NZ First MP Mark Patterson criticises Air New Zealand over ‘Impossible burger’
Another New Zealand First MP has taken aim at Air New Zealand, this time for serving up synthetic meat burgers to passengers.
The party’s primary industries spokesman Mark Patterson called the promotion of the “Impossible burger”, which contains a plant-based meat substitute on some international flights a “slap in the face” for New Zealand’s red meat sector.
Air New Zealand has teamed up with Silicon Valley start-up Impossible Foods to serve the burger to premium customers.
The plant-based burger will be available as part of its business premier menu on flights NZ1 and NZ5 from Los Angeles to Auckland until late October.
“The national carrier should be showcasing our premium quality grass-fed New Zealand red meat, not promoting a product that has the potential to pose an existential threat to New Zealand’s second biggest export earner,” Patterson said.
“There has been widespread concern in the regions at the loss of services from provincial airports and now we have Air New Zealand actively promoting synthetic proteins which have a genetic modification component to them. This is not a good example of New Zealand Inc working together for the greater good.”
Patterson called for Air New Zealand to review its decision and instead showcase New Zealand produce to international visitors.
National’s agriculture spokesman Nathan Guy expressed his disappointment on Twitter over the promotion.
“Disappointing to see Air NZ promoting a GE substitute meat burger on its flights to the USA. We produce the most delicious steaks & lamb on the planet – GMO & hormone free. The national carrier should be pushing our premium products and helping sell NZ to the world,” Guy tweeted.
These MPs clearly have no idea of the speed & multi-billion dollar global investment that is going into synthetic meat – that’s deeply concerning because once synthetic meat is here, the entire backbone of our economy is gone, their ignorance suggest no one is aware of this.
Our dairy and meat industry face an existential crisis.
Meat and Dairy pollute our water, cause human dietary health issues and are the main drivers of climate change in this country. The millisecond synthetic meat and dairy can replicate the taste of meat and dairy with plant based alternatives grown at a fraction of the environmental degradation and water consumption, it is all over rover for our Dairy & Meat industries.
This is a simple fact.
What we need to be doing now, is urgently funding the adaptation of our diary and meat industry away from what they are doing right now.
Planting trees is a process under way, if we legalise cannabis, Hemp production could replace dairy and meat and we should be funding synthetic meat R&D ourselves.
Dairy prices have just slumped…
Dairy product prices decline for eighth time in 10 auctions
Dairy product prices declined at the Global Dairy Trade auction, led by a larger-than-expected drop in whole milk powder, after Fonterra said an increase in its May production lifted its expectations for the season’s milk collections.The GDT price index fell 5.0 per cent from the previous auction two weeks ago. The average price was US$3,232 a tonne. Some 26,519 tonnes of product was sold, up from 21,634 tonnes two weeks ago.
Whole milk powder sank 7.3 per cent to US$2,905 a tonne.
…many Dairy farms are up to their eyeballs in debt from dairy intensification and with a looming economic crisis that will ram interest rates up, many will go to the wall.
The Government should be preparing for mass buy ups of existing dairy farms with the intent to change the land use or offer farmers the option of doing it themselves to buy out their debt.
Because of the speed of climate change, huge ideas with radical vision are required. That a NZ First and National MP can’t see the need should surprise no one because they themselves are like the Dairy and Meat Industries – dinosaurs that don’t know they are extinct yet.
A “slap in the face” for NZ’s red meat sector?
You mean the “industry” that adds tonnes of methane to our poor planet’s lungs and tonnes of shit and piss to our once swimmable/potable waterways?
This gave me my morning laugh – that idiot Nathan Guy steering (pun intended) Air NZ fliers towards bowel cancer?
Historically we Kiwis have been glorious meat eaters, sometimes three times a day, starting with fried chops for breakfast, and the sad results are to be seen in our bowel cancer stats, a cruel disease which has bumped off a few of my whanau and makes me a colonoscopy regular.
I imagine a lot of people will be more than happy to pay a premium for real meat after the synthetic meat establishes itself in world markets – especially if it’s coupled with a clean green image (real or not)
And especially, especially if the synthetic meet is genetically engineered.
This requires the NZ farming community to see organic farming as a solution not a problem but I’d be willing to bet there will be a sizeable market for naturally grown food, especially as Genetically Engineered food seems to have so many problems
https://www.marijuanabreak.com/the-dope-black-bean-veggie-burgers-recipe
@ aaron..that is one of the sheet-anchors this dead industry is clinging to…
facts are that market will so shrink – that our stuff..grown in the dirtiest way possible..transported from the other side of the world..will not survive..
so good luck with that sheet-anchor..eh..?..
@Phillip Yure. More and more people are coming to the conclusion that the more un-natural a food is the more likely it’ll be bad for our health. Years ago I stopped eating refined flour and sugar and it did wonders for my well being, everyone I know who can afford it is buying organic food, everyone everywhere wants chemicals out of their food and Grandparents who slip lollies to the grandchildren are ticked off by their own children these days.
In this environment the only people who eat synthetic meat will be people who have no choice – and while there will be an awful lot of those there will still be plenty of people who want 100% natural food. I don’t think the farming industry will want to go organic but if we started producing meat under a GMO free, clean, green banner we would only need a small portion of the world to buy it to keep our farmers busy – plus the premium we could charge would be ridiculous!
I have nothing to so with the farming industry but I’m old enough to have seen a lot of promises about what technology will bring us and they’ve mostly turned to crap, plus anything to do with GMO’s needs to be treated with extreme caution.
Aaron – your comment on GMO etc are misguided – “No human health problems have been proven after decades of use and well-known research by University of California, Davis scientists on the effects of a trillion meals of genetically modified crops consumed by livestock over 18 years also found no ill effects” (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/future-nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503726&objectid=11362481). On the flip side a diet high in red meat is known to have adverse health affects.
I still think only those that can afford Business Class would remotely consider consuming this literal fake food. The rest of us will continuing chowing down on actual food for a very long time yet.
um..!..no….!….
the facts of the matter are that in a blind taste-test you would not be able to tell the difference between animal and plant-based meats…
it will be much healthier..much cheaper to produce..no nasty pesticides etc used..an environmental footprint 15% of the animal-based stuff..
so..no..eh..?
btw..does the unimaginably cruel ways farmed animals are treated concern you at all..?..
does/would that have any weight with you..?
I have big problems with the 15% environmental footprint argument because one of the environmental problems we face is that we’re destroying the fertility of the soil.
The irony is that most of the minerals and nutrients the cow eats are returned to the soil whereas with plant crops you have a much more efficient method of debasing the soil. Even with organic agri/horticulture the soils still gets depleted over time. The only way to permanently keep the soil healthy is go and retrieve the food waste and the human shit and put it back on the land the food came from.
To properly discuss this issue we need a permaculturist but it’s my understanding that most of the civilizations of the past fell because they destroyed their landbase – and they were all organic.
All we get from high-tech solutions in a culture that consumes everything is the opportunity to make the human population even bigger before everything comes flying apart.
No Aaron, sorry but this is just way off. The environmental impact of animal agriculture on the land is well documented and it has been shown time and again that a plant based diet is better for the environment- significantly so. Non plant based diets require significant more land, water and fossil fuels to produce food. If you dedicated that same land to agriculture it would not need to be farmed as intensively therefore reducing the impact on the soil and allowing rotation crops to be utilised as a natural way of returning nutrients. Having cow poo as a way to regenerate soil has been shown to have problems as there are significant risks posed to waterways.
someone who is a vegetarian wont eat a meat burger lets face it !…no matter what!…no matter how grass fed, clean green and scrumptious the meat ( likewise a meat eater will not go for the vege option)
….so a vegetarian burger or some vegetarian option is the only way to go to cater for vegetarians…you cant force vegetarians to eat meat!
farmers should get real and advocate for hemp/cannabis crops …and maybe cannabis based vege burgers to cater for the clean green vegetarian option
cannabis/hemp crops are the way forward for NZ farmers
an excellent piece there..mr bradbury..
Aaron – your comment on GMO etc are misguided – “No human health problems have been proven after decades of use and well-known research by University of California, Davis scientists on the effects of a trillion meals of genetically modified crops consumed by livestock over 18 years also found no ill effects” (https://www.nzherald.co.nz/future-nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503726&objectid=11362481). On the flip side a diet high in red meat is known to have adverse health affects.
[…] Left-wing blogger Martyn Bradbury supported Air New Zealand’s vegetarian initiative in a post headed The ignorance of MPs criticising Air NZs impossible burger is impossibly terrifying. […]
There is nothing short of pure selfishness when MPs albeit they be National, Labour, NZ First, ACT and the Greens who deem themselves as meriting food of the highest quality whilst denying much needed food and nutrition to those who voted them into such positions of power and privilege(even on the Air NZ foodcart).
Over the past 9 years or so we have seen a major increase in homeless people. Many have had to resort to begging in the street to get money or food. Many have had to live in vehicles (which probably is considered rather good living especially in the winter months). But there are many others who live in areas a developed country like NZ that our citizens should not have been forced to live in.
But quoting former Social Development minister and former welfare dependent Paula Bennett homelessness is proof of a growing economy. That shows to me the out of touch reality National MPs have demeaned themselves to. May they keep on this track of logic to lead to the National Party demise.
Fortunately we now have a more intelligent and concerned government compared to the money grabbing/grubbing lot that were in government for way past their ‘Use by” date.
But that doesn’t excuse them from taking responsibility and accountability for the actions of a NZ First MP on that Air NZ flight.
I know we are expecting too much from MPs who deem themselves as being more Holier than Thou and have such an attitude in their actions but if even ONE MP in National, Labour, NZ First etc deem themselves as meriting better food than the homeless then they are not in the job for the best interest of NZers(and that includes the homeless)but more so in the job to feather their OWN nests, feed THEIR OWN bellys and expect NZ taxpayers to fund those life-style choices.
On their heads be it at election time.
But to Air NZ. Will you ever be seen feeding the homeless????? I doubt it very much as there is no money to be made by a representative airline to the world when it comes to even homeless NZers. On your head be it also. But then you have John Key onboard and no wonder such emphasis upon the NZ First MP.
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