Guest guest Posted January 28, 2003 Report Share Posted January 28, 2003 http://www.theolympian.com/home/news/20030128/living/17100.shtml Cattle Producers Target Teen Vegetarians PHILIP BRASHER GANNETT NEWS SERVICE WASHINGTON --Teenagers are cutting the meat from their diets, and that trend alarms the nation's beef producers, who recently targeted an education campaign at teen girls. " I just didn't think that eating meat could be that healthy for you, " said Jennifer Mora, a Des Moines, Iowa, high school senior who quit eating meat and fish when she was 13. " I think we can get all the nutrients we need from other sources, like eggs, nuts, other foods. " It's 'cool' One in four teenagers now considers vegetarianism " cool, " according to Teenage Research Unlimited, a market research group. Two percent of teens ate no meat, poultry or fish in 2000, and 6 percent of teen girls ate no beef or pork, according to a poll sponsored by the Baltimore-based Vegetarian Resource Group. That's bad news for states such as Iowa, a major pork and beef producer. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which targets children all the way down to elementary school with its anti-meat campaigns, claims that 20 percent of college students are vegetarians. Sixty percent of the nation's schools offered vegetarian alternatives in 2001, up from 40 percent in 1999, according to the American School Food Service Association. " Vegetarianism is on the rise, especially among teens and college-age students, " said Patricia Trostle, education coordinator for PETA. " They're forming these ideas and habits that they are going to have for the rest of their lives. " Many do it wrong Nutritionists say vegetarianism can be perfectly healthy, so long as teens do it the right way. Many don't. A University of Minnesota study of more than 4,700 adolescents in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area found that teen vegetarians were less health-conscious than meat-eaters. The vegetarians also were more likely to be considering suicide or taking extreme measures to lose weight, including vomiting and using diet pills and laxatives. The National Cattlemen's Beef Association has picked up on these concerns and others in its effort to win teens back to meat. The group has launched an education campaign that equates beef-eating with good self-esteem, called " Cool to be Real. " The subtle message: Real girls eat beef. " If there is a whole section of young women and to a lesser extent men who are reducing their consumption of any particular food, the industry that provides that food would be keen to reclaim them, " said Steve Kay, an editor of Cattle Buyers Weekly, a trade publication. Cattlemen officials enlisted a child psychologist, Sylvia Rimm, author of " See Jane Win, " to convey their pro-beef message to editors of magazines and Web sites that reach teen girls. The editors were skeptical, the beef group found. Missing nutrients Besides protein, beef also is a good source of iron and zinc. Sixty percent of adolescent girls don't get enough iron, and 47 percent don't get enough zinc, U.S. Department of Agriculture data show. But those aren't the only nutrients that teen girls often lack -- even larger percentages don't get enough calcium and folate. There are other sources for protein, iron and zinc besides meat. Beans provide iron and protein. Dairy products and eggs are good sources of protein. Green leafy vegetables and fortified cereals supply a wide range of nutrients. " Anytime you eliminate one food or group of foods from your diet, you run the risk of not meeting your nutrient needs, " said Keith-Thomas Ayoob, a pediatric nutritionist at New York's Albert Einstein College of Medicine. " You can have a (vegetarian) diet that is extremely healthy, but you can also have one that is inadequate nutritionally. " ©2003 The Olympian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 29, 2003 Report Share Posted January 29, 2003 Here is the link for the America's Beef Producers teen girl website: www.cool-2b-real.com It is a fascinating and scary site. It seems like it must be a hoax site, but unfortunately, it is 'real'. The Beef industry is associating the word 'real' with eating meat and insinuating that being a vegetarian is 'fake' - maybe because vegetarians eat 'fake' meat. Here is a 'real' quote from the site: " Real " girls have " real " friends.... Friends who understand, friends who care, and friends who keep you real. (emphasis original) -Gabe Quash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted January 31, 2003 Report Share Posted January 31, 2003 The site Gabe posted below (cool-wb-real.com) is amazing. The beef industry has some great spin doctors on their payroll! What's interesting is the site encourages teens to take pride in their nutritional choices. Vegetarian teens should do the same, of course. Do teens who choose to go vegetarian look for nutrition information to keep them on a healthy vegetarian track (as opposed to drinking Coke and eating chips every day)? Do they have access to information at school? Somehow I doubt it. Has anyone handed out nutrition information at school events? Or asked school counselors to hand out information to students they find are vegetarian? If teens get educated about their diets, a shift could happen around veg*nism. ~Caity " gabequash " wrote: > Here is the link for the America's Beef Producers teen girl website: > > www.cool-2b-real.com > > It is a fascinating and scary site. It seems like it must be a hoax > site, but unfortunately, it is 'real'. The Beef industry is > associating the word 'real' with eating meat and insinuating that > being a vegetarian is 'fake' - maybe because vegetarians eat 'fake' > meat. Here is a 'real' quote from the site: > > ?Real? girls have ?real? friends.... Friends who understand, friends > who care, and friends who keep you real. (emphasis original) > > -Gabe Quash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted February 1, 2003 Report Share Posted February 1, 2003 The National Cattlemen¹s Beef Association goes to great lengths to disseminate their propaganda. Another one of their websites is burgertown.com which includes a Sasha Cohen website. You can see for yourself at http://burgertown.kidscom.com/main/sasha/sashacorner.html Sasha Cohen is a skater on the U.S. Olympic team and poster girl for the NCBA. You¹ll see that the website is nothing more than beef propaganda dressed up in kid friendly colors and images. The target market of the NCBA is 8-12 year old girls and LOTS of money is spent to get the message to this audience. Like the tobacco companies, they know it¹s all about getting them hooked while they¹re young. If you saw the opening ceremonies of the most recent winter Olympics, you may have seen Sasha Cohen seated next to Rancher in Chief, George W. Bush. A day earlier, Bush spoke at the annual NCBA meeting in Denver and declared that China needs to import more U.S. Beef. They¹re all one big happy family. I can¹t wait to see the day when Earthsave, PCRM, CIFC, Vegan Outreach and other organizations like these have the budget and clout currently enjoyed by the NCBA. -Rob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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