CURRENT MOON

Thursday, January 05, 2006

Bangs Head on Watertiger's Desk; Petitions Jeffers for Keys to Bedlam

Yesterday’s WaPo Food Section contained the obligatory “food forecast” for 2006, supplemented by the obligatory opinions of Faith Popcorn, trend recognizer extraordinaire. Along with interesting information such as the fact that the use of trans fats is decreasing, while the popularity of “small plates” continues to grow in area restaurants, the article contained this disturbing nugget:

Trend expert Faith Popcorn, keynote speaker at the Future of Food conference last month in Washington, and the person who predicted the “cocooning” craze of the 1990s, sees faith-friendly food showing up in the marketplace, an outgrowth of what her company calls “clanning,” or the desire to belong to groups with common ideas.

Tyson Foods, which makes chicken, beef and pork products, already has begun offering free downloadable prayer booklets on its Web site. The booklets provide mealtime prayers in a variety of faiths.
The article notes that “food forecasters are predicting some provocative trends, including such possibilities as Christian-raised chicken . . . .”

Now, I’m a person of faith and one of the things I try to do every time I eat is to offer some gratitude for my meal. I do it quietly; no one eating with me even knows I’m doing it. But I can tell you that I sure as heck don’t download my prayers from the Tyson Food website, nor can I imagine anyone doing so. But, I checked and, sure enough, Tyson’s is now apparently selling prayers along with processed chicken parts. Most of the prayers are xian or at least Abrahamic, although a few appear to be Native American and a few appear to be based on some kind of generalized religious sentiment. Strangely, given the role women play in purchasing and preparing food, none of them speak of divinity as feminine, although a number refer to a masculine god. I’m sure Tyson Foods thinks they’ve been very “inclusive,” but they’ve failed. But that’s not the real problem.

The real problem is that it’s creepy. WTF is “faith-friendly” food, Ms. Popcorn? It’s apparently not kosher food, which, based upon my very limited understanding, at least requires humane methods of slaughter. It’s apparently not organic food, which, again based upon my very limited understanding, at least evidences some respect for the Earth. No, what it apparently is, is food produced by big corporations who try to dress up their processed food and agribusinesses with advertising that appeals to wack-job fundies. Forget it. I’ll take the small plates, the dark chocolate, and the larger print on the nutrition labels. But I’m not downloading my prayers from the Tyson Food webpage and I’m not buying any xian-raised chicken, either.

13 comments:

spork_incident said...

Welcome to the Blogosphere, Hecate!

To be honest: Faith Popcorn lost me years ago.

"Oooh, kids love theyr IPod! It's a trend! Now pay me money!."

Ehhh...

Anonymous said...

i know about the tyson company and how they abuse their workers. i had to do a paper on them in college. a little hypocritical of them, i'm thinking.

--her eyes

four legs good said...

Now that's just fucking creepy.

Fundie chicken will never cross the lips of anyone in THIS heathen household.


And what the fuck kind of name is Faith "popcorn" anyhoo?

Anonymous said...

Is this before they're raided by Immigration?

heh.

Anonymous said...

Oh Hecate, I'm so glad you've gone back to the earlier format--I like it a lot better! I NEVER buy Tyson, prayers or no prayers--they exploit their (illegal) workers; the workers, some of them anyway, have been videoed torturing the chickens (!!!), they've been cited for environmental problems, a nasty group. Buy organic and free range and honor the prayers the chickens might be making--a good life however, brief.

Anonymous said...

creepy as hell... xristian raised chicken? how the hell do you do that? Of course xristians were responsible for the Spanish Inquisition so I guess technically "anything" goes.

Anonymous said...

I could be wrong, but I think what differentiates a kosher kill is that the animal's throat must be slit with one blow. So it actually isn't particularly "humane," since the process up to that point is identical to non-kosher kills (factory farming, feedlots, stockyards, animals sensing each others' fear), but at least it's quick. Buy organic, no hormone, no antibiotic, free range meat if you're looking for humane sources of animal protein.

Anonymous said...

How interesting that this is posted today--it is "Respect for Chickens" Day--a designation requested by PETA and honored by the Mayor of KCMO with a wonderful proclamation decrying cruelty in the raising and killing of chickens.

Vicki said...

Hecate,

Another good post.

Thanks!

Keep up the great work.

And I love the pink. It's way cool.

Anonymous said...

Hecate, I am delighted to find your very own blog! I agree with Vicki; I like the pink too. And what the dickens qualifies as a 'xtian raised chicken'???? I thought the good xtians believed that animals had no souls. Quite confusing.

Anonymous said...

In these parts, growers of free-range chickens are mostly Amish, which makes their products Christian chickens, I guess, but not what Tyson's had in mind.

geor3ge said...

WTF is “faith-friendly” food, Ms. Popcorn?

Like most everything else bearing that label, it's all lip service and no action. If Tyson really wanted to be faith-based, they'd be better off using their vast resources to, oh, I don't know, feed the hungry?

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