McDonalds’s responds to public pressure. How about the government?

When something negative enough comes out about a corporation, the tendency is for the business to respond to public pressure and change whatever is causing the embarrassment. With the government, that is not quite the case.

Take the case of “pink slime,” the unofficial “food” that McDonald’s had at one time used in their hamburger patties. Thankfully, for those who eat McDonald’s hamburgers (or wouldn’t and will now), the company stopped using the substance. Competition from other hamburger chains and the threat of lost market share and profits likely drove the decision.

But government faces no such pressures. So, according to this article: “The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is buying 7 million pounds of beef containing ammonium hydroxide-treated ground connective tissue and meat scraps and serving it up to America’s school kids.” Big shock there. No one competes with the USDA. Their word is law and no one can question it, especially non-voting school kids. We’ll see if the feds respond to public pressure and this spate of bad media by banning “pink slime” in schools (what happened to Michelle Obama’s healthy schools kick, btw?).

Oddly enough, the USDA which is distributing “pink slime” is also the agency in charge of inspecting meat for safety (no conflict there!). A privatized meat inspection service could and would do a much better job. If people want to eat “pink slime,” they should be allowed and if people want higher standards than the USDA sets, they should be allowed to do that as well. Just another case of “one-size-fits-all” government from Washington.