Flatulence Among the Bovine Burgers

Several years ago, I read through a proposal that brought together a strange unity of “The Jetsons” and the latest “save the animal of the month” club.

There was a report released of meat, a hamburger patty as an example, made entirely in a lab. Scientists glowed with the excitement of having what was biologically, chemically, a beef patty. What it lacked was the rancher walking the field, immunizing the herd, the 4-H teens growing up with more than dust on their boots and not blinking an eye to the thought. Oh, and the affordability. Then, it was touted as the tastiest $20,000 burger on the planet.

I remember then laughing about how people were already wringing their hands in anguish over reports of additives in the patties purchased from any given drive-through serving pre-formed patties. The allegation is that pretty rose color between the tones of fresh-grilled beef is toxic. I guess if the “Acme Drive-Thu” doesn’t serve what you like, you are welcome to go where the patties are hand-formed each day.

Along the way, there have been urban — literally — stories, legends if you wish, of people who complain about those who get their meat from hunting or ranches instead of grocery stores like everyone else, or those who are alarmed by the amount of methane produced by cows. Not herds. The implication is each cow expels dangerous amounts of methane gas. I have to say my time walking a field among a herd of cattle is pretty minimal, but when I did the last thing that concerned me was if one of the natural field managers had a reaction to lunch. Just to be clear, most ranchers and real cowboys have more than dust on their boots. It is not an offense, that is unless you wear your footwear with aromatic evidence past the mud room and through the dining room.

By now we have an odd collection of characters on the world’s stage. We have markets with limited meat selections. We have restaurants that have had to change their menu or include a surcharge because of limited meat availability; all related to COVID-19. Meanwhile, the apparent campaign for a meatless society is again increasing momentum. We have children singing the rhymes of an odorless bovine diet admitting if it stinks it must be me (part of the jingle).

So what changed? How did we go from the devil himself managing famous name food outlets because of the chemical additive to “Hey! Let’s have a lab burger!”

Between the trend of insect diets — cooked — reintroduction of near-beef and plant burgers, it opens a scene where the wife’s job is to dial food, a pill that looks like a multi-vitamin and dispensed like a food producer from Star Trek or something. There’s no quantitative explanation, just a “Hey, lets try this!” sing-song that is an unasked question from the beginning. While laboratories and research have their place and even food safety wouldn’t be where it is without them, lab-produced sounds like the line from a comical scare movie used once again: “we spent so much time trying to see if we could, we never considered if we should.”

Let’s let go of the “it looks like a burger” phenomenon and eat a salad in a bun if you wish, and let others benefit from the work of the rancher who knows his animals.