If you’re eating meat in America, there are a number of issues that most people don’t know or don’t want to know about. However, if your health and well being are important to you, you’ll want to share this with your friends, family, school district food service and your favorite restaurants. It doesn’t have to be this way.
http://youtu.be/wshlnRWnf30
The takeaway
Parsing out someone’s argument — Oliver’s included — and examining its weaknesses does not necessarily mean none of the argument holds water. Medical Daily seems to agree, and points out astutely: “While it’s important to know what processes our food goes through, and especially what’s inside, it’s also important to refrain from exaggerating. Regardless, Oliver’s campaign raised awareness to the idea that many people don’t want the dirtiest, cheapest, throwaway parts of the meat.”
When we sift through the more sensational bits of Oliver’s demonstration — the washing machine as centrifuge, the cow, all the ammonia — and some of his presentation’s weaker points, we find the takeaway, which just makes good sense. We should know what’s in our food and how it’s processed. We should be made aware that the USDA and FDA disagree and believe that because the ammonia wash is part of a process, and not an ingredient in the meat, they feel consumers don’t have to be told about it. We should consider, if we insist on eating meat, grinding our own so we know exactly what we’re ingesting.
Most important, we should demand total transparency — how food is processed, what it is made from, how it is grown — so that once we are armed with all the information we can each make informed decisions. And in an age where we have information at our fingertips, how can we demand anything less?
