What's The New Four-Letter Word?

Want to know the new four-letter word?  It's "meat."

As Janet Fang reports at smartplanet.com, that word just doesn't "do it for us anymore." Whether you attribute the new revulsion to "pink slime," "horsemeat" or other disgusting terms recently used for meat, Taco Bell is now disposing of the word in favor of "protein."

Yes, protein.  That's kind of like calling Hershey's, "chocolate."  We're getting all fancy, it seems, with all kinds of food.

Fang notes that the USDA recently allowed recently allowed the pork industry to now call pork butt, "Boston roast."  Huh?

But it's been coming for some time.  She points out in her article that a recent survey found that:
  • A little under 50 percent of conversations about meat over the last six months were negative, often including words like “bad,” “concerns,” and “problem.”
  • Only 6 percent of conversations about protein were negative, with more associations with words like “good,” “healthy,” and “delicious.”
  • The result: 91 percent of conversations about Taco Bell's new Power Protein menu have been positive.
The survey was conducted by Infegy, a company that analyzes user-generated content.

So, do you think you'll be tempted to buy a Big Mac or Whopper if they change the ingredients to "protein"? Somehow, to me, it seems sacrilegious to call a big juicy burger that mealy-mouthed scientific word. It sounds a little too much like big government looking over my shoulder telling me what to eat.

But clearly, meat's taken a bad rap lately so maybe a rose by any other name would . . . .

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