It is too bad that it is “news” when a major animal harvester decides to be an iota more humane in the way it procures its product. Shouldn’t people demand that suppliers already behave in humane ways towards the treatment of the animals we eat? It should only be news if some restaurant fed us food that was horribly treated and processed instead of vice versa. It isn’t about animal welfare, necessarily. It is about our own humanity. Are we not a civilized society? Do we not have the world’s most technologically advanced resources at our disposal? Are we not living in an age of unprecedented knowledge sharing, idea-sourcing, and iterative circle-back thing-a-ma-jig consensus building? It only stands to reason that reason is not a driving force in McRib production. If the McDonald’s corporation was reasonable, it would ethically source its animal products (Wassup Chipotle! see CMG), staking a forward leaning position on the direction of food production and consumption in our nation and, via franchise, the world market. The incentive is there. Consumers are already going “green.” Michelle Obama wants us to eat healthy. The NFL wants us to Fuel up to Play 60. And McDonald’s throws pork offal slurry HFCS-rich BBQ sauce at us? For $2.99? Homer Simpson excepted, people will probably get sick after one McRib and stop eating them until they are reintroduced to the menu 12 or 18 months later. Is the degradation of our pork stock worth the semi-annual indigestion that the McRib causes? McDonald’s should take a cue from the international slow foods movement and others who don’t need movements – farmers, hunters, and smarty-pants researchers: grow and harvest livestock with dignity and respect. Food, like meetings, become nightmares when they are run from a corporate boardroom.
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