The first “MeatOut” day was March 20, 1985 and has occurred on that day every year thereafter, including 2021, as a part of a national promotional campaign by the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM). FARM began in 1976 and claims to be the first, and when founded, only national nonprofit organization advocating for animal rights and veganism. Its stated mission is “to end the use of animals for food through traditional media, social media and video outreach.”

Various states such as Nebraska have either proclaimed “Meat-In” days to combat FARM’s MeatOut or, like Colorado, joined the clamor with proclamations advocating for a meat-free day of protest. The Denver Post columnist Krista Kafer in a March 12, 2021, article opined, “Recently, at the behest of out-of-state vegan advocates ‘dedicated to removing meat, and more, from our plates,’ Gov. Jared Polis proclaimed March 20 as MeatOut Day in Colorado. The proclamation disparages the eating of meat and other animal-derived products, presumably milk, eggs, and honey, as a health risk, environmental hazard, and source of cruelty.” And, thus, the battle is joined.

Proclamations like Polis’ remind me of the Meatless Mondays various states and school districts have proclaimed attempting to restrict students from choosing what to eat by shaming them into not eating meat under a nutrition guise or pseudo environmental help, etc. Telling consumers the science-based consumption consequences is about as far as I think governments should go. Consumers have the right to make informed choices. Certainly, warning labels on packs of cigarettes have helped in making that health choice clearer. Are such warnings next for meat? Will we see a warning label on your fast-food hamburger that it may be bad for you? Sure, that’s a hyperbolic stretch, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some zealous meat-less advocate hasn’t thought of it.

When politicians start to dictate what we can and cannot consume, what’s next, no beer at Sunday’s baseball game or cannabis at the family picnic? I harken back to what my Dad told me governments are supposed to do: “Deliver the mail, defend our shores and stay the hell out of my business!” And he was a farmer and a Democrat, no less.

To combat FARM’s MeatOut, various grass roots organizations here in Colorado and in other cattle-producing states have planned and are staging Meat-In days featuring outdoor barbecues with socially distanced, masked get-togethers to extol meat’s virtues. But that’s not enough. While it may be too late for this year’s MeatOut battle, let’s get ready for next year utilizing all the intervening time until then.

While Colorado or Nebraska or Texas for that matter may have the most cattle and ranchers tending to those cattle, they do not have a preponderance of beef consumers that may be influenced by FARM’s program and competing non-FARM programs. Those consumers reside in the more heavily populated states and are the ones to whom any Meat-In messages must be aimed.

FARM’s mission is to put us out of business and is media-centric. Our Meat-In messages must be just as compelling on similar media. Our strategy must be more than a media mission, however. Ours must be grounded in nutrition, health and taste. We cannot be deterred by those who trot out the environmental destruction shibboleth either. We must show meat’s environmental improvement programs and compare them to other GHG contributors that are far more deleterious.

However, this, too, is a slippery slope for us as we cannot be advocating for just a little less GHG than others. No, we must advocate for dramatic reductions in cattle production’s GHG emissions. We must be doing our darndest to help the environment not just nibble at the edges of its GHG-caused destruction.

A few zealous Meat-In advocates is woefully short of what is needed to combat and negate FARM’s MeatOut program. We need our trade organizations and leading meat companies to get the creative juices flowing to develop and deliver a compelling Meat-In message.

If FARM is going to blast the social media airwaves with their MeatOut message, we must be there as well with our own Meat-In message. And we must counter their proselyting for veganism by advocating for the omnivore’s choice: meat.

Meat Outs and Ins

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