As if there wasn’t enough to worry about post-Fukushima, now the hamburgers are radioactive.
According to a New York Times story today, beef contaminated by radiation is hitting the Japanese markets. Despite government assurances that radioactive cesium doesn’t create immediate adverse health consequences, as one Japanese meat man put it, “Nobody will ever want to eat beef from Fukushima again.” Good.
Hopefully, at this point, we’re all a little less naive about what to believe. Certainly, we don’t buy it that a little radiation never hurt anyone, having been lied to many times before, including about most major disasters and their consequences.
Beyond that, however, should we really be eating meat anyway, given what it does to the environment, our bodies, and our health (not to mention the culture of violence and indifference to suffering it breeds, literally)? The Environmental Working Group just released a report urging us to eat “greener” meat but the facts are that the number one step all of us can take to be more “green,” is to stop eating meat.
Not popular perhaps, but it seems to us that it’s time to wake up and accept that our cravings for bacon sandwiches are leading us to destruction. As we’ve said before, let’s go back to eat what you kill and see how quickly mushroom burgers regain their appeal. For our part, “green meat” sounds gross.