Farm Fresh Fiction

I heard my new favorite radio commercial last week while working in the garage, it was a spot for Meijer's meats. The jist of the ad is a cattle farmer talking about how he "thought" he knew somethin about raising great tasting beef, by letting them graze across the prairie like combines, that was until he tried some Meijer certified Angus beef, then he realized he was wrong.
When I heard this I was 1)really amused at the balls they had just blatantly taking a shot at grass fed beef farmers. 2)really annoyed and pissed off that they were portraying their "product" (that shit ain't real meat folks) as seriously superior to grass fed beef. I will admit that at least part of my irritation came about because I have a friend who raises organic, grass fed, out walkin in the pasture-lounging under the trees-sniffing the flowers-breathin the fresh air-cattle, and I know to some extent the dedication and work and care he puts into his work, so for a friend, I felt offended. I also felt offended because they are telling me (and you) that feeding an herbivore (animal that eats leafy plants) grain and other animal by-products (chicken feathers, manure and bedding, blood meal and beef fat), and keeping it on a concrete slab jammed in with hundreds or more likely thousands of other cows walking and laying in their own shit is better than letting a cow be a cow.
Anyone who has read my crap before or that knows me at all, understands that I'm definitely not a card carrying PETA member (unless you mean People for the Eating of Tasty Animals). I believe we are designed to eat meat, we have evolved and advanced around eating meat and there is now substitute for meat (Soy is an option, not a substitute). I have no deep seeded objection to hunting for food or raising animals to eat. I do, however, have a problem with the way we choose to go about it nowadays. We compress animals into CAFO's (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) which look absolutely nothing like a farm, we feed them not only food like corn and soy that they normally would barely eat, if at all, not to mention the blood, gut's, feathers and shit that we have left over from our addiction to all white breast meat. Finally they wrap it in nice pretty packages with a government stamp that truly means nothing with regards to safety or nutrition, and ship it to our local grocery where they advertise it as farm fresh and delicious. This stuff can't be all that fresh when it's shipped across the country and those cows have likely never even seen a farm. As for delicious, well, that's a matter of opinion really, but I have eaten plenty of this stuff, and it does taste decent but if you've had real meat you can tell the flavor isn't from the meat, it's fat. Our primitive brain loves this fatty flavor, why do you think McDonald's is so successful? They're selling fat, salt and sugar, who doesn't love that? (you obviously are either not human or have no brain if you don't like fat salt & sugar).
I just find this type of propaganda advertising irritating and demeaning when I hear it, mainly because I know that many of us don't really listen to what they're saying, we just nod and agree. So my challenge to you is this, the next time you are watching TV or listening to the radio (even NPR), pay attention to what the ads are really saying rather than just the product they're selling and you might begin to see how stupid they think we are.