A couple of weeks ago, I signed an online petition regarding lean finely textured beef, but I quickly regretted doing so — not because I decided I no longer had any concerns about the product but because I don’t agree with the tactic of calling it “pink slime,” which I consider a misnomer.

As someone who worries about the environmental impact of large-scale industrial farming and the welfare of the animals in those farming operations, I also worry that tossing around hyperbolic terms such as “pink slime” threatens the credibility of those of us who are concerned about other issues surrounding corporate farming.

After sitting through last Tuesday’s lengthy pro-LFTB press conference in Kildee Hall, I left with the same stance I’d walked in with: unconvinced that lean finely textured beef is any more harmful to humans than ground beef is (actually, it’s leaner).

On the other hand, if you’ll take a look at the website of the department of human nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, you won’t find the department encouraging people to consume large quantities of beef; in fact, last month, the School of Public Health summarized on its site the results of a study on red meat that was recently done by researchers there, results that are consistent with numerous earlier studies (it is available at www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/2012-releases/red-meat-cardiovascular-cancer-mortality.html).

In other words, if people are going to eat red meat, perhaps we should do so much more sparingly. One can take issue with the study’s design, but that doesn’t mean the results can be dismissed out of hand. Although possible risks of red-meat consumption were never mentioned during Tuesday’s news conference, I appreciated the presentation given by James Dickson, a microbiologist on the animal science faculty, because his was the least political (which is why his was the only presentation I applauded).

As an ISU graduate, I was disturbed by the rest of the event because it was so extremely partisan, and not merely in its portrayal of beef: Every politician who served as an official speaker is a Republican, and one of those politicians is widely seen as the most controversially conservative member of Iowa’s congressional delegation.

Both Board of Regents members who attended are Republican as well. Also, when the governor spoke, he referred at one point to the “leftist media” — a simplistic misrepresentation of the mainstream media and an odd complaint, considering that earlier that afternoon he’d instead faulted “the social media” for misinformation about lean finely textured beef.

Surely the ISU Block and Bridle Club could have found at least one Democrat or Independent at the statehouse or elsewhere to side with them that day; after all, non-Republicans, too, are elected in Iowa by beef-producing constituents.

On this, I have to agree with the event’s protestors quoted in last Wednesday’s Des Moines Register: What took place in Kildee Hall was more characteristic of a political rally.

Such a partisan presence at an event conspicuously attended by Iowa State’s new president undermines not only the credibility of the Block and Bridle Club, but Iowa State’s reputation as a research institution that’s dedicated to keeping scientific investigation untainted by any particular political agenda.

I hope the university will keep this in mind the next time it holds a “press conference” about such a complex and controversial subject.