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  Regardless of whether Siri-Tarino is objective science or industry whitewashing, the importance of such research to animal food producers is clear. Research like Siri-Tarino can be highly effective at boosting product sales—in fact, sometimes even more effective than buying billboard space and running TV ads. One group found that $1 spent on pork research yielded a $25 return, while $1 spent on promotion returned only $8.38 Perhaps Miller's claim of industry generosity is overstated. Perhaps checkoff programs in fact spend millions on research not to help the public but merely to find new ways to increase sales or reduce costs. One might well conclude that the prudent approach to such industry-funded research is to treat it as you would a carton of expired milk—with caution.

  The Dubious Value of Checkoffs

  Do we need checkoffs? They stimulate the economy, but in the case of animal foods, they generate almost $2 in external costs for every $1 of stimulus. Some promote indisputably healthy foods like blueberries and mangoes; others encourage those who already eat too much animal foods to eat more. Perhaps the fundamental issue surrounding checkoffs is the one Huxley raised: whether it's appropriate for government to urge its citizens to buy things they don't really need.

  Take animal foods off the table for a moment. In some ways, the question of government influence is as relevant for peanuts and popcorn, both of which have checkoff programs, as it is for meat, eggs, and dairy. Is it right for the state to use cute corporate mascots like Poppy and Captain Kernel to cajole us to buy more popcorn at the movies? Recall that this is not conventional advertising, in which one private firm tries to convince us its products are better than another's. This is government-sponsored, across-the-board demand boosting—designed to sell more of everything in the category. As the enabling legislation explains, checkoffs are meant to “increase the overall demand” for the goods they cover.39

  These are the first few notes of a motif that repeats throughout this book like a songbird's call. As H. L. Mencken quipped, “When they say it's not about the money, it's about the money.” The federal government doesn't promote food to boost consumers' health. After all, many of the foods we're urged to buy are bad for us—particularly at the levels at which we're told to consume them. So why do our elected and appointed representatives tell us to eat more? Because industry demands it as a way to increase sales, and as we'll see, industry usually gets what it wants.

  Not all checkoffs are created equal. Except for those covering animal foods, most checkoffs generate relatively low external costs. For checkoffs that promote low-impact goods like mangoes, blueberries, and mushrooms, perhaps the value of economic stimulus outweighs the creepiness associated with government influence. Or perhaps not. But at any rate, animal food checkoffs are in a herd of their own. They encourage Americans to consume meat, eggs, and dairy at much higher levels than normal. They drive disproportionately high external costs. The worst part, as we'll see in chapter 6, is that checkoffs help to sicken an already-ill nation. Maybe the question we should ask ourselves about these programs is: Got Milked?

  Food for Thought

  Although Americans already consume much more animal foods than the USDA recommends, that agency continues to oversee checkoff programs that spend $557 million yearly urging us to buy and eat even more of these foods.

  Checkoffs are remarkably effective. By funding aggressive marketing and research programs that convince consumers that animal foods are a healthy and necessary part of our daily diet, checkoffs boost sales by as much as $38 for each checkoff dollar spent.

  Without government involvement, checkoffs would be dramatically less effective and perhaps even nonexistent. If the USDA disengaged from checkoffs that promote animal foods, it would significantly reduce the nation's routine overconsumption of these foods.

  2

  Massaging the Message: Shaping Consumer Beliefs

  A deadly strain of swine flu raced across North America in the spring of 2009, infecting one in five Americans and hospitalizing a quarter of a million people. As sick air travelers rapidly spread the virus throughout the rest of the world, the World Health Organization issued its highest level pandemic warning. In the United States, a determined group of animal food producers and government officials sprang into action to address the crisis. But this wasn't the type of emergency-response coalition you might expect: its focus was on saving profits, not people. As a spokesman for the National Pork Producers Council warned, “This flu is being called something that it isn't, and it's hurting our entire industry. It is not a ‘swine’ flu, and people need to stop calling it that . . . they're ruining people's lives.”1

  For years, the animal food industry has sought—successfully, in most cases—to mold consumer attitudes. We've seen how well-funded government checkoff programs urge us to buy more meat and dairy. But checkoffs are just one piece of meatonomics' multipronged messaging machine. This chapter explores some of the other ways the industry shapes American attitudes toward meat and dairy to keep itself in the black.

  Of course, product marketing is as American as apple pie. Animal food producers are certainly not the only manufacturers to use sophisticated marketing and public relations tactics to sell their goods. But there is something unique about the messaging that this industry disseminates. Frequently, as we'll see, communications from industrial animal farmers lack an essential element that consumers expect and the law requires: fair play. In some cases, their words are technically accurate but nevertheless unfair or misleading. In others, they're just plain wrong. And when people rely on incorrect or deceptive information about food, the results can be downright dangerous to their health. As with many of the industry's other characteristics explored in this book, this shady approach to salesmanship often puts meat and dairy producers in a class of their own. Honesty only makes sense, said Mark Twain, “when there's money in it.” When it comes to promoting animal foods, it seems dishonesty pays.

  A Flu by Any Other Name

  The pork industry's fear of lives “ruin[ed]” from the 2009 flu pandemic came to pass in ways more literal than envisioned. After suffering advanced flu symptoms like chills, fever, coughs, vomiting, and diarrhea, some twelve thousand Americans ultimately died from swine influenza.2 While a variety of state and federal agencies worked to help the sick and educate the public, the US Department of Agriculture turned its nursing skills to the pork industry's financial health. At a press conference in April 2009, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack reassured a worried nation, “There are a lot of hardworking families whose livelihood depends on us conveying this message of safety . . . and we want to reinforce the fact that we're doing everything we possibly can to make sure that our hog industry is sound and safe. . . . This really isn't swine flu. It's H1N1 virus.”3

  Governmental, educational, and medical institutions quickly adopted the official name change. At the health care company where I work as general counsel, amid some confusion as to what to call the disease threatening our elderly patient base, our chief medical officer instructed all personnel to begin using the new name immediately. Yet the sudden and unexplained name change caught some observers off guard. “H1N1? . . . Huh?” asked one ABC News reporter, “Not swine flu? . . . What changed?”4

  For trivia buffs interested in which name is actually correct, H1N1 or swine flu, the answer is both. H1N1 is clinically acceptable. But swine flu is also accurate, notwithstanding the pork industry's claims—later shown to be false—that no pigs were involved. A group of scientists around the world studied the origins of the flu pandemic and published their results in the June 2009 issue of Nature. The thirteen scientists concluded that the disease started “in swine, and that the initial transmission [from pigs] to humans occurred several months before recognition of the outbreak.” These findings, according to the scientists, “highlight the need for systematic surveillance of influenza in swine, and provide evidence that the mixing of new genetic elements in swine can result in the emergence of viruses with pandemic potential in humans.”5 T
he official name change likely helped the pork industry avoid further losses, but it also deflected legitimate attention from the real source of the problem: sick pigs.†

  What's in a Name?

  In an age when any news—good or bad—travels at the speed of light, negative headlines can hurt an industry in real and lasting ways. For pork producers already reeling from years of losses related to high feed costs, the swine flu debacle could have been much worse. Consider a recent naming crisis that hit one producer especially hard: the pink slime episode of 2012. Known to the industry as lean, finely textured beef, pink slime is a protein paste created by spinning otherwise-inedible beef scraps in a centrifuge and treating it with ammonia to kill bacteria. US law allows the product to be added to ground beef as filler in amounts up to 15 percent without additional labeling. After ABC News reported in March 2012 that more than two-thirds of ground beef in the United States contained pink slime, public response was swift and merciless. The nation's largest grocery chains—Supervalu, Kroger, Safeway, Stop & Shop, and Food Lion—announced they would no longer sell ground beef containing the additive.

  Striking faster than Lindsay Lohan's PR people after one of the starlet's run-ins with the law, Beef Products Inc. (BPI), the product's manufacturer, fought back. Three state governors—Rick Perry of Texas, Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Terry Branstad of Iowa—toured a BPI plant with reporters and munched on burgers containing the controversial additive. T-shirts were printed with the odd slogan, “Dude, It's Beef.” Government officials even pitched in; one Georgia bureaucrat begged media to use the product's “proper name.”6 But it was too little, too late—public opinion had formed and would not be changed. As demand for pink slime plummeted, BPI was forced to close three of its four plants.7 If a manufacturer can be pushed to the brink this quickly, it's easy to see why meat and dairy producers pursue messaging with such determination.

  It takes lobbying to convince government to change the name of a disease or to officially promote a consumer-friendly product name. However, because checkoff organizations are legally prohibited from lobbying, a variety of special-purpose organizations handle the task. More than a dozen politically focused trade groups apply pressure to our state and federal lawmakers on issues like what to call food. Because some of these groups aren't required to file tax returns, it's hard to gauge their spending. For those groups who do file returns, annual spending totals more than $138 million.8 Added to the spending by checkoff programs, that brings the tally to nearly $700 million in total documented yearly spending by animal food trade groups to spread their message or influence lawmakers. Of course, this excludes outlays by individual producers like Cargill, Smithfield, Tyson, and others. It also excludes some large trade groups whose financial statements are not public. One of these, for example, is the United Egg Producers—the main trade group representing the $6.5 billion US egg industry.9

  Hearts and Minds

  In the battle for the souls of the nation's eaters, it's not enough merely to disseminate a message. Like a wartime radio monitor, one must also carefully analyze and decode messages from the opposition. The industry approaches its task with vigilance. Regularly assessing consumer attitudes toward meat and dairy, industry monitors are quick to take corrective steps when needed. With that directive in mind, the National Pork Board recently surveyed kids to determine whether they had been influenced by animal advocacy organizations. Surprisingly, more than half the kids had heard of such groups, and one-fourth said that messages from the groups had influenced their eating habits. “We're keeping a close eye on these activist groups and their messages,” says Traci Rodemeyer, director of pork information for the National Pork Board, “and we're prepared to take action if they escalate their efforts to target children.”10

  In 2010, the American Meat Institute (AMI), one of the main trade organizations promoting the meat industry, surveyed adult Americans to gauge their attitudes toward a set of troubling messages circulating among the meat-buying public.11 Among others, the messages included the factually accurate propositions that eating red meat increases heart disease risk and that Americans eat more meat than recommended. For meat producers, the survey results were cause for alarm. Consumers voiced concern about these and other issues, and the meat industry got a favorability score of only 48.7 out of 100. (That's almost two points worse than the mediocre approval ratings of steroidal slugger Barry Bonds.12) AMI sprang into action. “A multiple media curriculum was developed to debunk these myths,” wrote AMI's director of scientific affairs Betsy Booren. “The messaging was factual, positive, and consumer and media friendly.”13

  One of the consumer-friendly tools AMI deployed in its campaign is the Meat Mythcrushers website, which seeks to correct the “myths and misinformation” Americans learn about food from “news media, books and movies.”14 The site serves as a showcase for some of the industry's most interesting messaging tactics. For example, we learn that a “very large 2010 study” showed dietary saturated fat does not cause heart disease. The study, of course, is the dubious Siri-Tarino paper discussed in the prior chapter.

  Even more interesting is the site's treatment of a well-documented problem: American overconsumption of meat. The site purports to debunk the overeating “myth” by pointing out that men's and women's daily consumption levels of meat and poultry, averaging 6.9 ounces and 4.4 ounces, respectively, are well within the daily range of “five to seven ounces” recommended by the USDA.15 If you've ever wondered about the meaning of truthiness, the term popularized by Stephen Colbert, this assertion nails the definition. While it has certain elements of truth, the message is downright false in one respect and misleading in another. First, USDA guidelines recommend a maximum of 6.5 ounces, not seven, from the protein foods group per day.16 It's easy to see why AMI chose to round up to seven: this allows the male consumption figure of 6.9 to squeeze just inside the range.

  Worse, the AMI's daily consumption figures exclude two common animal foods listed in the USDA's protein foods group: fish and eggs. Table 2.1 shows the effect of adding these foods to the calculation. In fact, in virtually every American demographic, consumption of animal foods is well above USDA recommendations. Note that this table does not reflect total protein consumption—those figures are higher still because they include vegetable proteins like nuts and beans, and dairy, which the USDA oddly doesn't treat as protein and insists on placing in its own category for recommended daily servings. Nevertheless, the data for recommended and actual daily servings for meat is alarming. For males between twenty and fifty-nine, who routinely eat from one-third to two-thirds more than the daily recommended amount of meat, eggs, and fish, the AMI's reassuring suggestion that they're eating the right amount is downright dangerous.

  TABLE 2.1: US Daily Recommended and Actual Consumption of Meat, Eggs, and Seafood17

  Sometimes industry's aggressive messaging tactics lack even the thin veneer of truthiness. In 2011, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) sued the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the California Milk Advisory Board over the latter's claims that dairy cows in California are “happy.” This message is central to the Milk Board's advertising campaign, which seeks to distinguish California dairy products from out-of-state goods based on the premise that cows are happier in California than elsewhere. In selling this point, the promotional messaging claims, “California dairy cows live happy all year long,” and California dairy producers “work day in and day out to ensure their cows are healthy and comfortable.”18 Commercials promoting these assertions feature grassy valleys, rolling hills, and cows grazing freely in huge pastures. They end with a voiceover: “Great milk [or cheese] comes from Happy Cows. Happy Cows come from California. Make sure it's made with Real California Milk [or Cheese].” In fact, it seems that few American dairy cows have much reason to be happy (whether they live in California or elsewhere). According to research cited in the lawsuit, dairy cows raised in US factory farms (where most American milk is pro
duced) routinely encounter a variety of difficult circumstances including:

  Johne's disease, a chronic wasting illness that affects two-thirds of all US dairy cows and causes severe weight loss and diarrhea.

  Routine branding, and the burning of budding horns—both done without anesthesia, which peer-reviewed studies and the American Veterinary Medical Association have described as “acutely painful and stressful” for the cows.19

  Spending most of their lives crammed into tiny, concrete-floored stalls fitted with brisket boards, which prevent the animals from reclining comfortably.20

  Aggressive milking quotas that make industrially raised cows more likely to “die prematurely and/or suffer from lameness, mastitis, respiratory disease, metabolic problems, reproductive complications and other sicknesses than ‘normally’ producing dairy cows.”21

  In fact, despite such widespread reasons for bovine unhappiness, it seems that most dairy cows would nonetheless be “happier” almost anywhere other than California. Specifically, California cows “have a statistically greater chance of experiencing discomfort, suffering from painful diseases and/or of dying prematurely, than cows elsewhere in this country.”22

  It just doesn't sound like any of the nation's industrially raised dairy cows, least of all those in California, have much reason to be happy. PETA tried to bring this lawsuit for more than a decade, although the first few complaints they filed were dismissed for procedural reasons. In the latest filing, PETA won an important, early-round victory when the judge ordered the defendants to release thousands of pages of documents claimed to be trade secrets. At this writing, the lawsuit is still pending.