The College Republicans promoted the "Carnivore Initiative," an effort to get students to eat more meat, on the Quad Wednesday with wings, ribs and a pledge-singing campaign.
"I will celebrate the fact that I am on top of the food chain," read part of the pledge, which 82 people signed, according to CR President Mike Inganamort.
"We had a really successful year this year, and this gives us a chance to give back - in meat," he said.
Secretary Jackie Puente said the initiative is a response to vegetarian and vegan movements on campus that she said have deprived students of meat.
"It makes us feel like no one eats meat any more," she said. "We are ready to rumble ... with any little skinny vegan," she joked. "Bring 'em to me."
David Benzaquen, president of the AU Animal Rights Effort, who was tabling on the Quad to save baby seals as seal-hunting season approaches, said the Carnivore Initiative was offensive.
He helped organize the "Meat Out" in March, when TDR and the Tenley Caf? served fewer meat products. That day about 600 students signed a pledge to be vegetarian for the day or longer, Benzaquen said.
"I think [the Carnivore Initiative is] taking their club down the wrong path," he said. "Eating meat is not only unnatural, it's unhealthy."
Benzaquen approached the CRs' table of meat and told them he thought the initiative was "a real mistake."
"It's a direct blow on us," Benzaquen said. "And it's offensive" to celebrate meat when baby seals are being eaten, he told the group.
"Shamu eats baby seals," Puente pointed out.
Inganamort assured Benzaquen that he understands what it's like to be offended by a campus group.
"Our buttons are pushed every single day we go here," Inganamort said.
About 120 people stopped by the table for a taste, he said. The pledge some signed also asked what type of meat is students' favorite. Steak won first place and ribs were second.
Beef is the most popular meat in restaurants, according to the National Cattleman's Beef Association's Web site. The most popular type of steak served is a Kansas City or New York strip steak.
People in the South Atlantic, the region that includes Washington, D.C., eat more steak than anyone else in the United States, the Web site reports.
Americans spent about $70 billion on beef in 2004, more than any other year in history. For the past five years, beef spending has topped $50 billion. Per capita spending for beef was $240 last year.
In a year the average American will eat 66.1 pounds of beef, which is America's highest-selling source of protein and offers other nutrients, including vitamin B12 and zinc. In the next two weeks, 251 million people will eat beef.
