Only Chicken????

"If the the media seldom excel at quantifying risk, that is largely because doing so might get in the way of telling a good (by which we mean an exciting, not necessarily an accurate) story related to risk"- pg 116

IANS

Wow, talk about something being blown out of proportion. The sinlge most vivid memory of my childhood is the infamous meat scare of 1995. People just immediatly hit the panic button, and no one hit it harder than my own mother. I was banned from having meat. There was no Taco Bell, McDonald's, or Burger King for me. In the rare instances where I was allowed to get something from one of these places, my mother would say "you can only get chicken because you will die if you eat a hamburger". Constantly, I'd hear "do you want to end up like that kid from Seattle". This way of thinking was burned into my head so much that I actually started to believe that I would die if I ate beef. When my grandmother made steaks, I wasn't allowed to eat them, because I'd die if I do. Instead, I had the "pleasure" of eating Turkey Burgers (and those things are really freaking gross). This E. Coli scare caused so much panic through the US. I even remember there even being a TV show about a kid who died after eating an ill-prepared burger. (Teen Angel). 

Don't even get me started on my mom and Mad Cow Disease...(let's just say I have felt a little like a rebel any time I eat beef)

While there was much unnecessary panic (if meat was evil, all the fast-food restraunts would no longer exist), I guess I do understand the activist's point of view (albeit extreme). I guess if you want something done about an issue that might pose a risk, such as Global Warming or the few instances of death/sickness from E Coli, activists must "offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, amd make little mention of any doubts we might have" (117) to get support. (Of course, way too many people like my mother could buy into the scare and businesses would greatly suffer.) It is not the activists' goal to have people live in fear, but to have just enough fear to do something about a problem. I suppose there are extremes in everything we come across in life.

I had my first burger junior year during a rehearsal for my school's haunted house. And it was good. As much I I love you, McDonald's Chicken Nuggets, you are no longer the only menu option.

random side note: I am kind of excited because I just found clips of Teen Angel on youtube