Standards for Vegetarian Menu: Brought to you by Jimmy Dean Sausage

Jimmy Dean (1928-2010), the Texas sausage millionaire and former country crooner, passed away recently.   If you liked his songs (like Big Bad John, below), why not try his breakfast sausages?  That was the standard he started his own business by (and he made good on it).   What if we found among his notes the following standards for vegetarian and organic sausages?


(Disclaimer:  This is Parody.  Jimmy Dean the pork sausage magnate did not actually draft standards for tofu production.  My point is that the standards for reuse of used computers, as written in E-Stewards and Pledge of Environmental Stewardship, bear the mysterious mark of scrap shredding companies with "no intact unit" standards and anti-gray-market, planned obsolescence in hindsight OEMs.)

How to Prepare Safe Tofu - by Jimmy Dean

"Tofu comes from plants which grow in the ground.  It is cultivated outoors in close proximity to fertilizer applications, and the tofu itself comes from soy beans which could be dirty.  Photos show soy beans which have been stepped on in the mud, or washed in contaminated river conditions, harvested by illegal immigrants and child labor.  It is grown in the dirt and must be presumed dirty unless certified to be clean.

"Current standards rely on the buyer of the soy products, which tofu is made from, to inspect what they are buying and to report it if it is not clean.  This is unfair and unethical.   Sadly, the standards of USA food regulations rely on samples of batches, sporadic inspection, and single units of tofu product are almost never individually inspected.  Tofu made by companies claiming to be "organic" should have further special tests applied to ensure it is truly organic, including a manifest of signatures by each transporter.

"To be considered clean and fit for human consumption, each piece of tofu must be tested by a human expert to make certain that the vegetarian meal  is consumable.  Standards of packaging for all vegetarian sausage must contain a warning, "contains waste product" to account for portions which may not be digestible and to properly identify that packaging must be discarded.

"The standards of true vegetarian stewadship should also verify that no illegal immigrants or child labor was employed in the harvesting of any soy bean used to make tofu for American consumption.  This certification will cost 1% of the gross proceeds of the tofu producer and be payable to a non-profit organization financially supported by the Jimmy Dean meat sausage company."

Jimmy Dean has demonstrated his commitment as a true steward of vegetarianism.  We look forward to legislation by Texas Congressman Gene Green to protect vegetarians across the USA from sham tofu preparation.

Note - I spent every summer with my extended family, grandparents and cousins in the Ozarks.  I listened to a lot of country music, watched a whole lotta Hee Haw.  Jimmy Dean always made us laugh in his ads, he was genuine and had a tongue in his cheek most of the time.  I hope this parody about e-waste reuse standards, the ones which are written by people with no first hand experience selling used computers, is taken with the respect with which it was written.  I wrote a post last week about butchers writing standards for vegetarian restaurants, I just wanted to bring it closer to the California Compromise Sopranos episode (which has higher reardership)... and wanted an excuse to post the song Big Bad John.  I hope to have as much fun at my own expense someday.


Big Bad John, RIP.   Man, I never would have thought I'd be spending the decade defending the environment from environmentalists.