REAL COWS TO THE RESCUE

            In a wonderful post on the Sacred Cow blog, Lauren Stine makes a great point about fake meat versus real meat during this coronavirus shopping spree.  I've seen a few articles and pictures noting that the supermarket meat counters were not out of fake meat; they were out of real meat.

             Right now I don't think we know whether that is because fake meat had a more resilient inventory response or if people were just not buying it.  Preliminary market analysis indicates that people, when afraid, went for the real thing.  But that  appears inconsistent with the fact that the first shelves wiped out were junk food.

             So I'm not ready to assume people suddenly make wiser decisions in a crisis, although I do appreciate authentic food being opposite of treat food so if you're going to offset the Snicker's bar, you'd better do it with the real thing rather than the fake.  So many nuances to suss out and I don't think we have the data to definitely say what truly happened.

             It may have just been a price issue.  In panic, people went for the cheap real meat instead of the far more expensive fake product.  Saving pennies, or thinking about real nutrition?  Hard to say.  I'd love to think that suddenly everyone went for authentic nutrition because suddenly they got jolted into reality, which is not fake meat, but that's putting a lot of faith in the whimsical panicked consumer.

             Here's the point that needs to be emphasized:  nutritious, secure food systems are best when the distance from field to fork are short and when the infrastructure needed to produce, process, and distribute food is most accessible.  To get fake meat to the grocery store requires industrial mono-cropping which requires chemical fertilizer and herbicides (and/or Genetically Modified Organisms--GMOs), massive combines, trucks, drying bins (natural gas), train distribution, sophisticated mega-million dollar processing lab centers, and finally long distance transportation to Kroger's near you.

             Compare that to ground beef from a local farmer's cow.  The cow harvests grass, grown from sunlight through the magic of photosynthesis.  The cow both prunes and fertilizes the forage (assuming proper management) and harvest occurs in a local abattoir with knives and skill.  Literally the entire life-travel of the beef can be within 5 or 10 miles.  And the entire capitalization cost is a generic truck and trailer, a simple facility and skilled operators.  That is a highly accessible, democratized system compared to the massive centralized and highly capitalized components of the fake meat system.

             In times of shock, you want simplicity, not complexity.  The more complex, the more fragile.  Simplicity is elegance. 

             On a side note, since the shutdown, news reports are full of information about dropping GHG levels, cleaner-running rivers, cleaner harbors, much better air quality.  The cow numbers haven't changed.  Apparently they weren't the problem.

             So maybe the world emerging from this pandemic will be one in which people eat a great hamburger or steak in their home and consider that as fulfilling as a jet ride to Paris.  If that is indeed the outcome, this pandemic will be the best thing to hit the planet in centuries.

             Why do you think fake meat stayed on the shelves while adjoining real meat ran out?