The Panic Button: Meat Industry Predicts Its Own Extinction | Rising Anxieties

Anyway, this is the podcast in which I take a look at what's happening in the meat industry and what they're saying so that you don't have to.

Which is so kind of me, I think. First of all, I get a lot of stories from the site Meating Place, which is kind of a communication site, particularly related to beef, but not exclusively. And this is from the Center of My Plate column by Lisa Keef. MAHA Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha is the title, though I may have overdone the hahas.

And she's trying to figure out, and I can understand this confusion, what the hell RFK Junior wants and is talking about 'cause I think we all share that. Like there seems to be some mixed signals and she's a little [00:01:00] confused. So she points out that he keeps criticizing vaccines for both poultry and people, and, and yet he's also standing with the USDA on its plan to invest a billion dollars in fighting bird flu.

And this is a multifaceted plan. It's not just for vaccines, but it does include a hundred million dollars for vaccine research. So, you know, what's the actual story here? And, he'd like to remove all foods considered ultra processed, and would wanna increase funding for MAHA amidst deep proposed cuts for other food programs, which, you know, are probably worthy. So it's just his own program he seems to wanna support.

He's surrounding himself by some entrepreneurs who, you know, are a little dicey. The one she points out, I don't know who this person is, the Food Babe Vani Hari. And her Truvani, plant-based protein powders and supplements, were picked up in April by Target.

So, you know, I [00:02:00] don't know what else she's supporting, but I like that word, plant-based. And also Mark Hyman, who, you know, I've heard of, I don't follow him, but according to this, his supplement and nutrition book business is valued at $2.5 billion. Like, like we're in the wrong business, people, like whatever we're promoting here, it's the wrong thing. Or the way we're doing it, I don't know. Anyway, uh, they also plan to reopen the dietary guidelines. And she thinks that's really good for the meat industry because she thinks it's going to be a step in animal protein's direction. Great. Just what we need. I think she says she's getting that mostly from his enthusiasm for beef tallow over seed oils for food prep, but there's probably other things as well, I don't know. But she personally believes that there's no quote unquote, cleaner label than that on a package of fresh meat. And as you probably know, I would debate pretty vigorously the cleanliness of fresh meat. You know, not only on the filth side, but on [00:03:00] the, you know, ingredient side, because as far as I'm concerned, meat is always a processed food. It's food processed through an animal, perfectly good food processed through the body of an animal to add fat and cholesterol.

But she does point out that in spite of all of these efforts that she imagines are going to take place with the dietary guidelines and, and she thinks it's really good, the real problem is the quote, consumers in developed countries opt for greater convenience every time.

That is such an enormously important point. You know, all of the stuff online is about the cooking and the recipes and the going back to nature... people just want, they don't wanna spend time cooking. According to this research indicates that US consumers spend an average of just 37 minutes a day in food prep and cleanup.

And assuming three meals a day, 37 minutes, you know, I think the average might be beating me and I don't spend a hell of a lot of time. I mean, most people don't wanna spend their time cooking, they just wanna eat something good. [00:04:00] Like, that's just the way it is. I really like Jan Dutkiewicz's work on this, like, just getting away from this whole back to nature, back to the small farms like the foodie world. Just give us some good food. But of course, what they're mostly getting, for ease of preparation is really bad food. You know, sausages, deli meats, all that sort of thing. So yeah, if somebody would work on that in an intelligent way, I think that would be really delightful.

She does seem to think that the campaign against ultra processed foods is going to benefit animal proteins as well, because so far, and this is really interesting, the way she puts this, despite their health claims, most plant-based or fermented meat substitutes fall under quote ultra processed in the Nova classification.

But that studies are underway to develop a more nuanced way of understanding processing and food, but researchers have not released any conclusions as yet. This really bodes well, I think, for this whole [00:05:00] nonsense about how every food that the vegan movement has invented to replace the dead bodies of animals is being labeled ultra process. Really interesting. So that's something to keep an eye on.

Meanwhile, she also points out many of the MAHA adherents, consumers and experts alike, are committed to reducing animal protein in favor of pulse and other plant proteins. Well, yeah, you know, this is the thing. I'm as confused as she is. Would Kennedy and Rollins make much headway, Rollins, of course is the one at the USDA, make much headway if they encounter blowback from their biggest fans?

We don't know. Well, I don't, I wouldn't say I'm their biggest fans, but. I think that is true that the people who support MAHA have all sorts of interesting attitudes towards food. Some of them are just awful, and some of them are really good. So it's still even as crazy and as loony as all of this is, it's still worth keeping an eye on.

And bird flu as well, [00:06:00] neither HHS nor USDA has said much about just letting HPAI, that's bird flu, spread in several weeks. Which is, you know, kind of what RFK Junior has supported, that the virus just needs to run its course. So he may be over that. I don't know. Anyway, also from Meating Place, this is a fascinating article.

This is from the Meat Your Markets column by Matt Graves. Making meat's future happen, and he believes that a hundred years from now, we will have a completely different and currently unacceptable meat and poultry production system. You know, I don't think we've got a hundred years to fuck around, but just the fact that there's somebody saying this on a meat industry site is pretty dramatic, I have to say.

And he points out, you know, a hundred years ago we didn't have computers. We really didn't have cars to speak of. We didn't have airplanes, we didn't have telephones. I guess we did have airplanes, but you know, we didn't, a couple of people did. And no internet and you know, [00:07:00] things have changed, so things can change.

Well, I totally agree with him. I just don't think we've got a hundred years to fix this. 100 years hence, much of what we know, he says, see and take for granted today, will be gone. Which includes, in my opinion, meat and poultry production from live animals. Yeah, you heard it here first folks.

Well, I guess people who read Meating Place heard it first, but um, however, I believe there will still be a consumer demand for beef and poultry. How will it be produced? There might be, you know, that's really hard to say, but he's all for cell cultivated protein, which is what he calls it.

We have 42 different names for it. And he, my recommendation for your survival. And of course he is talking to the meat industry here. My recommendation for your survival is the investment and research of cell cultivated protein. You may not like it now, but by many indications it will be the way animal protein is produced in the future.

Well, yeah, I'm on board Mac, I'm totally on board. Uh, he points out the difference in water, which is like [00:08:00] unbelievable. Cultivated meat production is expected to use 89% less water, compared to conventional meat production. I don't even like calling it conventional, like murderous, is that a better word?

Land use, climate. He says, continuing to desecration of the climate with cattle belching, global warming methane gas will also be outlawed. This is on a meat site. Really. It's crazy. He's the only one really facing the future, and as I said, he's gotta step this up by about 90 years.

But yeah, I'm totally on board. He does point out, I think this is something to pay attention to, he's totally on board for cell cultivated meat. But as a caveat, he says the current system may be perpetuated by desalinization becoming a reality. You know, I've heard of desalinization since I was a kid and it just seems to be not a reality.

But who knows? If we can use the ocean water, then we really can murder as many cows as we [00:09:00] want. Improving feed crop yields using less land. I don't know about that one, but you know, maybe, I don't know. Employing more robotic production processes, improving efficiency and lowering cost. Yeah, they just really wanna get rid of those workers because nobody wants to work for them and they don't wanna pay them any money.

I think it's important for us to keep in mind that this is not a given. And that the argument that we shouldn't be doing this to animals because it's psychotic evil, and cruel is a completely valid argument because this might not work. They might come up with a fix.

They always do. It's insane that we're still doing this to animals, but they've constantly come up with fixes. One of their fixes so far is like destroying the planet, but you know, they might come up with better fixes than that. And also, there's a million other ways we torture animals. So, you know, that fight will never be over. Well, until we win.

Alright. Global Certificate in Ag Communications Launched. Yeah, we need a global certificate [00:10:00] in Ag Communications on our side. We really do. Alright. This is the University of Illinois, in Champaign Urbana and, the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists, who knew? Are committed to launching a certificate on agricultural communications because of the urgent need to prepare communicators in the food system.

Communications is key because, you know, they need to really obfuscate what's happening. And so having professionals do the communications is probably really helpful. This is by Benjamin Ruiz on watt poultry.net. Alright, so it's this International Federation of Agricultural Journalists.

It's the College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. Oh, it's, I think I said Champagne Urbana. It's Urbana Champagne. And that is part of the college's Agricultural Leadership, Education and Communications program. A lot of programs here. They all cost money and the industry has it, and this is what they [00:11:00] wanna spend it on.

They wanna spend it on communications, and so they're gonna have this certificate, which is part of the proposed James F. Evans Global Center for Food and Agricultural Communications. Like how many organizations do they have? They all have, I'm sure they all have their lovely buildings. It's gonna be delivered online.

It's gonna be available broadly, and God knows what people are going to be learning in order to get this certificate. But Benjamin thinks that this is a very important step in times quote, where fake news and excess accusations carry a lot of weight upon animal production. That's kind of an interesting expression, isn't it?

Excess accusations, as opposed to the appropriate amount of accusations. I don't know. Fake news really, you know, where's the fake news coming from, folks? Like I said, we need a certificate too. I wanna get a certificate. And he points out, with problems getting human resources to work for the animal Ag sector.

I mean, admittedly, I don't think Benjamin's first [00:12:00] language is English, but by human resources, he means people. Maybe they just don't like to say it that obviously? With problems getting people to work for the animal ag sector, and the need for journalists to participate in animal ag events. Yeah, I bet we can invite them.

I bet we can put them up. I bet we can, like, I don't know, get them hookers or something. Uh, that is not, that's not in this article. That was a joke. And provide news based on facts and scientific data, this certification will come in very handy, he says. I bet it will. All right.

I'm just gonna, you know, I don't understand a lot of what this is, and things may have changed by the time you hear this, which you know, is within a day of when I recorded. But things are happening fast. It's about the big beautiful bill, that's Trump's budget bill. What's in it for agriculture?

This is from Dairy Herd Management and it's by Michelle Rook and Ty Morgan. And so, you know, this is this massive, massive bill that covers everything, and I don't understand most of it, but I just thought it was interesting. They [00:13:00] love a lot of what's in it. They love tax provisions for farmers, an extension for 45 z and an increase in Farm Bill reference prices.

See, I don't really know what these things are, but I'll give you a little brief summary of what they're saying. As of January 20th, farmers will have a 100% bonus depreciation for the next four years. The section 199a deduction that was at the 20% level will now be bumped up to the 23% level. This is not that interesting, is it?

All right. Starting next year, section 1 79 will increase to 2.5 million, up from a million, and I think that has to do with estate taxes. An increase in the gift tax exemption amounts to $15 million per individual and $30 million per couple, adjusted for inflation annually. They do not want farmers and ranchers to have to pay estate taxes, and they're taking care of that.

Alright, 45 CI talked about that before, but I didn't know what it was. It's a tax credit for the production and sale, oh, this is bad. The production and sale of low emission [00:14:00] transformation fuels, that is not where we need to be getting fuels. I don't know whether they're talking about methane or whether they're talking about, you know, the stuff they get from corn.

Or they're talking about both, but you know, we shouldn't be growing fuel. We should be getting it from the sun. Alright, so the one thing that they don't like, or at least some of them don't like, is, of course the cut, the one cut is gonna be to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition assistance program, over the next decade. $290 billion taken out of that program, and redirect some of that money to farmers by expanding support for commodities and crop insurance.

So we're taking it away from people, but at the same time that we're taking it away from poor people, it's also hurting farmers because that's who we were buying the food from. So we're taking care of the farmers to some extent, but not the poor people, of course. The average SNAP benefit is about $6 per day.

Let me say that again. This is a quote from Representative Angie Craig, a democrat of Minnesota. Let me say that again. [00:15:00] $6 a day. You don't build a life on SNAP, you build a bridge to the next paycheck. And I have to say that's a pretty weak bridge as well. But, as I say, I don't know what's gonna happen to this bill.

It's in all sorts of trouble at the moment, but, you know, they all somehow have a way of just folding and making it happen. So it's bad, folks. It's really bad. And that's it for this week's rising anxieties.

Thank you so much for joining us today on Rising Anxieties. Please remember to subscribe and like wherever you listen or watch or whatever, and if you're able and you want to, you can donate at our henhouse.org/support.