Burger King burgers contain beef, which requires the fast-food restaurant to include cattle in its supply chain.
But cattle produce methane, suspected of contributing to global warming, so the company has announced a plan to add lemongrass to the animals' diet "to reduce their emissions."
The chain said in a tweet: "cow farts & burps are no laughing matter. they release methane, contributing to climate change. That's why we're working to change our cows' diet by adding lemongrass to reduce their emissions by approximately 33%."
cow farts & burps are no laughing matter. they release methane, contributing to climate change. that’s why we’re working to change our cows’ diet by adding lemongrass to reduce their emissions by approximately 33%. learn about our ongoing study: https://t.co/kPCXpjfbGL #CowsMenu pic.twitter.com/DnmF8gVVL0
— Burger King (@BurgerKing) July 14, 2020
TRENDING: To DEI for
An ad features a young cowboy coming on stage through swinging doors singing about the new campaign.
"When cows fart and burp and splatter, well it ain't no laughing matter," he begins. "They're releasing methane every time they do."
The Washington Examiner called the campaign the "latest pitch to environmentally conscious eaters: patties made from cows fed with a lemongrass diet to help eliminate methane releases."
Fernando Machado, an officer for Restaurant Brands International, which owns Burger King, said that if "the whole industry, from farmers, meat suppliers, and other brands join us, we can increase scale and collectively help reduce methane emissions that affect climate change."
The Examiner reported Burger King worked with the Autonomous University at the State of Mexico and the University of California, Berkeley to design a new diet for cattle that allows animals to feed while producing less gas.
The Associated Press recently did a "Fact Check" on whether cows fart. It concluded they do, although a significant amount of methane also comes from their belching.
It became an issue when far-left Democrats in Congress proposed the Green New Deal, which, according to some commentators, targets cow farts.
However, Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan lectured the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, on the floor of the chamber, saying "Just for the record, cows don’t fart. They belch."
But the AP insists they do; it's just that belches are worse "for the climate."
The news wire also said that "warming from the burning of fossil fuels is roughly 10 times to 17 times greater than warming caused by livestock burping and farting."
A study published by Phys.org last year suggested animals could be bred to reduce methane emissions.
"Published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers showed that the genetics of an individual cow strongly influenced the make-up of the microorganisms in its rumen (the first stomach in the digestive system of ruminant animals which include cattle and sheep)," the report said.
"What we showed is that the level and type of methane-producing microbes in the cow is to a large extent controlled by the cow's genetic makeup," co-author John Williams, from the University of Adelaide's School of Animal and Veterinary Sciences, said. "That means we could select for cattle which are less likely to have high levels of methane-producing bacteria in their rumen."
The U.S. National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health explained methane is the primary component of natural gas. It comes from many sources, including termites, bodies of water, wildfires and digestive processes.
"Everyone is exposed to low levels of environmental methane in outdoor air," it points out.