CAPITOL M | A big bite about Impossible Burgers and Colorado cattle country
Andrei Stanescu / iStock
The Guv sure loves to shake things up.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis eats a Burger King Impossible Whopper in his office at the Capitol on Aug. 15.
What he’s eating in this picture, along with our Joey Bunch, is an Impossible Burger. That’s the meatless, made-from-plants burger offered locally by a variety of chains, such as Burger King, Red Robin, Qdoba and others. An Impossible Burger at Burger King is about a buck more than the traditional it-came-from-a-cow product.
You will NEVER guess where Impossible burgers are made. Wait for it … California. (Parent company Impossible Foods Inc. is based in Redwood City, at the northern end of Silicon Valley.)
The company’s website lists more than 400 places where one could find an Impossible burger, making Colorado second only to California among western states where the burger is sold in mostly fast-food restaurants.
Our Joey, whose recent heart attack means his diet has changed quite a bit, said he found them tasty.
Even President Trump’s secretary of agriculture, Sonny Perdue, has tried it. He pronounced it “very good” at a tasting in June in California, and called it and a reasonable facsimile of beef.
He also said it might help soybean farmers, hit hard by Trump’s trade war with countries (such as China) that used to buy U.S. soybeans since the burger uses soybean oil in its manufacturing process. (Soybeans are NOT a major crop in Colorado, in case you were wondering.)
Not surprisingly, in our state’s Eastern Plains — cattle country — there’s only four places where you can buy an Impossible Burger at a restaurant, all Burger Kings, located in Burlington, Fort Morgan, Lamar and Sterling.
Polis’ chomping on the meatless burger raised the question in cattle country on whether Colorado should be promoting a vegan alternative when the state’s No. 1 agricultural export is … wait for it … beef and beef products.
Polis said something to that effect in recent days at the Colorado Department of Agriculture, which among its responsibilities promotes the state’s livestock industry, including its beef and beef product exports.
Given that prices for beef aren’t exactly setting records right now, the governor’s timing seems to be a bit off, in more ways than one.
To cattle producers, suggesting the state’s Agriculture Department should promote a vegan alternative was tantamount to declaring war. And that’s exactly how a lot of folks, primarily on the Eastern Plains, viewed it.
The timing of his remarks comes while hundreds and maybe thousands of Coloradans, mostly in our state’s rural parts, are gathering signatures to demand Polis be recalled from office.
Can you say, “let’s throw a gasoline can on that particular fire?” Polis is not well regarded in rural Colorado, particularly the Eastern Plains, and this didn’t help.
It lit up the recall groups’ social media accounts almost as much as their opposition to the red flag bill, or national popular vote, or sex ed, or the oil and gas bill.
Among the cleaner remarks, one person on one of the recall pages on Facebook said: “When he gets recalled, maybe Burger King will hire him as a cook.”
State Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg of Sterling, whose living is based in part on cattle, turned several shades of red when he learned about Polis’ statement about meatless options and what Sonnenberg called “cheap dog food.”
In a Facebook exchange with a Polis friend, the senator pointed out that Polis could have “easily had the conversation with the department to look at these options but instead called the press and touted his inaccurate assumption of food trends. International consumption of beef continues to rise and Colorado farmers and ranchers work hard to meet that demand. The governor’s assertion is wrong and I will do what I can to protect my industry, stupid or not.”
In the days since Polis’ visit to the Ag Department, his staff and First Gentleman Marlon Reis have been busily trying to walk back what Polis told the ag staffers, with limited success.
Then there’s the reaction of the cattle industry. According to the Fence Post, an ag publication out of Greeley, the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association posted this reaction to Polis’ Facebook account of the meeting:
“The future of agriculture in the governor’s eyes does not involve beef production??? This is not remotely accurate or even likely. We believe in consumers right to choose what they eat but are surprised that Colorado’s Governor would use his office to target beef producing families.”
Part of that scrambling by the governor’s staff was to reach out to the cattlemen’s group, and the next day, they took the post down in favor of a more measured “we’ll keep talking” kind of statement. By Friday, however, the story had gone national.
According to the Fence Post, at least one staffer at the Ag Department was “mortified” by the governor’s suggestion.
Oops.
No word on the governor’s next culinary choice and who he might want to tick off with it.
Marianne Goodland’s Capitol M column looks at the lighter side (usually) of life at the state Capitol.
