A sigh of relief arose this week from all Americans who have any common sense.

“Free speech not only lives, it rocks,” rejoiced Oprah Winfrey after she beat the rap in a lawsuit filed by the Texas cattle industry.

The ranchers were upset about comments Winfrey made during her April 16, 1996 show on mad cow disease.

After guest Howard Lyman told Oprah “14 percent of all cows are ground up, turned into feed and fed back to other animals,” Winfrey recoiled and vowed, “It has just stopped me cold from eating another burger.”

Loud applause from the audience followed, and with it, cattle futures plummeted to 10-year lows, costing the cattlemen $12 million.

They took legal action under a Texas “veggie libel” law that makes it a crime to disseminate false and disparaging information about an agricultural food product.

Fortunately, the jury made the right choice. They decided that siding with the cowboys would have been an attack on free speech.

This verdict stopped (for a while) a frivolous pursuit — passing laws in defense of food?

What’s next, outlawing movie critics’ columns? After all, a bad movie review can destroy a movie’s profits.

As American consumers, we have the responsibility to be informed from all different sources about the products we buy.

If a movie receives a bad review, we can either take that particular reviewer’s word for it, or we can look around for other opinions. And if a food product is deemed unsafe by someone, it’s not difficult to find out for sure, from someone else, if it truly is unsafe.

Oprah’s talk show is just that: a talk show. People come on the show, talk about what’s important to them and offer a few opinions. Every fan of the show knows, or at least should know, that opinions of talk show guests are not gospel; they’re just opinions.

Oprah Winfrey does, in fact, have immense control over the masses. An amazing number of people follow her show and believe everything she says. So, she does have to be extremely careful about what she advocates.

But Oprah’s popularity is definitely not a reason to bridle her free speech.

Luckily, the jury agreed.