Parke over at US Food Policy has an interesting post about the Submarine Sandwich franchised chain Quiznos. In the post, he draws attention to an item that has intrigued me.

The federal government in December approved a massive campaign of television advertisements and other marketing to promote ...

... the Quiznos Prime Rib Sub.

(snip)

The advertising campaign, which runs from February through May this year, is a partnership between Quiznos and the Cattlemen's Beef Promotion and Research Board, a semi-governmental program to promote beef demand. The Beef Board is established by Congress, overseen by USDA's Agricultural Marketing Service, and funded through $46 million per year in mandatory assessments -- taxes -- collected from beef producers under federal government authority. The Beef Board is one of several meat and dairy commodity "checkoff" programs, which dwarf federal support promoting fruits, vegetables, or the Dietary Guidelines.

Long time readers of Accidental Hedonist should not be surprised at any of this. The USDA is clearly more interested in promoting various agribusinesses rather than family farms or even consumer rights. As Agribusiness Accountability Initiative has written - Agribusiness has hijacked regulatory policy at the US Department of Agriculture (.pdf file).

But I digress...

There are two questions here:

1. Should the US government make it their habit to endorse fast food chains and their products simply because they develop an agribusiness-friendly product of dubious (and currently non forthcoming) nutritional content?
2. How is Quiznos getting so much Prime Rib at such a low cost?

I'm only slightly kidding on the second question...I don't think that there's any conspiracy here, but as Jack had pointed out to me, Prime Rib isn't exactly a cheap cut of meat...y'know, being labeled a "Prime" cut and all.

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