TRENDY, BUT NOT IN A GOOD WAY

OK, this is no big deal except for one phrase:

Giant Eagle is pulling foie gras from its Market District supermarkets in [Pittsburgh]. Giant Eagle officials said the company dumped foie gras because of concerns about seasonal availability, shelf space and sales trends, and not because of the animal rights groups' objections.

Did you catch it? "Sales trends" - wonder which way those are trending? Granted, a trend is not in itself a victory. But it does give some indication of how the wind is blowing.

TURN THE TABLES

Here's a HuffPost column by Kathy Freston making the email rounds, dealing with getting meat-eaters to stick a toe into the meatless world.

Not a lot here that will surprise any readers of this blog, but one conversational gambit stuck out to me: If someone says they can't become vegetarian because "I could never live without [animal product X]," tell them, "Fine - keep that one and give up all the other ones."

One friend told me that he just loves burgers too much to give them up; I suggested that he give up all animal products except burgers. Some of my friends can't give up ice cream or cream in their coffee or whatever - so give up everything but that. That's a huge step forward, and I suspect that after eating mostly vegetarian for awhile, you'll decide that those burgers or that ice cream aren't so tasty anymore. And you'll probably find that you enjoy the faux meats and dairy-free options just as much.

It could work! At the very least, it will catch the no-can-do types off guard.

DANGEROUS PEANUT BUTTER

I find it quite suspicious that within the past year several plant-based foods have been involved in fecal-contamination recalls, not the least because plants don't produce feces - unless, of course, you mean meat processing plants. But what's more absurdly annoying, if utterly predictable, is how the mainstream media generate hysteria for each of these, spreading the specious meme that it's not just animal-based foods, but all foods that are bad for you.

So now it's peanut butter with salmonella. You've heard about that, haven't you? But I'm willing to wager that just in the past month, you haven't heard about

the chicken salad with listeria (1500 pounds)

the ground beef with E.coli (2 tons)

the chicken breast strips with Listeria (26 tons)

...not to mention the many meat & dairy products recalled for "underprocessing," meaning they may not have been cooked enough to kill fecal bacteria.

Why haven't you heard about those? Oh, they're not a story - fecal contamination of meat is so commonplace it's not worth remarking on! Yet at the same time this silence allows the fiction to continue that eating meat is not a dangerous, ill-advised practice.