It’s a lesson Chipotle seems to be learning the hard way: it’s hard to expand into a major player in the fast food market while at the same time serving only humanely grown livestock. It may, in fact, be impossible — unless customers are willing to either pay more, or embrace vegetarian options.
Chipotle’s standards, after all, are strict: it only serves meat that’s been raised without antibiotics or added hormones, with the additional requirement that the pigs destined to become carnitas are housed in conditions that aren’t met by typical factory farms. That’s what makes Chipotle stand out from its competitors, but it’s also anathema to a model that requires a lot of supply to meet growing demand. Humanely raised pigs, after all, are still a rarity in the U.S. According to Bloomberg, the top pork processors, which make up 70 percent of domestic production, mostly fall short of Chipotle’s standards.
Chipotle’s been criticized in the past for offering conventional meat when superior options weren’t available, but executives drew the line with pork, and are instead trying to figure out other options. One, Arnold told Bloomberg, might be to use pork loin instead of pork shoulder for the carnitas — but that, he said, would be a lot more expensive. In case you were looking for another reason not to buy breast milk online, here it is: A study out this week finds that, in addition to containing dangerously high levels of bacteria, much of the breast milk sold on the Internet is not, in fact, human. Or, at least not entirely.
Researchers at the Nationwide Children’s Hospital Center for Biobehavioral Health found that one in 10 samples of breast milk purchased online also contained significant traces of cow’s milk, which pediatricians recommend avoiding for infants under 12 months of age. The study’s lead author, Sarah Keim, contends that sellers at “milk-sharing” websites intentionally add cow’s milk to the substance and market it as 100 percent human, in order to increase the volume of the product.
Live Science reports: You can call the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) many things — “duplicitous,” “Koch-backed” and “the environment’s worst nightmare” all come to mind — but don’t accuse it of peddling in climate denial.
The free-market lobbying group is threatening to sue progressive groups that accuse it of denying the science of climate change. Letters sent to Common Cause and the League of Conservation Voters, the Washington Post reports, demand the organization “cease making false statements” about global warming and “remove all false or misleading material” suggesting as much.
As I’ve written before, ALEC isn’t completely truthful about its claim that it isn’t, in the words of Google chairman Eric Schmidt, “just literally lying” about climate change. It tried to distance itself from climate denial last fall when Google cut ties with the group over its climate stance, but a cursory review of its model legislation shows it borrowing heavily from the climate denier playbook: it acknowledges that “human activity has and will continue to alter the atmosphere of the planet” and “may lead to demonstrable changes in climate” [emphasis added]. But it then goes on to claim that “such activity may lead to deleterious, neutral or possibly beneficial climatic changes” — a view completely out of keeping with what the vast majority of climate scientists believe.
It also argues that “a great deal of scientific uncertainty surrounds the nature of these prospective changes,” in a clear attempt to distort that scientific consensus that climate change is real and primarily driven by humans. The debate among scientists, of course, isn’t over whether climate change will be bad or good, but rather over just how bad it will be.
Attorneys for Common Cause cited ALEC’s model legislation as proof that its claims are “entirely consistent with how ALEC has discussed, characterized, and approached the issue of climate change.” Climate denial, they say, is well understood in common parlance to include those who “question or cast doubt on the scientific evidence regarding climate change or its impact.” Both groups are refusing to reply with ALEC’s request.
But the more pertinent detail in ALEC’s new counteroffensive is what the Post identifies as an industry-wide trend to no longer question the scientific consensus on climate change. Debating the science used to be “all the rage,” said Scott Segal, who represents energy interests at Bracewell & Giuliani. But now, he told the Post, “the key issue is whether proposed regulations cost too much, weaken reliability or are illegal.”
In other words, ALEC hasn’t been convinced by the data so much as it’s decided that there are more profitable ways of achieving its objectives. It’s seen first-hand how its climate denial has cost its reputation: while Google was the most blatant about how that influenced its decision to cut ties with the group, it was part of a mass exodus of big-name companies, including eBay, Coca-Cola and even, most recently, BP.
As big, important climate initiatives come up, like U.S. states’ implementation of the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan, ALEC remains committed to blocking the EPA at every turn, its position being: even if the climate is changing, we sure as hell shouldn’t be doing anything about it.
In the study, published online today (April 6) in the journal Pediatrics, the researchers obtained 102 samples of breast milk purchased from “milk-sharing” sites for anywhere from 50 cents to $3 per ounce, Keim said.