Willie Nelson covers an eloquent Coldplay song in this new advertisement from Chipotle.
The animation makes us hunger for a simpler time when farms were small and animals were free to go wherever they chose, without fences, before there were assembly lines and food was transported in tractor trailers on highways.
What year was that exactly? I'm not quite sure. But whenever it was, I want the time machine to that year.
Yet, I can see for myself that Chipotle makes its burritos on an assembly line right in front of the customer. Chipotle's "Food with Integrity" position on animal production is quite good, but surely the meat comes from very large farms with thousands of animals. I know Chipotle food reaches the restaurant in tractor trailers on highways. Perhaps the imagery overreaches what a fast-food restaurant can be expected to achieve.
The song makes me want to go to my town's farmers market, which is open on Wednesdays. I will still eat at Chipotle, sometimes, but I know what I'm buying.
3 comments:
Nostalgia is a very interesting phenomenon. We use the word only when thinking about 'good times' and we don't think about the rest of the conditions that existed. Before meats were transported in trucks (of any kind) people in cities were generally limited to meats that had been preserved by drying or smoking or curing with salt.
Yes, Tom, and it was better that way - for everyone. The process of food production today is poisoning us. Better to eat more vegetables and less meat, but meat that is at least raised with compassion and consideration.
perhaps you should at least research the farms a bit before casting the ol' "must come from very large farms with thousands of animals."
Their pork still comes from Niman Ranch who sells a lot of pork - but it's coming off over hundreds of family farms, using some of the best animal husbandry and sustainability practices in the country (I know some of them personally).
If you want to press Chipotle in a constructive way - challenge their reluctance to sign a Fair Food Agreement with CIW....that's where their integrity falls flat....
and yes, go to the farmer's market - but if our food system is going to improve, we need all shapes and sizes to make it work, and we can't just circle the wagons against anyone not raising, dressing, and curing their own hogs in the backyard.
Post a Comment