initiative “unthinkable” and “not a viable option,” as he polishes off “a rack of ribs at a steakhouse.”
“Asking Argentines to slow their beef consumption … is like asking Italians to say no to pasta, Parisians to skip wine, or the Chinese to eat less rice,” adds Reel before explaining that the people of this South American nation consume about 140 pounds a year per person of beef. That’s roughly 50 percent more than your average American…and tops in the world. To illustrate his beef with the less-beef idea, Reel waxes poetic: “A juicy slab of marbled steak is more than a meal for many of Argentina’s 39 million citizens; it’s part of their national identity.”
(To read the complete column, please click on “more” below.)
Next up was Patricia Campos, dramatically declaring that her three teenage children would “starve to death” if she dared to serve something like “fish fillets.” Rosa Paez was more philosophical: “It’s not a bad idea, but there are obvious problems with it. A lot of people here have never really understood the importance of eating greens, vegetables, or seafood. Personally, I don’t like seafood. So what can I do?” Adelina Ordoñez, of the Argentine Association of Dietitians, offered a compromise any flesh eater would adore: switch to “fish, poultry, lamb, eggs and other sources of protein.”
Apparently that was enough journalistic balance for the Washington Post. On cue, butcher Jorge Alejandro Santiago (as he “sharpened his knives and prepared to cut a chunk of tenderloin into steaks” scoffed: “What are people going to do, buy chicken? Chicken’s no good—it’s full of water. If you eat a piece of chicken for dinner, you’ll be hungry a half-hour later.”
This served as a convenient segue to “poultry man” Daniel Fernandez, ever ready to exploit the proposal in the name of selling more chicken carcasses. “I think the president’s idea was a very good one,” he said. “Look at the price of beef right now—it’s like robbery.”
No, “robbery” is what media outlets like the Washington Post do when their pro-corporate agenda embezzles any and all objectivity and context.
Copyright © 2005-2007 Mickey Z.
