Thursday, September 19, 2013

Cheese. An Excellent Source of Torture.

“There should be a daily dose of pleasure.”

So begins a warm and fuzzy new TV ad from the Dairy Farmers of Canada, slinging cheese to the me generation. It's part of a campaign “introducing a new brand positioning for cheese: Cheese. An Excellent Source of Pleasure.”


If I didn't know better, I'd be salivating right on cue. Unfortunately, most people don't know better – or try not to.

In the Old South, white people might have been lulled into complacency with a slogan like this:
Slave-picked cotton. Because your lilly white skin deserves a lilly white dose of luxury.
Today, what conscientious consumers demand is a daily dose of reality. When it comes to cheese, that should be:
Cheese. An Excellent Source of Torture.
Sound like hyperbole? Judge for yourself. Here's the ad:



There are many more ads like this one out there – undercover video of other dairies, of cows and calves during long-haul transport, at livestock auctions and inside slaughterhouses. Consider these ads for another kind of pleasure:
Vegan Cheese. An Excellent Source of Guilt-free Pleasure. 
Vegan cheese used to be an excellent source of crappy imitation – crappy taste, crappy ingredients.

No more.

Companies like Daiya are producing 100% plant-based hard and soft cheeses that are so good – taste, feel and melt like the real thing, made from wholesome ingredients – they demand to be tried by consumers who find the daily dose of dairy reality too shocking, too unconscionable, too criminal to support.

You wouldn't buy cotton picked by slaves. Cheese? Same idea.