2003-02-01 20:30:30+00 by Dan Lyke 5 comments
Via Borklog, the disturbing Cool-2b-Real beef advocacy site for teen girls. Yep, the Cattlemen's Beef Board and the National Cattlemen's Beef Association are finding disturbing ways to... uhhh... slip the beef to pre-teens.
[ related topics: Food Consumerism and advertising Pop Culture ]
comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):
#Comment made: 2003-02-01 20:54:55+00 by: ebradway
My 8-year-old daughter ate a 10oz cheeseburger last week just to get her picture on the wall at Chee-Burger-Chee-Burger. Many young girls, my daughter included, seem to have a unique view on reality - and that view is easily manipulated to deliver certain messages. Just as my daughter, who normally doesn't even eat hamburgers, much less attempt to eat a 10oz burger in one sitting, saw the 'glory' of getting her picture on the wall as an important goal and the counsumption of the burger as a means to get there.
Makes me wonder if the dairy industry will start using the correlation between the high levels of hormones in their products and the increase in breast size as a way to get girls to drink more milk.
"Got Molehills? Drink more milk!"
#Comment made: 2003-02-01 21:44:28+00 by: Larry Burton
I didn't see anything disturbing at that site at all.
#Comment made: 2003-02-01 21:58:11+00 by: ebradway
Hmmm... Why would the beef industry sponsor a site for girls? Maybe it's because the poultry industry has made given red meat a bad name?
Beyond the ethical issues, there are the practical issues. The site gives a number of quick recipes for on-the-go snacks that include beef. A big danger of having young people prepare meals with beef is that beef can be very dangerous if it's not properly prepared - portraying beef as a snack-food is just plain wrong.
#Comment made: 2003-02-02 03:21:05+00 by: Larry Burton
I have no doubt that the beef industry sees a trend among young girls moving away from red meat and toward poultry, fish or vegetarianism as a threat to their future bottom line. Taking that site as a whole, though, I saw a pretty good message about nutrition that I believe is important for the age group of girls that site is geared toward.
The recipes I saw called for beef crumbles which is a prepackaged, pre-cooked groundbeef that is fairly safe for kids above the second grade to use in preparing food. The brands I've used have even been fairly lean and drained of most of the remaining fat. Cooking is something that I've encouraged my kids to do since they were old enough to understand that a knife will cut and a stove will burn. I don't see portraying beef as a snack food to be wrong at all.
#Comment made: 2003-02-02 20:15:44+00 by: baylink
I concur -- I find it disturbing, too.
I'm not sure I can identify precisely why... but that just makes it worse. :-}
Mostly, it's because it's a light, fluffy site which *appears* to be designed as an institutional help-source, when in fact, it's really just a commercial for someone's product, and I have little patience with that sort of subterfuge, *particularly* when it's directed at the young and/or otherwise ... unsavvy.
So, why is beef so much more "real" than poultry, pork, or tofu?