We Confess: We Orchestrated the 300,000 Ton Beef Import Scandal (Satire)

Editor's note before anyone forwards this to a journalist: everything in the confession below is satire. I wrote it. We did not sabotage Argentina. The policy it is making fun of, on the other hand, is entirely real, and the straight version of that story is here.

Our story about the 300,000 tons of imported "definitely NOT horse meat" got a LOT of replies.

People are confused. People are angry. People want to know where all this meat is actually coming from.

People are also deciding to opt out of the corporate beef system in shocking numbers.

You'd think I would be thrilled about this development, but honestly....

The guilt is eating me alive.

And YES I've confirmed it's the guilt and not the parasites in the lettuce or the glass in the popsicles.

So it's time to come clean. Yet again.

Longtime readers may recall that I once confessed that Jesse and I had spent years fomenting Perpetual Global Crisis as a means to increase bulk beef demand.

After that confession, we promised the relevant human and supernatural authorities we would stop.

But we did not stop.

Exhibit A: The Great Mystery Meat Influx of 2026

That was us. All of it. Perhaps our finest work to date.

Allow me to walk you through the operation.

Step 1: We became Mega Donors

We put on suits, slicked our hair back, and founded a little organization called "Americans for the Import of Protein that's Almost All Cow".

We wrote enormous checks to everyone who mattered. Did the checks clear? Absolutely not. But here's a little secret about our political system: nobody checks. The important thing is showing up confidently with a fake check in your hand.

Step 2: Argentina

This was the delicate part.

China had been importing Argentina's beef for years. That meat needed a new home, closer to our home, and it wasn't going anywhere while that arrangement held.

So Jesse and I flew to Buenos Aires and personally dismantled their beef quality control apparatus from the inside. I can't reveal our methods, but within months China wanted nothing to do with it, and several hundred thousand tons of Meat of Mysterious Provenance was sitting on the dock, looking for a new home with a more liberal view on what kind of chemicals belong in the food supply.....

You know, like a country where 20% of feedlot steers are lactating (that was also us, obvs, we're everywhere).

(That part is not satire, unfortunately. Here's the research on lactating feedlot steers.)

Step 3: The quotas

With the meat homeless and our Evil Mega Donor credentials freshly printed, we simply asked our new friends in Washington to lift the import quotas. This took like one phone call, and just like that....

300,000 TONS, aimed directly at the American grocery store, no questions asked.

Step 4: The horses

The finishing touch. The pièce de résistance. Our masterpiece.

We timed the entire operation to coincide with the government's wild horse cull, so that every American would look at the pallets of unlabeled imported meat....

then look at the horses.....

then look back at the meat.....

and wonder.

We didn't have to say a single word. The timeline did all the work. Social Media was aflame.

And there was Dirty Dog Farm, standing there ready to sell a few more Half Beef Shares than we normally do.

But why would a small farm do all this?

Now, you may be asking: WHY?

Why would a small family farm orchestrate an international meat conspiracy just to sell a fairly modest number of Grass Fed Beef Shares?

Simple.

We will stop at NOTHING to put a chest freezer filled with a Half Beef Share in every home in America. No cost is too high.

But our years of market research revealed two things about the modern American consumer:

1. They're skeptical of marketing.
2. They are absolutely SICK of grifters fear mongering at them to sell supplements or courses or whatever.

This put us in a bind, because all of the established methods we saw on Instagram were growing ineffective.

There was only one option left.

If we couldn't just monger fear, we had to CREATE it.

We had to give people something to truly fear.

Not influencer fear. Not "5G is activating the nanoparticles in your deli meat" fear.

Real fear. True, visceral fear that resonates with everyone.

We needed 660 MILLION POUNDS of anonymous meat with no origin story, arriving at the exact moment the horses started disappearing.

12D chess.

....

......

Sorry. Lost in my own bit again.

Obviously we did none of this

Because we didn't have to.

Actual mega donors did it all for us. The Big 4 Meatpackers really did buy this policy. Nobody in charge will answer where 300,000 tons of beef is coming from. And the horses really are being culled at the same time (I'm really not claiming it's horse meat, the timing is just too funny to pass up).

No shadowy farm conspiracy required. Just the regular kind. The boring, corporate kind with lobbyists and golf outings and Quarterly Earnings Calls.

(For who those donors are, here's the Big 4 Meatpackers explained. And for the scale they operate at, here's how many cattle one of their plants processes in a day.)

While I appreciate the help (this has been great for small farm beef sales), all things being equal I'd prefer to sell a bit less beef and have a functioning and safe food system and economy.

That loser attitude is definitely why I don't have a villa on Lake Como….

But those ain't the cards we were dealt, friend.

Times are strange. I don't even have to invent ridiculous stuff anymore. I just describe things that are actually happening and make them like 20% sillier.

The actual way out

Thankfully, the way out is the same as it's always been: know the people who raise your food.

Ideally us, but I'd settle for any small farm you can call.

All you have to do to opt out of this vast international conspiracy that we definitely did NOT create is reserve a Beef Share with a free chest freezer here.

Your Farmer,

Josh

P.S. Our Fake General Counsel has advised me that confessing to international sabotage in a marketing email is "really dumb" and "could be misinterpreted." But he's not even a real lawyer.