One of the factors contributing to the demise of the environmental movement is junk journalism, close kin of junk science. It is part of the sad state of journalism in general and related to the intellectual and ethical poverty of journalism in political matters. The environmental movement isn't about the environment, it's about politics, so this isn't surprising.

For example, consider this interview of junk journalist Michael Pollan, unfortunately Knight Professor of Journalism at Berkeley so his disease is being transmitted to a new generation. [via The Poser]

It appears I have a kind of corn obsession. I'm like that character in Middlemarch, Professor Causabon, who thought he had the key to the universe, the key to all mythologies. In corn, I think I've found the key to the American food chain...

If you look at a fast-food meal, a McDonald's meal, virtually all the carbon in it – and what we eat is mostly carbon – comes from corn. A Chicken McNugget is corn upon corn upon corn, beginning with corn-fed chicken all the way through the obscure food additives and the corn starch that holds it together. All the meat at McDonald's is really corn. Chickens have become machines for converting two pounds of corn into one pound of chicken. The beef, too, is from cattle fed corn on feedlots. The main ingredient in the soda is corn – high-fructose corn syrup. Go down the list. Even the dressing on the new salads at McDonald's is full of corn...

Corn is a greedy crop, as farmers will tell you. When you're growing corn in that kind of intensive monoculture, it requires more pesticide and more fertilizer than any other crop.

I've written plenty against grain monoculture and grain feeding of livestock, especially maize, but this is junk journalism. Much of the meat served in American fast food outlets isn't raised in America. It is imported, especially from S. American countries such as Brazil. This is no secret. For the past decade and more environmental groups have been hammering McDonalds in particular about its contribution to rain forest destruction since it buys so much beef from Brazil. American cattle producers have also complained since they compete with foreign suppliers and the downward price pressure their lower costs of production bring.

Junk journalism is destructive in multiple ways. It usually is trying to persuade society to do something stupid but it is just as bad when the agenda is benign.

I can't write an article about industrial beef without pointing to an alternative, which is grass-fed beef;

Junk journalism like Pollan's piece which makes false claims is an effective way to discredit the idea of pastured products in the social mind. In a sense fast food outlets are serving pastured products since the beef they import isn't raised on grains. This is a problem for them since the meat is too lean to cook using typical methods, and they have developed alternative methods to compensate. Pollan's main argument against McDonalds is nonsense, which compromises the rest of his argument against industrial monoculture. He isn't a reliable voice.

Pastured livestock products - not just beef but also goat, chicken and pork as well as dairy products - are good for the environment and good for human health, but Mcdonalds isn't relevant to this subject. It is premium markets that are the proper target since they serve the cuts of meat where grain feeding is most apparent. Grain fed meat is fatter, with marbling that adds flavor and tenderness. This is an issue in grocery stores as well as restaurants since people select meats based on appearance and prize intra-muscular fat. For decades society has been educated to use these criteria for selection and their own experience confirms that fatter meat is tastier and more tender.

But what does tastier mean? Is the fatty flavor of such meat better? Not to those who have have an appropriate cuisine and experience of pastured meats. It is prepared differently than fatty meat and has what is often described as a cleaner yet stronger flavor. Some of the most sophisticated and expensive cuisine specifies pastured meats for this reason. The national cuisine of those S. American countries where Mcdonalds buys meat requires pastured products to work as intended.

Part of the issue is the genetics of the animals. For decades American (and European) livestock operators have worked diligently to select animal genetics that are a good fit for the finishing methods and target markets available to them. They have done well. But these are not the right genetics for pastured livestock which are finished on pasture and don't have all that fat to make them tender and flavorful. Neither are they especially efficient as grazers, able to thrive and finish well on pasture. The new generation of pasture producers are importing genetics from traditional grazing countries such as New Zealand to develop American grazing stock.

The rest of the Pollan article is similarly junky; half truths mixed with false assertions in an amateurish way that in the end is nothing but a typical, deceitful political screed. No honest student of the issues can find any value in his writing and political opponents find plenty of ammunition for equal and opposite screeds. He discredits a subject that does have merit. This has long been the greatest weakness of the environmental movement. Their arguments can't stand up to scrutiny even when their subject is legitimate, which turns people off to the subject. Junk journalists like Pollan are part of the problem rather than the solution.

Industrial cropping is an environmental problem, an unavoidable one in our populous world, and won't go away. What we can legitimately do to improve the situation is avoid unnecessary cropping. The use of pastured livestock is one very useful method. An even more relevant problem is the growing use of bio-fuels. Billions of dollars in subsidy and millions of acres of land are involved in this utterly destructive practice. How ironic that we find those who claim to care about the environment offering support for this behavior while bashing a low end restaurateur. It speaks volumes about their attitudes and agenda, making it perfectly clear that they have no concern for the environment at all.

» Enviro Babble from Crumb Trail
One of the worst maladies afflicting environmentalism is junk journalism, agendized nonsense that discredits even otherwise worthy concerns. Consider this: Chickens have become machines for converting two pounds of corn into one pound of chicken. This......[read more]
Tracked: March 23, 2005 12:57 PM