(Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images)
I have come to believe that nothing engages fragile masculinity quite like veggie burgers. There’s something about performative maleness that requires the public perception of a willingness to eat flesh. Men must be “hunters,” not “gatherers” like the women-folk. If you can’t provide for your family by putting a dead animal on the table (then buggering off while a woman plucks it, skins it, cleans it, guts it, prepares it, and serves it to your fat ass after you wake up from your nap), then what kind of a “man” are you? Certainly not the kind who could attract a mate (50,000 years ago). Nothing says “I’m manly enough to die of scurvy” than scoffing at a veggie dog and demanding to be shown the “real meat.”
I used to be one of these men. I used to think that the entire tofu industry was trying to trick me out of my God-given right to eat what I killed (or, you know, Seamless-ed). But at some point, I found myself enjoy turkey kielbasa in the privacy of my own home and realized that my public insistence on “real” beef was just dumb. It was just me trying to seem unevolved, as if my knuckles scraping on the ground made me more of a man.
So when I say that this law passed in Arkansas outlawing the use of the meat-sounding words on labels if they are modified by plant-sounding words is the most pathetically snowflake excuse for manliness I’ve heard of outside of Donald Trump’s Twitter account, know that I’ve thought about this for a while. The ACLU, which is suing, explains:
The state of Arkansas thinks you’re confused about whether a veggie burger comes from a cow. In fact, it thinks you’re so confused that it passed a law making it illegal for companies to use words like “meat,” “roast,” and “sausage” to describe products that are not made from animals. Under the law, it doesn’t matter if those words are modified by “vegan,” “veggie,” or “plant-based.”
Rather than focusing on genuine consumer concerns — such as rising healthcare and education costs — Arkansas politicians have decided to take on an imaginary crisis: confusing a veggie burger for a hamburger, or almond milk for cow’s milk.
Laws like this are popping up all over the country, and even around the world. The EU has apparently proposed a law that would require the makers of veggie burgers to label them as “veggie discs.” Usually, labeling restrictions require the addition of adjectives. You know, like: “This product contains EVIL-ENHANCED nicotine.” Here, they’re trying to change the noun. You can jam all the GMO, steroid-enhanced future tech you can into a “burger,” but as long as there are a few cells that once had a mother, you can call it a “burger.”
This seems like a good time to point out that “hamburgers” have no “ham” in them, for those “real” Americans who aren’t good at classifying mammals.
Fragile masculinity alone cannot explain such stupidity. Here, we’re also witnessing old-school protectionism. Makers of “real” meat, to say nothing of “real” milk and “real” rice — Arkansas is the largest producer of rice in the country and they’re getting increased competition from “cauliflower rice” producers — are getting their lunch eaten by these alternative products. They’re hoping that by forcing producers to call their meatless products something different entirely, they can retain market share from their traditional consumers. Like I said personally, turkey kielbasa is something I was willing to try. Would I have bought “turkey bark-enhanced intestinal casing”? Probably not.
Despite the bald protectionism of such laws, I’d be inclined to let them stand if protectionism were the only problem. The link above about the EU proposal comes from Reason.com, and — pro tip — any time you find yourself agreeing with a legal argument on Reason it is wise to think more deeply and imagine how the argument can be used to by a giant corporation to repurpose their mercury waste as silver dollar pancake mix.
But the Arkansas statute is so poorly written and, again, extremely dumb, that it should easily fail on First Amendment grounds. From the ACLU complaint:
There is no likelihood of consumer confusion about what a veggie burger is. There is, I suppose, likelihood of confusion if your host prepares veggie burgers, and doesn’t tell you. That’s less a legal problem and more of a Pepsi Challenge problem.
Labeling requirements are not bad. When the label conveys important information, like how quickly the product will kill you, that is appropriate. But here… I mean, if you are really worried about getting a tricked into eating a veggie burger, maybe you should just go out and hunt your own roadkill like your ancestors did before God created Fresh Direct.
Arkansas Wants to Make Sure You Know ‘Almonds Don’t Lactate’ [ACLU]
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.