While Cattle Burn It is quite common for companies to make hay while the sun shines. It is something altogether different, however, for companies to make a buck while cattle burn. Farmers in the UK and Europe bemoan the wholesale incineration of cows that might have known someone with foot and mouth disease. But merchants of the world have no time for such sentiment. After all, there is much money to be made from the ever-diminishing cow. "Barnyard TV Dinners" is a Danish company that prepacks adult cow dinners consisting of alfalfa sprouts, bean curd, leeks, lentils, and dried figs. The company guarantees there are no animal parts, such as spleen, spine and brain, in these dinners. Moreover, the company provides written instructions, which vary with barn, from an animal psychologists who instructs dairy farmers how to feed, care for and pamper animals on this new diet. Dairy cows in the UK have lost thousands of friends, family member, and playmates due to the wholesale burning on suspect animals. The Barnyard TV Dinners, which are loaded with B-Complex and other vitamins to reduce on-hoof stress, are designed to help animals who are beginning a long period of mourning. This is not only good husbandry; it is good business, according to spokesman Pieter Pater. No consumer wants to bite in a tenderloin from the flank of an animals that has gone to slaughter knowing his or her friends didn't get the same consideration. The shortage of leather from cow carcasses has turned the fashion industry on its head. By consensus of a few Milano designers 2002 was to be the year of long, flowing leather fashions which would enable retailers to charge more for product, thus countering a slowing economy. Foot and mouth disease has changed all that. Shipments of rawhides to tanning factories have decreased 50% since last year causing designers to rethink what women really want. Louis Vuitton has already announced that hot new handbags for 2002 will be big enough to carry only mascara and cab fare and cost twice as much. The dearth of cow hides guarantees shorts will be shorter, pants tighter, and shoes smaller. Any woman over size 8 will be unable to buy leather goods. Mode magazine for plus-sized women has already threatened a large class action lawsuit, calling this new design trend "blatant discrimination against the more than one-cow woman." Furniture makers are having an equally difficult time. Villency traditionally uses European hides for furniture because the cows there grow older and bigger. Villency is known for soft, plump sofas, but no more. Until cows live long enough to produce large hides, sofas and chairs will be much smaller. Villency is countering criticism by arguing its furniture should be considered items of art, more to be looked at than sat upon. France seems to understand. Makers of more mundane fare, such as auto seats, are not so lucky. Detroit is expected to have difficulty selling oversized SUV's with small leather seats to overweight Americans who take pride in having big bottoms. While some companies go "small", others respond to the cow scare by going "large." The McDonald Corp. in Paris is one example. Hamburger sales have been steadily declining for the last year because people are afraid of contracting mad cow disease. By some accounts burger sales were off 20% compared to the previous year. And this performance has hurt the parent company's share price. In a stroke of genius McDonald's boldly offered the new 280-gram burger, twice the size of the Big Mac, with the slogan "Can You Handle It?" Equally important, McDonald's launched a media blitz explaining to French consumers that all its hamburgers are made from muscle meat which is reportedly free of mad cow disease. Television commercials show in considerable detail the slaughtering process from the time the cow is shot with a stun gun in the head until the time it is processed into rich, red meat patties. The pitch "No offal, no brains, no spleen, no spine" scrolls across the screen. The same advertisement is shown in movie houses. A shorter version plays on television monitors in all 860 McDonald's restaurants in France. Large muscled men dressed in tiny French sailor suits prowl the restaurants inviting people to feel their biceps and thighs. McDonald has suspended Happy Meals but claims children are still welcome. Not surprisingly, the mad cow scare has gone underground and spawned a fan club that professes to live on the edge. Club members usually wear black, go to all-night clubs in Greenwich Village, and demonstrate courage by doing a line of cocaine. The new fad is a line of spine that involves inhaling through the nostrils a line of pulverized, powdered spine ostensibly from a really mad-cow cow. So pervasive is this practice that New York health officials have launched a television campaign called "This Is Your Brain On Cow," showing hapless young men and women braying at the moon. In a less dramatic manner some restaurants are simply adding a note of intrigue to expensive, bland menus. For example in Japan blowfish is considered a delicacy. However, it must be cooked properly or the consumer could die a very painful death. A similar practice is currently the rage in England where enterprising, risk-taking upper-class families actually seek out suspect meat for the Sunday roast claiming their pedigree will protect them. In front of this parade is the Royal Family, living proof that even mad cow disease cannot kill a vital institution.
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