An Arizona restaurant that tried to promote business by serving Lion meat (mixed with beef) burgers has fired up controversy instead. The restaurant believed it was sourcing meat from a respectable source, but did no investigation on its own. You probably can guess what happened next.

A reporter for CNN traced the meat to a company owner convicted for illegal sources as well as product misrepresention:

Czimer’s exotic-meat dealings have landed him in hot water before. Back in 2003, Chicago newspapers covered his conviction and six-month prison sentence for selling meat from federally protected tigers and leopards. Czimer admitted to purchasing the carcasses of 16 tigers, four lions, two mountain lions and one liger — a tiger-lion hybrid — which were skinned, butchered and sold as “lion meat,” for a profit of more than $38,000.

Czimer’s defense is the best part of the story. He tells the reporter to turn a blind eye, just like he normally would for other food.

He’s willing to take a hands-off approach: “Do you question where chickens come from when you go to Brown’s Chicken or Boston Market?” he asked.

Exactly. There is a long tail (pun not intended) of trust implied with food prepared and supplied by restaurants. Trust also is involved when sourcing meat from ranchers.

With this in mind, note that Czimer’s website claims they sell game meat to avoid “harmful residue” and as an alternative to “domestic meats”.

Since the late l950’s the Czimer family pursued in expanding the choices of game meats, game birds and sea foods to the environmentally sensitive patients.

Oh, how things have changed! Czimer is now the one telling you to turn a blind eye. They will sell you meat, just don’t asked where it is from or how it was produced.

I hope that someone ordering lion would care about authenticity and value, per Czimer’s original sales pitch. Likewise customers should be able to verify that they are not purchasing illegally obtained meat from federally protected animals.

Just the other day I was in an airport and noticed a Pete’s store with a sign for natural fruit smoothies. I asked to see the ingredients. After a brief moment of digging through the cabinets and drawers the staff presented me with a greasy-looking bottle that listed artificial colors and chemical sweeteners. That definitely was not what I was expecting and I valued it far below the price they were asking. The staff seemed genuinely interested to find out the ingredients themselves for the first time and they smiled when I said “no thank you”.