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meat 
Mon Jun 21, 2010 at 13:00:49 PM PDT
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When I finished reading Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer, I felt sick to my stomach. And that's the way one should feel about any accurate account of the way most meat is produced in this country. That said, I don't want to lead would-be readers of this book to say "I don't want to know" and then avoid reading such a complete and nauseating account of where most meat comes from. If you eat meat - especially if you eat meat you didn't raise and slaughter yourself - it is your responsibility to read this book.
More below.
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Fri Jun 18, 2010 at 21:01:35 PM PDT
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The USDA has come out with a new proposed rule and - based on the reaction it has gotten thus far - it's a big fucking deal. In a good way. Here's how the AP described the new rule:
The rules would place the sharpest limits on meat companies since the Great Depression, drastically lowering the bar that farmers and ranchers must meet to sue companies whom they accuse of demanding unfairly low prices.
The rules would dictate how meatpackers buy cattle on the open market, and prohibit them from showing preference to big feedlots rather than buying from small producers.
They would also limit the control chicken companies have over the farmers who raise birds for them. The companies couldn't require farmers to take on debt to invest in chicken houses, for example, unless farmers were guaranteed to recoup 80 percent of the cost.
The law would also make it easier to file suits under the Depression-era Packers and Stockyards Act by stating that farmers don't need to prove industrywide anticompetitive behavior to file a lawsuit under the act.
Sen. Feingold, a longtime champion for fair competition in agriculture, has already come out praising this rule in a statement I've included below. South Dakota Senator Tim Johnson praised the rule as well, as did R-CALF USA. You can see the USDA's press release about this here and the actual rule itself here.
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Fri Feb 19, 2010 at 22:45:51 PM PST
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Here's a new version of a stupid idea that goes around every now and again (growing meat in a vat to avoid killing animals). Let's genetically engineer animals so they don't feel pain! And the author admits that this idea is specifically intended to allow for the continuation of factory farming:
We are most likely stuck with factory farms, given that they produce most of the beef and pork Americans consume. But it is still possible to reduce the animals' discomfort - through neuroscience. Recent advances suggest it may soon be possible to genetically engineer livestock so that they suffer much less.
If you're so concerned about animal pain, don't eat them. Every living thing feels pain, and every living thing dies. Either they die via slaughter or of disease, injury, or predation. Death is not fun no matter what. But all of LIFE doesn't have to be suffering too, hence the widespread opposition to factory farms. According to this idea, we would bypass that by rending the animals insensitive to that pain. I'm sorry but that's not enough. You've still got the environmental problems associated with factory farms, not to mention the unfairness to anyone living near factory farms who suffers from health problems or sees their property value decline (or just has to live with the constant smell of shit) as a result of the pollution and smell.
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Sun Feb 07, 2010 at 08:37:03 AM PST
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How about a high school class that takes students from the inner city, most of them from poor families, to the butcher shop to show them where the meat comes from, and to farms to show them where their food is grown? And has them run large gardens to grow food for themselves and their families?
They also read articles by writers like Michael Pollan and Wendell Berry and watch documentaries like Food, Inc. The teacher has them work at a farmers' market and do volunteer work with the food-challenged.
This class is run out of the Automotive High School in Brooklyn and is one of the most popular classes offered. Perhaps because the teacher also takes them to a farm where they get to make apple cider and apple pies, feed the pigs, and sweep up cow manure. In short the students learn that their food doesn't just come from packages in the supermarket and from McDonalds and Burger King.
This sounds like a really neat course that I wish had been offered decades ago when I was in high school. If I had taken it, I might have chosen to go into farming myself.
Chek it out in the NYTimes at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02...
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Tue Jan 26, 2010 at 13:02:51 PM PST
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In a diary posted at Daily Kos, I have outlined seven reasons to be concerned about President Obama's planned nominee for Under Secretary of Food Safety, at USDA. Unfortunately, you'll have to go there to read it because this site keeps rejecting the code I tried to cross-post. (Something about a "java" error.)
I do hope that you will read it, though, because the safety of our food supply depends on getting the right person in that job.
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Fri Jan 08, 2010 at 14:17:19 PM PST
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The American Meat Institute sent a comment to the DOJ about their antitrust hearings that amounted to: "We can NOT haz regulation? Srsly. Kthxbai."
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Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 13:54:56 PM PST
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"A hospital should be the last place to serve unhealthy food," says the article "Union Hospital vows to eat less meat." Ummm... yeah! Amazing that that's such a revelation. The changes aren't just about meat, either. They are also going for "more locally grown food, less processed food and smaller portions." They also swapped out their foam containers for something more earth-friendly, began giving away food scraps to a nearby hog farm, and found a bio-fuel company to accept their leftover frying grease.
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Wed Dec 09, 2009 at 11:40:32 AM PST
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Here's the latest from Mark Bittman's blog:
Could Industrially Raised Meat Be Illegal?
If greenhouse gases are a hazard to human health, as the EPA has declared, and the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act authorizes strict regulatory action on substances if there's a reasonable basis to conclude that there's "an unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment," and industrially raised livestock causes an estimated 18 percent of greenhouse gas (some estimates are much higher), could there be a legal case for tougher regulation of animal production?
The way I see it, he's got a great point... and I bet you there is absolutely nobody in our government with the cajones to make such a statement because industry would have their head on a platter in minutes. As it stands now, few government officials are willing to even embrace Meatless Monday (I've heard Vilsack take the question and weasel out of it).
On the extreme opposite end of the spectrum is a recent Meatingplace op-ed called Why do you think we have "factory farms?" The author claims that pre-factory farmed meat was expensive and if we ditch factory farms now, meat will go back to being a luxury that most Americans won't be able to afford every day. She says:
How about the classic chicken? Herbert Hoover's 1928 campaign "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage;"will once again be a dream for many. Theses classic breeds take longer to mature and use significantly more feed to reach market age. They will be rarer and more expensive. You can buy a domestic goose at your local discount grocery for $50 today and they have little meat compared to the amount of bone. Have you shopped for a domestic duck lately? It's a luxury item. That is the future of chickens if these proponents of small family farms have their way. Pork will likely precede the chicken down the same path.
I have to call bullshit on her claim about pork, as much of America's pork was still raised on family farms until the 1990's. But about the larger point, that without factory farming, prices on meat would go up, making daily meat consumption out of reach for many Americans, I say GREAT. During the time we've made meat cheap via factory farming, we've also seen diet-related illnesses skyrocket. This is no coincidence. A recent study found that eating 4 oz of red meat (including pork) daily dramatically increases one's chances of dying within the next 10 years. Meat is supposed to be a luxury. I am not calling on our nation to go vegetarian, but I think the facts are in that we need to eat less meat and we need to quit factory farming.
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Fri Dec 04, 2009 at 10:33:42 AM PST
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Lab-grown meat is an idea that comes up every so often, and now it's a reality. Scientists have succeeded in growing pork in a lab. Advocates of this idea note that it's a way to produce cruelty-free meat and it also decreases livestock's contributions to global warming. But I'm not buying it.
Animals perform an important ecological role on a farm. They eat plant waste, and their waste fertilizes plants. Yes, animals are contributing enormously to global warming right now. And they are treated horrifically cruelly. We eat too many of them and we raise them the wrong way. There's no getting around the fact that we need to eat less meat and we need to stop raising them in feedlots. Period. But that doesn't mean we should grow meat in a lab.
About the cruelty factor, I really struggle with the idea of killing an animal and eating it. I'm a vegetarian and that's my way of avoiding the question. But when it comes down to it, all living things die. So do farm animals. If we are going to engage in agriculture instead of hunting and gathering, then we need animals in our farm ecosystems. And, sadly, some of the animals are going to die to become our food. Until a day comes when we learn how to defy death altogether, there's really no getting around that.
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Thu Dec 03, 2009 at 22:58:54 PM PST
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I've long wondered about the machismo associated with meat. What's so manly about eating unhealthy quantities of unhealthy food produced via factory farming? Yet, the manliness of meat is undeniable. Sure, you'll meet male vegans and vegetarians... and I'm sure somewhere out there you can also find men who ask for directions, men who wear pink shirts, and men who don't mind going to the store to buy tampons for their wives. Those men must all be very secure in their manhood.
I found details on the link between machismo and meat this past week, when I wasn't really looking for it. I went to visit my parents, where I had no access to the internet. In my boredom, I picked up an old anthropology textbook from college and started re-reading it for fun.
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Wed Oct 28, 2009 at 09:11:28 AM PDT
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That nutjob Glen Beck wasted his airtime ranting about meat today. He doesn't like Meatless Mondays, or the U.N., or any efforts to mitigate or prevent climate change... or tofu, or beans, or carrots, or a long list of other things. What does he like? Steak. OK, Glen. Have your steak. I might even send you a card when you go to the hospital for all of the health problems your diet causes you, and I certainly send my condolences to all of your children and grandchildren who are fated to live on a warming planet.
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Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 14:22:28 PM PDT
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The group R-CALF USA is asking the U.S. government to block a proposed merger between JBS and Pilgrim's Pride. Agriculture is an extremely consolidated sector, with only a few major players at the top of practically every industry. But as concentrated as pork, chicken, and turkey each are, beef puts them all to shame. Now it looks like JBS is seeking to do the same in the broiler industry.
As of 2007, the market share of the top 4 companies in each industry were as follows:
Beef: 83.5%
Broilers: 58.5%
Turkey: 55%
Pork: 66%
Beef was already topping the list back in 1990 when the top 4 companies controlled 72% of the market, but in recent years, a number of major mergers and acquisitions have really increased the power of the companies at the top. First JBS merged with Swift. At that point, here's how the market looked:
2007 Daily Slaughter Capacity
1. Tyson: 36,000 head
2. Cargill: 28,300 head
3. Swift & Co: 16,759 head
4. National Beef Packing Co: 13,000 head
Then JBS/Swift went after National Beef and Smithfield. The Smithfield merger went through - the National Beef one didn't. Now JBS wants to merge with Pilgrim's Pride, the largest broiler producer in the U.S. Pilgrim's Pride is based in Texas, where a favorite dish is "chicken-fried steak." I suppose this merger is an inversion of that - instead of making beef resemble a chicken, the merger would make the chicken industry resemble beef.
The Obama Administration's Dept of Justice has said they plan to go after monopolies in agriculture, specifically pointing to the seed and dairy industries. But if they want us to think they are serious about trust busting, they better do something about the meat packing industry as well.
I've posted R-CALF USA's statement about this merger below.
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Tue Sep 01, 2009 at 08:54:52 AM PDT
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A year ago, I made headlines by asking Al Gore this question. He kind of fumbled with it and admitted he had a meat habit, and maybe that's why he hadn't addressed the issue very well. He added that "we have to walk before we run" on fighting global warming, which seemed to me to be entirely counter to the rest of his message.
Meanwhile, the EPA (under Bush) put out a statement that the U.S. agriculture industry only accounts for 6% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions (and, presumably, livestock is a part of that number but not all of it). That's much less than the FAO's estimate that the global livestock industry accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Given this discrepancy, I am very grateful to Ralph Loglisci of Johns Hopkins' Center for a Livable Future, who looked into this very question.
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Fri Aug 07, 2009 at 22:25:17 PM PDT
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A guest post by Maine farmer Eliot Coleman over at Grist got under my skin today. With a provocative title -- "Debunking the meat/climate change myth" -- and a maddening lack of focus and specificity, he eventually comes to the point that it isn't meat that adds to the climate crisis, but the industrial agriculture system. Although much of the piece drove me crazy, I can't argue with his overall conclusion that much of the meat's climate change impact can be placed at the feet of industrial agriculture and our nation-spanning food system. Items like the production of soy and corn using chemical fertilizer (emission of N2O), transporting feed and animals (emission of CO2), use of machines (CO2), and so on, contribute a significant amount to the carbon footprint of meat.
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