Remember when Pop or "Coke" for those in the south.

[saltamontes5]

When I was a kid back in the 80's my grandpa kept a Pepsi bottle machine in his machine shed.  He stocked it with Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Orange Crush, and Nehi Grape.  He did it for his farm hands, but secretly all of us grand kids would sneak a bottle every time we were up there.  We would sip pop and ride around our imaginary race track on the big wheels under and around the implements that were out in the shed.  I remember that pop tasting so good, never burned my insides and didn't make me feel bad later.  Perhaps it was because I was so young and memory fades with time and we all harken back to a better simpler time I suppose.  However, I have tastes some popular US soda in other countries and it tastes just like the one I remember.  You look on the label and find out it is made with real sugar not corn syrup and other things.  There was a time in this country that our Soda was made the same way it was in other countries, but due to the singular necessity for corporations to chase profit, naïve consumer base, and the benefit of saving a penny we find ourselves open to this.   Over time we forget what things used to taste like accept the new normal and move on.  It is a progressive or regressive slide depending on how you feel about these things.  Now before someone gets on my case about how Fructose is a sugar and there is absolutely no difference.  I understand by the chemical classification that Fructose is of course a sugar and therefore completely legitimate as a food grade ingredient.  No argument and I don't necessarily by into the idea that the use of this is the primary cause of child hood obesity...  The point of this rant is to say when change comes if packaged in the right box and advertised correctly, and priced right.  The consuming public will by nearly anything.  Sometimes these sea changes in production and manufacturing just stick and there is no going back the pure economics of it require something cataclysmic to change it now.  

The article below is one of the several ways that the smart folks and big ag business have planned to changed the world we live in.  When you live your whole life in an urban area your sensibilities change and your value system adjusts to a different set of norms.  Like clothes that go out of style so do methods and ways of doing things.  In a world that believes agriculture, and gasoline is the enemy. Transitioning to a softer kinder world that does not kill, and "pollute" you get the kind of thing in this article. 
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-create-first-3-d-printed-wagyu-beef-180978565

What does this have to do with Hereford cattle perhaps it has nothing nothing to do with it.  However, I think in time, this and other alternate protein producing processes will affect us.  It will change things, cattle will likely never disappear completely but I believe there is coming a day that all of us are needing to direct market our product as much of the infrastructure that supports us now will dissolve and go another way.  Of course many of you will say that is fine I will be dead in the ground before it happens so let it happen.  If you are basing that thought process around everywhere you look all I see is people with bumper stickers that say "Eat Beef" then please bare in mind out here where the world still makes sense sometimes this is not the norm elsewhere.  The vast majority of beef is still consumed in areas where the bumper sticker is more likely to have a peace symbol which is great for us.  If that changes to where the majority is consumed in the "fly over country" then our "Eat Beef" bumper stickers will actually have meaning but it will mean far less will be consumed overall.  A great example of this kind of change is that all the big car companies have committed to completely turning away from internal combustion engines and go all electric.   It is happening before my eyes and happening much faster than I would have thought possible.