Things were looking up for the beef industry in the war of words over lean finely textured beef yesterday when Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad held a news conference to support the product and LFTB maker Beef Products Inc.
Branstad even announced what could be seen as a substantial industry victory when he said Iowa’s Hy-Vee supermarket chain had reversed a decision to stop carrying LFTB after the company came to recognize the facts about the product.
A group of governors will give a news conference today at around 2:30 CDT after touring a BPI plant in South Sioux City, Neb. which is being broadcast live by KTIV and can be watched live at that time here.
Enter: Jon Stewart
Last night, however, comedian Jon Stewart, who mixes the news of the day with humor and commentary in his “The Daily Show”, spent five minutes humorously propagating most of the fears already planted in consumers’ minds about the product.
During a five-minute rant titled “The Hunger Shame” Stewart also took a couple of shots at the meat industry for defending the product.
To watch the video, go to the Meatingplace LFTB News Center.
Please stop
Meanwhile, the American Meat Institute issued a news release today urging the media to stop using the term pink slime to describe lean finely textured beef, saying, “Calling it ‘pink slime’ is inaccurate, alarmist and disparaging.”
AMI also pointed out that a widely distributed photo (of unclear origins) of a pink substance oozing out of a machine into a cardboard box has been inaccurately captioned LFTB. It is not. AMI juxtaposes accurate and inaccurate photos here.
As recently as Tuesday,NYDailyNews.com used the erroneous photo to illustrate an Associated Press story.
Other recent media
ABC Newshas done a number of follow-up stories to its original report that sparked much of the fallout in recent weeks. On Tuesday, it reportedBPI’s response, paired with comments by Gerald Zirnstein, the former USDA microbiologist who first used the term "pink slime" and recommended against its inclusion in ground beef.
Also on Tuesday theChristian Science Monitorran a storyheadlined, “‘Pink slime': Health crisis or misunderstood meat product?”which quoted BPI officials and a National Meat Association spokesman on the subject.
On WednesdayThe National Post’sChris Selley wrote this in a columnheaded “Benign pink slime”:
“Here's a feather in Jamie Oliver's cap: With ample help from the media, the increasingly insufferable British celebrity chef's long campaign against a perfectly safe food product has at least temporarily cost some 600 people their jobs…. In a nutshell, a bunch of precious know-nothing urbanites caught one little glimpse inside the meat-processing industry, went "ick" and started signing petitions. Sausage-makers, watch your backs.”
