Is Chipotle being Swiftboated by Big Food?

[NJCher]

51. naive

To assume there is some monolithic industry with one agenda like this is oversimplifying.

And I think it is a dangerous road to tread because there are enough rivalries and inconsistencies of agendas within things like the food system that clumping them all together essentially nullifies any argument made on the basis of 'big food' or 'big pharma' etc.

I think the problem here is that you're reading into possibly the OP and also my post. Where do you see anyone saying the industry is operating as a monolith? I doubt if anyone seriously thinks they all get together for secret meetings and say, "Let's plan an e coli outbreak at... Chipotle! Yeah, that's it, Chipotle!" More likely it would be a few bad actors who have done this sort of thing before. And yes, they would be in that industry, but not necessarily represent all of it.

The argument you make in the second copy and paste I've put above is naive. It's also factually incorrect. Have you not read of how consolidated the food supply is? I can give you a few books. Try Salt Sugar Fat by Moss of the NY Times. See this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/20/dining/michael-moss-food-for-tomorrow.html

In that book, you will find that they do have regular meetings of all the major processed food companies to negotiate strategy on how they are going to deal with threats to their business. And you will read how resistant they were to the message that their time was coming.

You also need to see Merchants of Doubt. Do these people ever know how to influence public opinion.

Do you know who some of the players in Big Food are? Urm, maybe people from the cigarette industry? Phillip Morris bought General Foods and then pulled the old name switcheroo.

But oh nooooo, there wouldn't be anyone in that group who would pull any dirty tricks, is there? After all, they so gracefully accepted the fate of smoking in the U.S. Yeah, they just walked away, tail between their legs, and they would never stoop to sliming anyone. Nosirrreee.

I could go on, but I won't because critiquing written arguments happens to be my job, and I don't need to give you any more free advice. And don't get me started on the jobs I've held in Big Food that allowed me a first hand view into how they manipulate public opinion.



Cher