Have it your way . . . unless you want quality beef.

I listen to the radio on morning drive and I couldn’t help but laugh at the preposterous commercials being played for Wendy’s. They have an announcer come on and say, “Don’t eat beef from somewhere. Come to Wendy’s for fresh, never frozen beef.” The commercial then has sounds clips of Russian sounding people saying things like, “I use the beef as a hockey puck.” I assure you that the commercial is more comical than I am making it out to be, and I also assure you that I am not laughing at the commercial out of amusement.

I was shocked to here the commercial actually hype the fact that they use American beef. I knew, at the time I heard the commercial, that America had not only had import restrictions on its beef but that our testing standards were considered atrocious. When I actually looked into the facts it became alarming.

- American hormone-raised beef was banned for seven years by the EEC due to questions on the dangers of meat that had been treated with synthetic sex hormones. Eventually the WTO ruled in favor of American beef producers, but it did not stop the EC from returning in 2004 to try getting it banned again.

- In 2003, the Japanese (you know, the people on the giant island - the really rich ones that pay insane money for a single steak?) banned US beef for two and a half years because of banned substances found in American veal. At the time they were America’s biggest buyer and this put serious kink in a lot of business.

- South Korea, who was the third largest importer in 2003, also banned US beef for the same reasons.

The key exporters of beef are the United States, Brazil, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the European Union. So I had no a clue where the Russia accent came from.

Until I found this.

According to this blurb from politicolnews.com: The reason Russia is banning US made pork, beef and chickens is not a trade barrier but because they refused the food due to high levels of antibiotics and fear the genetic modifications to farm animals will be a detriment to their society. Too bad US politicians do not feel the same when allowing Americans to eat these tainted products. Mar 21, 2011.

So, Russia bans our beef, and America’s reaction is to thump our chests in pride and arrogantly advertise that their beef is awful and ours is fresh. I am not going to go into the details of BSE or its links to vCJD, but I couldn’t help but write about this.

If you read it and just shrug, then ambivalence suits you well. But if you laugh at this then shame on you. Not only is our advertising senseless, but it actually incorrectly informs the public of a situation. Anyone with a modicum of knowledge would know how stupid a commercial it is and would be upset that a very proudly American restaurant chain would be foolish enough to advertise like this.

And YOU cannot dismiss this writing as that of some GE food hating nutcase, because I am not. This isn’t a organic food issue and this isn’t a food supply issue. It is an image issue. That commercial makes us look like fools. And I, the caterpillar guy, am a proud American and have a good sense of humor about things that are funny. This isn't. Its disappointing.