USDA retracts 'Meatless Monday' plug

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: New York Times

The message seemed innocuous enough, coming as it did from the federal agency tasked with promoting sustainable agriculture and dietary health: "One simple way to reduce your environmental impact while dining at our cafeterias," read a U.S. Department of Agriculture interoffice newsletter published on its website this week, "is to participate in the 'Meatless Monday' initiative."

Thousands of corporate cafeterias, restaurants and schools have embraced the idea of skipping meat on Mondays in favor of vegetarian options, an initiative of the nonprofit Monday Campaign Inc. and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.

But by Tuesday afternoon, amid outraged Twitter messages by livestock producers and at least one member of Congress, the agency's "Greening Headquarters Update" had been removed. "USDA does not endorse Meatless Monday," a spokeswoman said in a statement. The newsletter, which covered topics like the installation of energy-efficient lights on the Ag Promenade and recycling goals, "was posted without proper clearance," the statement said.

A spokesman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which drew the offending passage to the USDA's attention on Tuesday afternoon, called it "a slap in the face of the people who every day are working to make sure we have food on the table to say 'Don't eat their product once a week.'"


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/usda-retracts-meatless-monday-plug-646181/#ixzz21jgwMC9r

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/usda-retracts-meatless-monday-plug-646181/

[april]

1. and of coarse they own half of the politicians

[thesquanderer]

2. No surprise...

...that the government's recommendations about what we should eat for best health and how we should behave for best environmental impact are going to be heavily influenced by what's good for various industries.

[awoke_in_2003]

3. The cattle growers...

are a sensitive bunch, aren't they? The USDA should have told them to pound sand.

[bayareaboy]

4. Does bacon count?

If you put enough cheese on top. It might work.

I mean it is good to have beef, but we can work it out.

[docgee]

5. God damn... Grow some balls!

Any doctor will tell you eating meat seven days a week will make you fat and sick.

Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. ~Albert Einstein

[happyslug]

6. USDA Opposed "Victory Gardens" at the start of WWII

Last edited Thu Jul 26, 2012, 10:50 AM - Edit history (1)

Meatless Mondays were a WWI and WWII USDA programs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meatless_Monday

But the USDA has always have had a problem with such programs, the USDA view itself having TWO equal agendas, first is to protect consumers, the second is to protect farmers. The later tends to overcome the former for Corporate farmers are willing to lobby the USDA while most consumers (and small farmers) can not.

More on Victory Gardens (with just a very brief mention of the USDA opposition to such gardens at the start of WWII).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

WWII USDA Movie is support of "Victory Gardens":
http://archive.org/details/victory_garden

Watch the people use horses and manual tools, and the clothing of the 1940s (And how much men's clothing have NOT changed and how much women's clothing has).

[sinkingfeeling]

7. Isn't that the same group that sued Oprah?

[Iggo]

8. That's what I was thinking.

They actually put her on trial for it, right?

[leftyohiolib]

9. it's why nothing gets done. everytime someone has proof that product "A" is harmful to us

the lobby groups for product A descend on the politicians and wipe away every protection

[drm604]

10. "slap in the face"

A spokesman for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, which drew the offending passage to the USDA's attention on Tuesday afternoon, called it "a slap in the face of the people who every day are working to make sure we have food on the table to say 'Don't eat their product once a week."

And the Cattlemen's Beef Association's statement is a slap in the face of the vegetable farmers who would have sold more of their products because of this.

It's true that when people are asked to eat more vegetables sales are being taken away from cattlemen, but it's also true that when cattlemen ask people to eat more meat they're taking sales away from vegetable farmers. So the cattlemen have no moral high ground here, regardless of how loudly they protest.

[starroute]

11. Can the phrase "slap in the face" be declared off limits?

I just did a search for the phrase at Google News and came up with 4,910 hits. That's just from current news. Here are a few where it appear in the headline -- there are a lot more that use it in the body of the story:

Pollard supporters call Clinton's remarks a 'slap in the face'
?
Secretary Clinton's apology to Pakistan is a slap in the face
?
Emanuel's slap in the face to citizens
?
U.S. Olympians uniform flap a slap in the face
?
NFL Supplemental Draft 2012: Josh Gordon Pick Is Slap in the Face

7-Eleven Celebrates With FREE Slurpees: 'A Slap In the Face to Bloomberg'
?
Richard Viguerie: Condoleeza Rice for VP a Slap in the Face to Conservatives

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean a Slap in the Face to Millions
?

[4th law of robotics]

14. And the corn farmers laugh

knowing that either way they will get their subsidies.

[Javaman]

12. before I even read the article, I thought to myself,

"the Cattlemen beef assoc. won't like this at all"

and sure enough.

Who controls what in this nation?

just another bunch of good old boy corporations who dictate how we are to fill their pockets with money.

[StateApparatus]

13. The Cattlemen's Beef Association...

...quietly reminded the USDA whom it really works for.

[FrodosPet]

15. They must have hated the pre-Vaitcan II Catholic Church

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_Fast

The Friday Fast is an Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican practice of abstaining from meat on Fridays. According to Pope Peter of Alexandria, the Friday fast is done in commemoration of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on Good Friday. Abstinence is colloquially referred to as "fasting" although it does not necessarily involve a reduction in the quantity of food.

~ snip ~

[Missycim]

16. Thank goodness

Mondays suck, I need some beef on that day or at least some bacon

[slackmaster]

17. Meatless Monday is the start of a very slippery slope.

The next thing you know they'll be telling us "Tuesday is Soylent Green Day."