Front Page of today's SF Chron: Activists take case to meat eaters: Mad cow fears offer rare public entree

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Front Page of today's SF Chron: Activists take case to meat eaters: Mad cow

fears offer rare public entree

 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2004/01/05/MNG2D43G831.D

TL

Activists take case to meat eaters

Mad cow fears offer rare public entree

 

Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer

On Christmas Eve, less than a day after federal officials uncovered the

first known case of mad cow disease in the United States, converging streams

of animal rights activists, vegans and organic food proponents were already

planning ways to capitalize on what they saw as the silver lining of

opportunity in the nationwide scare.

 

They had to. After years of waving their arms about the way beef cattle are

raised and the health risks associated with eating meat, suddenly the nation

was listening; the security of that most American of meals -- the

hamburger -- had been threatened.

 

" When images of farmed animals are flooding the airwaves, it's a huge

wake-up call for people to think about what they're eating now, " said Lisa

Franzetta, an Oakland-based national campaign coordinator for People for the

Ethical Treatment of Animals, which staged a small anti-meat demonstration

in San Francisco on New Year's Eve. " We wanted to get our message out

there. "

 

Even though organic food proponents aren't in ideological lockstep with

animal rights advocates, they and others surfing in the mad cow wake share

two traits: They believe the United States must revamp its standards for

raising animals; and much of their intellectual firepower and popular

support is rooted in Northern California.

 

Linked online by their overlapping constituencies, they're hoping the

current national attention allows the public to peek into slaughterhouse

practices they find repugnant.

 

" Mad cow is just symptomatic of what's wrong with our agriculture system, "

said David Evans, a fourth-generation Marin County rancher whose Marin Sun

Farms specializes in beef that is fed on grass instead of grain. " (The

discovery) is a good thing for the movement, in that we can show what needs

to be corrected. "

 

So on Christmas Eve, while Franzetta was organizing street demonstrations

where " vegetarian starter kits " would be handed out over the next few days

in Washington, D.C., Cincinnati, Nashville, Salt Lake City and San

Francisco, rancher Evans was starting to field interviews on the joys of

grass-fed cattle.

 

In the next few days, while Larry Bain, a San Francisco restaurateur and

advocate of humanely raised beef, was urging Mayor-elect Gavin Newsom to

consider an antibiotic-free food policy for the city, longtime San Rafael

activist Bradley Miller started designing full-page ads to run in national

newspapers.

 

While Guerneville vegan restaurant owner Alex Bury noticed patrons taking

more of the " Go Vegan " brochures at her Sparks eatery, Petaluma piano

teacher Anahid Bertrand made the decision to change to a vegan diet, and

organized her first " anti-meat " demonstration Saturday in downtown Petaluma.

 

Bertrand is even trying to get her five-year-old cat to switch to a

vegetarian diet.

Seizing this moment is key, as Miller's staff at the 19-year-old Humane

Farming Association knows well.

The organization, which has been at the forefront of the national veal

boycott since the 1980s, knows the national attention span can be short --

which is why they were in the office Christmas Eve a bit longer than they

originally planned to be.

 

" This is clearly the most significant development that's affected the beef

industry in 20 years, " said Miller, whose organization claims 170,000

members.

 

One ad Miller's crew is working on would feature a young girl biting into a

hamburger. The wording being considered: " Are you willing to feed your child

meat infected with mad cow disease? "

 

Meat industry advocates say those who are using the mad cow discovery to

call for change in the food industry are " not realistically tuned in to what

people want, " said Steve Dittmer, publisher of Calf News, an industry

magazine devoted to cattle feeders.

 

" These people are against the type of agriculture that goes on in this

country, " Dittmer said during a visit last week to San Francisco. " They

don't want consumers to have a choice. Sure, organic farming is fine -- if

you want to live like we did 150 years ago. "

 

Bain, the director of operations at San Francisco's upscale Acme Chophouse

restaurant, has begun using his position on Newsom's transition team to

lobby for food policy changes. Last week, he asked the mayor-elect to

consider purchasing only meat, seafood and dairy produced without non-

therapeutic antibiotics.

 

" The lesson (with the mad cow discovery) is that cheap food is not cheap.

The costs are being externalized, " Bain said. " That dollar hamburger may

cost you $500 at the emergency room. "

 

The mad cow discovery was the last straw for Bertrand. After hearing a radio

report last summer about how livestock are kept, the lifelong meat eater

switched to a vegetarian diet. Last Monday, she decided to go vegan.

 

Two days later, she stood in front of a Powell Street steakhouse in San

Francisco, passing out vegetarian starter kits with a handful of PETA

activists.

 

She even brought her mother, a 61-year-old native of Bulgaria, who had never

been to a demonstration before.

" Most of the reaction was positive, like 1 in 10 was already vegetarian, "

she said. " But some was negative. People say to us, 'I love meat.' Or,

'Where's the beef?' But that's OK. What's important is our presence. "

 

E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli.