Food Futures: Origins of Meat Consumption + Ethical Consumption + Environmental Consequence

Throughout history, food of animal origins has been considered a prized delicacy, a necessity for human health and an aspirational symbol of power. The growth of animal production coupled with the highly emission ­producing biology of livestock have made this industry one of the most significant contributors to anthropomorphic climate change. Animal consumption in the contemporary Western world has become a daily or even three ­times daily habit, a trend which will soon be imitated by the developing nations and which will further magnify the environmental effects. This dissertation explores the foundations and mechanisms on which the avidity of global meat consumption stands and discusses potential culturally sensitive alternatives in order to limit the global environmental consequences of such consumption. 

The story of human evolution is one intimately tied to the hunting of animals and the consumption of meat. Consuming animal has become emblematic of human culture and symbolic of strength and success; as a result, the once infrequent feast has become for the average American, almost a half­pound a day (Molla, 2014). The consequences of this, combined with the rapidly increasing global population, have made the act of routine consumption a cause for environmental concern. 

The consumption of food of animal origins is one of the most significant drivers of anthropomorphic climate change (Bailey et al., 2014). While technological changes and movements away from conventional livestock production offer a glimmer of hope, in reality these changes cannot limit the catastrophic level of environmental degradation we risk inflicting. In order to discern the best steps to take to reduce the environmental impact of meat production and consumption, we must first dissect the human ‘love affair’ (Zaraska, 2016:43) with consuming animal. 

This dissertation examines the cultural ideology of meat consumption and the environmental consequences resulting from the industrialisation of the production process. To what extent are the beliefs surrounding human consumption of animal formed by culture? Has the deliberate or unintentional divide between human and animal magnified consumption to a point beyond environmental repair or could public awareness and slight modification in eating practices be the key? 

Articulating Meat Eating Culture 

The complexity of the human sentiment towards meat can perhaps be simply illustrated by a short dinnertime conversation in Margaret Atwood’s novel, T he Edible Woman (1969). The protagonist of the story, Marion, stares at her half­eaten steak and suddenly her face goes white as she makes the connection between steak and cow. With this realisation she exclaims: ‘This is ridiculous [...] everyone eats cows, it’s natural; you have to eat to stay alive, meat is good for you, it has lots of proteins and minerals’ (ibid:151). This simple quotation portrays the most colloquially given explanations for why humans need to consume meat and highlights the equally common human discomfort with consuming animal. 

The following chapter will explore both sides of this equation: the cultural beliefs which create the assumed need to consume animal and the mechanisms employed to allow for suppression of the human discomfort with the choice. In doing so, I will first explore the common justifications or rationalisations given for consuming animal, or what Piazza et al. refer to as the ‘4Ns’: Natural: Humans are natural carnivores; Necessary: Meat provides essential nutrients; Normal: I was raised eating meat; Nice: It’s delicious’ (Piazza et al., 2015: 660). The second part of the chapter will explore the culture of meat eating in the West and the reason for its proliferation. Lastly, the modifications and mechanisms implemented consciously and subconsciously to ensure the consumption of animal will be examined. 

Secular Religion 

One of the most frequently given explanations for why humans need to consume meat is that we are evolutionarily predisposed to do so. Exploring the biological need for consuming animal products and the behaviour of meat consumption separately can be most helpful to begin discussing human’s affinity with these products. In the end of this section I will discuss the strength of this argument. 

Biologically the human body is physiologically and anatomically herbivorous with omnivorous tendencies. Cardiovascular pathologist and editor of the American Journal of Cardiology William Roberts authored an article in which he presents evidence suggesting that ‘because humans get atherosclerosis [...] a disease only of herbivores, humans must be herbivores’ (2008: 467). Roberts then presents a list of anatomical characteristics that support his claim such as: the flat nature of human teeth; the length of human’ intestines, which is twelve times their body length like herbivores; humans’ characteristics of cooling their bodies through sweating rather than panting, and sipping liquids rather than lapping, as herbivores do; and a list of physical attributes and many other devastating health conditions argued as a result of consuming an unsuitable diet (ibid). These findings have been similarly reproduced by many others including the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine President, Dr. Neal Barnard (1990), renowned paleontologists Dr Richard Leakey (Freston, 2009), Cornell University professor Dr. T Colin Campbell (2004) and Dr. Milton Mills (2009), just to name a few. 

From a behavioural standpoint however, humans are omnivores. This creates for humans, as most artfully termed by Michael Pollan in his book with the same title, ‘The Omnivore's Dilemma’ (2006). With the vast plethora of food choices available, throughout history humans have had to rely on something else to guide decision making. Until two millions years ago, when human ancestors roamed the savannahs of Africa, according to Katharine Milton (1999), a physical anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley, humans subsisted on foraged plant foods. 

The eating of meat however, according to most biological anthropologists, was the impetus which ‘sprung Homo erectus from their australopithecine past’ (Wrangham, 2009: 15). While the question of what humans are (herbivores with omnivorous tendencies) is overwhelmingly supported by the scientific community, the introduction of animal matter into the human diet two million years ago supplied necessary calorically dense amino acids and nutrients, which provided the body with enough calories to support the growth of the human brain and increase body size (Milton, 1999). By routinely including animal protein in their diet, despite having the gut anatomy of a herbivore, these early humans were able to reach the dietary intake required for cerebral expansion (ibid). This evolutionary argument of where humans came from, and historical precedent, created and reinforced the ingrained necessity and the social norm for consuming meat and animal products (ibid). This norm is especially prominent in the West, where the diet is largely grounded in animal consumption and the belief that doing so is necessary for health and wellbeing. 

The prominence of meat in Western cuisine is established and supported by its perceived necessity in the human diet, largely grounded in a fear of not being able to consume enough protein on a plant­based diet alone. Protein from its Greek origin proteos became emblematic of the 19th century Westerner, as its translation into English is ’of prime importance’ (Campbell, 2004: 27). From these beginnings, animal protein was and continues to be hailed as the ‘life­enhancing elixir’ which creates ‘health, growth, vitality, virility and even weight loss’ (Simon, 2013: 101). 

Since its discovery by Dutch chemist Gerhard Mulder (1839) and its glorification by Justus von Liebig in 1824, protein became understood as the only essential nutrient required for ‘building human muscle’ (Zaraska, 2016: 44). Carl von Voit, following on from the work of his teacher Liebig, calculated that adults need to consume between 100­135 g/day, later lowered to 52g/day, which, he said, must come mostly from meat (cited in Campbell, 2013). Despite this calculation was based on an average protein intake of the ‘healthy’ looking men he surveyed, his quantifications of required daily intake became mainstream, constructing the link between protein and meat. Since then protein, hailed as the source of health and longevity, became synonymous with high­quality ‘animal protein, the cornerstone of ... good nutrition’ (Campbell, 2004: 4), an equation which stays true for many today. Perhaps because of the similarity between animal and human muscle, the understanding that humans must consume animal or its by­products to become healthy and strong entered the mainstream and guided nutritional theory. As a result, nutritional textbooks and governmental guidelines in the 20th century were based on the understanding that the protein that humans need for good health must ‘come mainly from meat, fish, cheese, milk and eggs’ (Matthews and Wells, 1982: 1). 

By 1944 the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommended man and women to consume respectively a minimum 70 and 60 grams of protein daily (Zaraska, 2016). The 1970’s high­protein, high­fat diet books such as Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution (1972), which paved the way for other highly popular weight­loss and health­gaining diets such as Protein Power (2000) and the The South Beach Diet (2001), epitomised the mainstream understanding of the route to health. The reverence and necessity for animal protein still exists today and is promoted relentlessly in modern magazines such as Flex, where body­building experts write, ‘simply put, our muscles are meat so we need to eat muscle to gain it’ (Zaraska, 2016: 68). 

However, one of most comprehensive studies on the lifestyle, diet, disease and mortality within one controlled population was carried out by Loma Linda University beginning in the 1960s: the Adventist Health Studies (AHS) led by Dr. Gary Fraser with a team of researchers, have followed the lives of 34,000 Seventh­day Adventists living in their community in California (Buettner, 2010). Compared to other Americans, Adventists have a 40% lower rate of all cancers, 34% lower rate of coronary heart disease, significantly lower rates of diabetes and obesity, and outlive the average American by over a decade (ibid). Most interestingly, the Adventist Church advocates vegetarianism, and a large percentage of the church followers abstain from all animal products or are vegan (ibid). Over the course of this 40­year study, Dr. Fraser and his team have identified a sharp distinction within the religious community between those who have an even higher chance of avoiding these common diseases: ‘exercise, vegetarian diet, not smoking, eating nuts and social support have been found to predict longevity in Adventists’, a trend even more significant for those following a vegan diet (Butler et al., 2009:4). Moreover, in regards to protein, the lead researcher on the Adventist Health Study team notes that, ‘nutrition experts have known for decades that plant­based diets provide more than enough protein. In our studies we consistently find that as people switch from animal­based to plant­based diets, the diets become richer in vitamins, fibre and other important nutrients. There is never a need to add animal products’ (Buettner cited in Zaraska, 2016: 48). 

Reinforcing the scientifically defined need for humans to consume ample amounts of meat daily in order to reach the suggested protein requirement, created, according to Zaraska, ‘the 2nd myth of meat eating’ (ibid: 47). The thought goes that if consuming meat equates to health and strength, then not consuming meat protein or ‘going vegetarian’ or vegan, makes the body and mind weak. In addition, Simon (2013: 102), while not necessarily advocating its consumption, asserts that ‘a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole wheat bread contains more protein (14 grams) than a McDonald's hamburger (13 grams) [...] a baked potato contains as much protein as a hot dog, 2 ounces of peanuts equals a chicken pot pie, and ounce­ for­ ounce, roasted pumpkin seeds have more protein than ham’. Despite its inaccuracy, the animal food industry successfully promotes the idea that plant protein is lower in quality than animal protein, a belief which readily enters the mainstream (ibid). 

While many believe that eating meat is a ‘biological instinct’ (Harris, 1986: 31) whereby humans are genetically predisposed to seek out and nutritionally need meat, the custom of eating meat for generalists such as humans is more a feature of culture and social value (Le Gros Clark, 1968). Fiddles explains how ‘meat hunger’, which can only be satisfied through consuming ‘real (animal) food’ (1991: 14) , helps reflect the habitual understanding and social place of meat in the Western diet. 

Culture & Symbolism 

This notion that humans crave flesh or animal products based on necessity and for its physical qualities is central to the argument to consume it. Therefore it is most important to understand the difference between biologically and culturally defined taste. This section will elaborate further on the previous concept to suggest that meat consumption is determined by culture and how it is magnified in the West by the symbolic value meat holds. 

Rozin’s most profound work, The Selection of Foods by Rats, Humans and other Animals (1976), contrasts the hardwired specialised eaters of the animal kingdom, such as koalas, whose preference of what to consume is genetically determined, with the existential question which must ensue for the omnivore: to kill an animal to eat or not. For the omnivore, survival is maintained through seeking foods that are familiar (neophobia) and are as diverse and novel as possible (neophilia) (ibid). This almost unfortunate task placed on some animals in the kingdom, including humans, takes not only considerable energy, but can result in significant ethical, health and environmental consequences. On the other hand, the plethora of choice and tastes permit an array of gustatory pleasure perhaps unequalled. 

To alleviate this task, omnivorous humans ‘like the food we’ve learned we are supposed to like’ (Joy, 2010: 16). Therefore taste is largely defined and reinforced by the specific culture one is born into and, as a result, certain foods considered delicacies by one culture or religion are tabooed by another (ibid). 

Anthropologist Mary Douglas, discusses this notion of cultural taste and notes, ‘nutritionists know that the palate is trained, that taste and smell are subject to cultural control’ (1978: 59). The arbitrary nature of some foods is clearly expressed in our everyday lives in regards to the high status some foods confer to the ‘high status on the eaters’ (Fieldhouse, 1986: 77). Mennell’s analysis (1985) of the transformation of brown bread from the once staple of the poor working class to the modern symbol of the wealthy organic­ consuming elite, simply illustrates the rather inconsistent hierarchy one food may be assigned based on socially defined status. 

Taste is therefore not an absolute but something that adapts and develops under governance of the culture it resides in (Fiddles, 1991). Allowing or even encouraging the understanding of food and taste in this way permits a greater, more complete knowledge of the mechanisms involved in this process and the space from which these cultural norms are created. 

To suggest that status, likes or dislikes are somehow objective interpretations of some natural quality inherent in the meat form itself, can be simply argued by the variation in global and societal tastes. The discovery of horse meat in beef processing sold in the UK created such an outrage that not only were new testing regimes implemented but many were arrested for such wrongdoings (BBC, 2013). This point begs the question I will return to later: what exactly is the difference between a cow and a horse other than defining one meat and the other pet? 

Therefore, in contrast to all other animals living in the wild, who instinctively eat based on edibility, humans must rely on culturally transferred information to modulate consumption (Rozin, 2009). While these guides vary within and between cultural groups, the rules which govern the suggestions are largely moulded by the powers who have the largest motivations. On the one hand, cultural knowledge of what to eat, or perhaps even more importantly of what not to eat, is passed down through generations or communities to help prevent the individual from having to experiment with questionably poisonous foods; this also bestows the population with a toolkit of eating practices. On the other hand, any natural ‘native wisdom’ (Pollan, 2006: 1) we once may have had is now superseded by what­to­eat anxiety. Contradictory media reports, celebrities donning the ‘got milk’ (Gifford, 2014: 321) moustache, highly technical scientific journals and lobbying powers confuse almost everyone into jumping on the latest diet fad or ensuring that they consume whatever is being sold. 

The culinary tradition of eating animals and animal by ­products has been defined and maintained throughout history as a result of their highly symbolic value and the importance placed on meat. In his seminal book, Meat: A Natural Symbol (1991), anthropologist Nick Fiddles explores the foundations from which meat’s symbolic importance originated. In one chapter of his analysis, Fiddles dissects the highly complex symbolic value meat holds globally and examines variations between cultures around this universally prized food stuff. The universal affinity with the killing and eating of animal flesh, Fiddles argues, is emblematic of man’s ultimate ‘muscle’, domination or ‘control of nature’ and a symbol of strength and civilisation itself (ibid, 6). In addition, the process of cooking ‘transforms meat from a natural substance to a cultural artefact’ and consequently highlights man’s superior status over the animal which cannot or does not need to cook meat to consume it (ibid, 91). 

The authority of animal protein has been long established and reproduced by both the public and nutritional experts for centuries to the point of it being considered the ‘only real food’ (ibid). In Fiddles’ first chapter entitled ‘Food = Meat’ (1991:11), he explores this historical paradigm that still very much takes precedent today: a meal is not complete without meat. This equation places meat at the centrepiece of every meal whereas vegetables and grains are auxiliary, a concept perfectly exemplified by the colloquial phrase ‘meat and two veg’ guiding most traditional British households, which also illustrates Western cultural drawings of a meal. The complexity of this relationship is epitomized by the drama of the weekly ‘Sunday roast’ arriving on the British dinner­ table, comparable to the hamburger grilling at the American backyard barbecue, which enraptures the soon ­to ­be­indulging and wide ­eyed guests. The ‘idea[...]feeling[...]and spirit of meat’ (Fiddles, 1991:16) is so intrinsically tied to the taste of eating meat that the experience almost takes a role of something mythical. 

The Sexual Politics of Meat

The human equation between the need to consume the spirit and physicality of the muscle to build muscle can be traced back to a long ­held philosophy that by consuming a ‘physical substance one can somehow partake of its essence’ (Fiddles, 1991:67). The metaphorical relationship between meat, vegetables and language is reflected in the behaviour and thought of men and women (Rozin, 2012). Rozin concluded that a clear relationship exists between the word, meaning and association between ‘maleness’ and ‘meat, hamburger, sausage, frankfurter, steak, beef’, and similarly between ‘femininity’ and ‘vegetables, milk, cheese, egg, and fruit’ (ibid: 30). Rozin identified a clear male­meat link whereby ‘strength and power emerge as attributes associated with meat preference’ (ibid, 13). The dichotomy between meat/man and vegetable/woman was exposed most controversially in Carol J. Adams’ The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist ­Vegetarian Critical Theory (1990). In this important exploration, Adams dissects the patriarchal values embedded within Western meat­eating culture and more specifically the correlation between ‘meat­eater’ with ‘virile male’ and ‘women with animals’ (2000:102). She argues that the oppression of animals is socially acceptable due to ‘associating them with women’s lesser status’ (ibid) and through implementation of a concept she terms ‘the absent referent’ to be discussed later. 

This association between meat­ strength and superiority, and vegetable­ weakness and inferiority can be seen through its infusion into the English language by way of colloquial phrases such as ‘beef up’ meaning to make something stronger, and ‘vegetable’, ‘veg out’ or to be a ‘couch potato’ inferring a lazy body. Brian Wansick, a professor in Consumer Behaviour and Executive Director of the USDA Centre for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, discusses the understanding and use of gender ­prototyping and the notion of personality identification by marketing professionals to most effectively appeal to their desired audience (2006). In his book, he provides an example in which a soy patty producer who attempted to make a product appealing to men reviewed a study revealing that men thought of soy as feminine and steak as masculine, so the researchers recommended that soy producers reshaped their products to look like ‘various cuts of beef, and repackaged and advertised them to have more meat­related cues’ (ibid: 231). Once these phrases and connotations enter the mainstream consciousness, fast­food chains like Burger King capitalise on these ideas to sell their products. The 2008 commercial for the Texas Double Whopper was nothing short of a musical starring a man who is ‘too hungry to settle for chick food’ so needs to ‘eat (meat) like a man’ and therefore ‘scarfs down a beef bacon jalapeño’ Texas Double Whopper (Halford et al., 2007: 22). 

Similar to the rarity and elite status of sugar (Mintz, 1985), meat was once only affordable and consumed by the wealthy proletariat of European society (Bower, 1997). However, the efficiency of modern intensive agricultural technology and methods have increased production yields while systematically reducing the price of these items, ensuring accessibility for the global market. While the consumption of flesh is normalised in Western culture, the negative moral conscience elicited when thinking of killing an animal for consumption is so commonplace that certain mechanisms are employed to repress these feeling and justify the act. These mechanisms will be discussed in the following section. 

Meatonomics : Mechanisms & Justifications 

This section will explore the external and internal factors enabling such avidity of animal consumption. External factors such as the highly influential meat industry and the purposeful invisibility of meat production that shape public health policy and what consumers eat daily, will be discussed first. Internal distancing mechanisms and belief systems within the mind of the meat­eater on the one hand enable animal consumption, but on the other create a cognitive dissonance which will be referred to as the ‘meat paradox’ (Herzog, 2010) in the second part of this section. 

In her book, In Meat We Trust, Ogle explores how and why Americans became the ‘greatest eaters and providers of meat in history’ (2013: 5). While there is a human element to the desire to consume, the history of the gross quantity of meat eating in America, and in extension the world, is also manipulated by economic gain. American meat eating was largely shaped, Ogle argues, by the ‘meatpacking titan’ Gustavus Swift, and Don Tyson, a chicken farmer who created the largest food company in the world (ibid, 12). While livestock rearing, like any other food production, began on the family farm, it was forever changed by the rise of the agribusiness large scale production. 

The small family farm was replaced by large confined meat production in the 1970s (Ogle, 2013). For example, while dairy demand increased by almost half between 1954 and 2007, the number of dairy farms in the US plummeted from 2.9 million to 65,000 (Simon, 2013). While the image on the carton of milk has not changed, the reality of the farm certainly has. Today the meat industry, with the aid of powerful lobbyists, in the words of the cattlemen’s magazine Beef, ‘work hard to create the love affair that Americans have with a big juicy ribeye’ (Zaraska, 2016: 43). Marketing of animal products is also as iconic as the food itself. Embedded within the rulebook of advertising in this domain is ensuring that the food advertised has almost no resemblance to the animal life form. Taglines such as ‘Milk. It Does a Body Good’, and ‘Pork. The Other White Meat’ and, most famously, ‘Beef. It's What's for Dinner’ are so successful that they were worth the USD 42 million spent on them in 1992 (Halford et al., 2007). According to the magazine American Meat, the meat and poultry industry ‘generates USD 864.2 billion annually to the US economy or 6% of the GDP’, which is largely the profit of four pork producers controlling two­thirds of the market, four producers of beef holding three­quarter of the market (ibid: 45), and Cargill, owning 21% of the US market share, who reported earnings of USD 88.3 billion in beef sales in 2008 (Ostlind, 2011). 

With subsidies and the scale and efficiency of production, the cost of meat in America is ‘artificially low’ (Simon, 2013: 20) and producers strive to keep it so as to drive demand. Between 2008 and 2012 the farm bill allocated USD 307 billion largely to producers within the animal processing food chain, among which seed and agrochemical suppliers and meat packing companies (Food & Water Watch 2012, Lessig 2011). These government ­funded ‘check off programs urge us to buy more meat and dairy’, an instruction we follow to the ‘t’ (ibid, 41). Taking inflation into account, over the same period the prices of ground beef and cheddar cheese fell 53% and 27% respectively, while the prices of fruit and vegetables rose 46% and 41% respectively (Leonhardt, 2009), making the ‘choice’ to consume animal the most affordable in most cases. One of the most unsettling consequences of this cheap overabundance of meat, as Simon notes in his book Meatonomics (2013:20), is that the ‘system encourages us to eat much more meat and dairy than even the USDA advises’ and is healthy for us. 

The abundance of contemporary meat consumption suggests that humans’ care for animals is limited, but this is not the case. The animal and ‘human brains are hardwired to empathise’, and it is with this automated biological response functioning as a survival mechanism that human societies or wild animal groups are held together (de Waal, 2009: 58). A tension noted by many scholars regarding the omnivore’s moral conflict arising from loving animals while also loving to eat animals, is an internal battle aptly named the ‘meat paradox’ (Herzog, 2010; Joy, 2010; Loughnan et al., 2014). Vegetarians and vegans (2­10% of the population) purposefully limit the tension caused through the ‘cognitive dissonance’ (or the drive to maintain consistency with expressed behaviours and held beliefs and attitudes (Festinger, 1957)) ingrained with the human ‘desire to avoid hurting animals with our appetite for their flesh’ (Loughnan et al., 2014:15). While attempts to eliminate or at least reduce this dilemma are popular with the meat producers and individuals who choose to employ techniques to make the reality invisible, the moral dilemma creates such dissonance that behavioural or cognitive change is required. Asking the questions, ‘can they (animals) reason?, can they talk?, can they suffer?’ without a clearly reachable answer of ‘yes’, allows the ‘passage from farm to fork [to be] less troubling’ as animals are equated as lesser beings warranting consumption (ibid: 14). 

The justification for animal consumption stems from the Cartesian notion that animals are machines or ‘bête machine’ (Newman, 2001). In this philosophical doctrine, animals, unlike humans, lack the ability to have consciousness (mind or soul) and the ability to reason, and are therefore lesser beings and commodities existing for human consumption. While this theory is considered obsolete by most, the practical implication of these conceptualisations stays true today. 

While adhering to the familiar, traditional or convenient food preferences embedded within meat consumption is practical and useful, it also poses a moral problem in itself. Carol Adams’ concept of the ‘absent referent’ explains the function of the cloak placed over the meat: acting to hide the death of the sacrificed animal and protecting the meat­eater’s conscience (2000). The complete avoidance of the connection between the breathing animal and consumable meat is visible at every stage and angle of the process. From farm to table, the process is physically, socially, discursively and conceptually invisible. This invisibility is central to the extent that meat is subject to be consumed and therefore central to this paper. 

While humans have consumed meat for centuries on a semi­regular basis, whether it be only a few times a year during feast days, or the occasional sliver as a flavouring to a plant ­based dish, the human­animal relationship has changed drastically in the rise of industrial society. Richard Bulliet (2005) distinguishes four stages in the history of human ­animal relationships: separation, pre­domesticity, domesticity and post­domesticity. The period of ‘domesticity’, he notes, was characterised by normalised daily contact with the animals used for consumption and as pets, but in the transition to post­domesticity (from the 1970s to today), humans are physically and psychologically separated from the animal used for food while paradoxically remaining in close connection with animals as pets. This contradiction creates great tension for those consuming animals: ‘feelings of guilt, shame, and disgust when they think (or not) about the industrial processes by which domestic animals are rendered into products and about how those products come to market’ (ibid: 3). Traditionally, the butcher window displayed animal carcasses proudly and offered the public exact instruction as to where on the animal the piece in question originated, whereas the contemporary butcher is quite different. Today, ‘meat’s connections with live animals (have) to be camouflaged’ (Stewart, 1989: 7): ‘bones, guts and skin are nowhere to be seen’ (Fiddles, 1991: 96) in order to halt the consumers’ imagination that an animal is staring back at them through the unidentifiable package, and encourage them instead to ‘think forward to what they will eat rather than backwards to the animal in the field’ (British Meat, 1987:4). 

Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows:

Melanie Joy, in her book, Why we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows (2010), explores the factors and belief system which allow humans to contradict their moral compass in the consumption of some animals and not others. 32% of Americans questioned in a Gallup 2015 survey believe animals should be given the same rights as people, a number much higher than the percentage of the population abstaining (3.3%) from meat or animal products all together (Harris, 2015). Joy (ibid) and others (Fiddles, 1991; Foer, 2009; Zaraska, 2016; Herzog, 2010) suggest that the invisibility embedded in every step of the process from an animal’s life and slaughter to the marketing of meat on television, and even the language used in this context, insulate us from the reality of the system and create a perfect environment for mass ‘carnism’ to exist (ibid, 21). Carnism, as termed by Joy, is the prevailing belief system of contemporary Western society in which the ‘choice’ to consume certain animals (cows, pigs, chickens) rather than others (dogs, cats, horses) is ‘considered ethical and appropriate’ (ibid: 30). 

Whether the origination is in the language used to describe the animal or the denial of the alikeness between the smiling cow in the Old MacDonald nursery book and the ground beef on the dinner table, this relationship is created and reinforced by not only the producers, but also the consumer. The success of the factory farm depends on ‘consumers’’ nostalgic images of food production because these images correspond to something we respect and trust’ (Foer, 2009:55). Even the disparity between the words used to describe the form of animal is most interesting: cow/beef, pig/pork, and veal/calve. Such varying terminology enables the consumer to eat without ‘envisioning the animal we’re eating’ (ibid: 21). Language therefore acts as a powerful distancing mechanism, an accomplice to aid the consumer to eat a product rather than a body. This ideology is so normal and mainstream that it does not need a name to describe the dietary choice of someone who chooses to eat meat, despite the many words available for the choice not to abide by the prevailing ideology: vegetarian, pescatarian, vegan etc. 

The cycle of invisibility extends into the physical realm of livestock production as well. 10 billion livestock (not including fish or other sea animals), over 1/3 larger than the global population, are raised every year for consumption (USDA, 2016), though somehow every step of the process and the animals lives are out of sight. These animals live their short lives in ‘confined animal feeding operations’ (CAFO), before being slaughtered at a rate of 19,011 animals per minute (Joy, 2010: 39). 

Understanding the discreetly hidden ‘behind ­the ­scenes’ and dissociated nature of the factory farm (Fitzgerald, 2010: 58), epitomised by the slaughterhouse, can help to illustrate the many other elements of carnism. Anthropologists Amy Fitzgerald suggests that the slaughterhouse as an institution, through its deliberate placing and mechanisation, has changed cultural sensibilities towards animal killing and relationships between the animals’ lives and those financially or nutritionally benefiting from it. The invisibility of the slaughterhouse and distance between animal and consumer is by no means an accident; animal slaughter ‘tends to be a somewhat ‘unpopular’ subject: no one wants to know about it” (Vialles, 1994:125). The space between a ‘half­truth and an evasion’ (Foer, 2009:341) is where industrial meat production stands for the benefit of the producer and consumer: an almost ‘heroic act of not knowing’ (Pollan, 2006: 85). 

Awareness of the shocking conditions of the meat industry is nothing new; vivid illustrations of the harsh and unsanitary conditions of the American meatpacking plants were first depicted by Upton Sinclair’s exposé, The Jungle (1906). As a result, regulation of the processing plants increased while the number of small processing plants and farming operations sharply declined. Between 1982 and 1997 the number of CAFOs dropped from 435,000 to 213,000 (Stull and Broadway, 2004). Accompanying these physical changes to modern processing plants, public knowledge of what happens inside now mirrored the conglomerate plants’ desires. As meat demand rises, the number of animals not only increases but simultaneously contributes to the diminished quality of the animal's life and death alongside consumer’s ‘affected ignorance’ of such happenings (Williams, 2008: 102). Perhaps if the consumer knew the truth about meat production, as Sir Paul McCartney famously claimed, or ‘slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian’ (PETA UK, 2014). 

Pressures to adhere to the culinary patterns outlined by the culture we identify with are so strong that natural human moral tendencies must be suppressed or hidden to pave the way for mechanisms which enable its adoption. As comfortable consumption is insured through adjusting animals’ moral standing and creating an invisible production system combined with social and market pressure, the consumer is alleviated from questioning the passage from farm to fork. The obscurity of the contemporary agricultural production disorientates the consumer by carefully erasing from sight and mind certain steps of the process to ensure putative carnivorous consumption. While the marketed image of the anthropomorphized happy farm animal is all that is seen, the true treatment of the animals within the confines and residual environmental damage is void from the human eye. While the ethical conundrum inherent in the process of killing and eating animals is obvious for many the ethicality of environmental consideration needs to take precedence in this discussion. 

Consequences of Consumption : Livestock Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions 

To properly place this discussion in context, it is important to understand the mechanisms at play in creating climate change and the associated physical manifestations. GHG that occurs through natural sources (eg. animal and plant respiration) and through human activities enters the earth’s ozone layer and causes a chain reaction through the emittance of infrared radiation (Oppenlander, 2013). As the amount of GHG compounds in the atmosphere increases, the greenhouse effect, which traps heat in the atmosphere allowing sunlight to pass through more freely, subsequently causes the warming of the earth and therefore climate change (Allison, 2015). Three of the five GHGs in Earth's atmosphere (methane, nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide) are anthropomorphic, i.e., largely produced through human activities (ibid). 

Accompanying the rise in average global temperatures, ocean temperatures and atmospheric water vapour increase, along with the shrinkage of ice glaciers causing sea­levels to rise and countless other consequences (Allison, 2015). If GHG emissions rise and the earth’s surface is 2 degrees Celsius (2 °C) warmer than pre­industrialised levels, ‘catastrophic changes’ will occur (ibid). There has been a 0.8°C increase in temperature over the last 40 years, largely attributed to the industrial revolution, a rise which has already caused ice caps to melt, oceans to rise and become 30% more acidic, and cause dramatic weather conditions such as heat waves, droughts and tornados (ibid). The 2 °C can be best explained as a point similar to ‘crossing a threshold’ where, once crossed, the speed and destruction of climate change will occur at a much more rapid rate (White et al., 2013). Past this 2 °C ‘tipping point’, projected to occur before 2050, sea levels will rise, weather will increasingly become more severe and agricultural production and biological diversity will decrease (Oppenlander, 2013). This is expected to cause global famine and water shortages and the minimum displacement of the 600 million people living on the coastlines (ibid). Controlling emissions to stay below the 2 °C ‘tipping point’ cannot be reconciled by a move away from traditional methods of production; dietary change is necessary (Bailey and Tomlinson, 2016). 

The livestock industry’s contribution to climate change, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (UNFAO) Livestock’s Long Shadow report, was calculated as 18% of anthropomorphic (GHG) emissions, while transportation, for example, contributes 13% (2006). Although this number (18%, as reported by the FAO) warrants concern and call to action, a number of independent researchers find this figure highly underestimated and place the anthropomorphic contribution of livestock to GHG emissions in a range from 30 to 51% (Calvert, 2005; Anhang and Goodland, 2009). 

Since the FAO’s publication, literature supporting livestock’s contribution to GHG emissions and anthropomorphic climate change has grown (Laestadius et al., 2014). While each animal’s emissions and rearing practices dramatically influence the efficiency and contribution to the GHG emissions, animal products and to a greater extent beef, emit greater GHG emissions than any food product based on protein content and weight (Laestadius et al., 2014; Weber & Matthews, 2008). Beef, in isolation of other animal production, is responsible for 41% of the GHG emissions from livestock (Opio et al., 2013), while also being one of the driving forces of land deforestation and degradation (Cederberg et al., 2011). In addition, 90% of the Amazon rainforest that has been cleared since 1970 is used for livestock production (Margulis, 2003). A study by Pimentel and Pimentel revealed that producing 1 kg of animal protein requires ‘100 times more water than producing 1 kg of grain protein’ (2003:663). Therefore, to produce 1 kg of beef, about 13 kg of grain and 30 kg of hay are required as well as more than 200,000 litres of water (Thomas, 1987). While direct costs such as cost of grain and water use are easy to calculate, indirect costs such as fossil fuel expenditures are almost invisible. For example, to produce 1 calorie of beef, 40 units of fossil fuel energy is created as a by­product. Similar equations have been calculated: 1 calorie of egg requires 39 units of energy; 1 calorie of milk requires 14 units of energy; and 1 calorie of turkey requires 10 units of energy (ibid). 

Livestock contribute to the emission of GHG through the many avenues of the production process and type of emission; mainly carbon dioxide (CO2), methane and nitric oxide. According to a report by the UN, CO2 in the form of fossil fuels is burned during the production of fertiliser used to grow crops for livestock as well as during food processing, and the transportation of meat once it is slaughtered for market (Steinfeld et al., 2006). Methane gas is released into earth's atmosphere through a variety of avenues, including the burning of fossil fuels, gas refining and drilling processes, and most significantly from the flatulence of animal husbandry. Methane and nitrous oxide, released most significantly from ruminant animals, are especially problematic as they have ‘greater global warming potentials’ than CO2 ­ that of methane is reportedly eighty­six times that of CO2 (Koneswaran and Nierenberg, 2008:579). Ruminant animals (sheep and cattle), through their unique process of digestion known as enteric fermentation, release methane as a by­product, which are on average ‘more GHG­intensive than all other forms of food’ (Weber & Matthews, 2008:3511); a process which creates 40% of total livestock GHG emissions (Gerber et al., 2013). Beef, compared to plant and any animal­based foods, has ‘by far the largest climate footprint’ (see figure 1) through the industry’s land use, freshwater consumption and GHG emissions (Raganathan et al., 2016 : 71). 

Projected Global Consumption 

Another paramount component to this discussion is the projected global convergence towards Western animal­centred consumption practices in the next thirty years. Based on numbers calculated by the UNFAO Livestock’s Long Shadow report, global meat consumption has increased from 47 million tonnes (mt) in 1950 (Steinfeld et al., 2006) to almost 315 million tonnes in 2014 (Mustafa, 2015). While the world population has little more than doubled in the same time period, this dramatic sixfold increase is not accounted for. According to the US Census Bureau, a world population counting tool, the world population is calculated at 7.5 billion people (July, 2016), a number that is growing at a rate of 76 million annually (Steinfeld et al., 2006). According to the UN medium projection forecast, at this rate the global population in 2050 will reach 9.1 billion with the largest population increase occurring in developing countries (95%) (ibid). Global meat production is projected to more than double between the years 2000 and 2050 from 229 mt to 465 mt while dairy products are projected to grow from 580 to 1043 mt over the same period (Steinfeld et al., 2006). Growing global populations and incomes are the two major factors that contribute to this projected increase in livestock production. 

It is important to understand where the seemingly increased global taste for meat comes from. Popkins, Horton and Kim (2001) termed the ‘catching­up process’ developing nations are engaging in as the ‘nutrition transition’ (Steinfeld et al., 2006:10). While historically, a significant gap exists between developed and developing countries in terms of animal consumption, the global trend of greater urbanisation coupled with higher standards of living in the latter, facilitates greater demand and consumption of these once expensive luxuries (Steinfeld et al., 2006; Rae, 1998). Over the decade between 1991 and 2001, per capita GDP grew globally by 1.4% with 7% in East Asia and 3.6% in South Asia (ibid). Steinfeld et al. suggest that the sharp increase in animal products produced and consumed globally is highly correlated to a sharp decrease in price (meat price decreased 12%, and dairy price decreased 31.5%). The patterns of consumption once unique to the West are soon to be adopted by the developing world with ‘potentially catastrophic consequences’ (Garnett, 2010: 32). 

Case For Change 

A report by Bailey et al. (2014) reveal that a significant ‘awareness gap’ prohibits public recognition of animal agriculture’s contribution to climate change. This gap is widened by various motivations from those seeking to financially or politically gain from its consumption who deliberately and/or unintentional avoid presenting complete and informed material to the public (ibid). This report reveals that the public believe that emissions from the ‘power production’ sector are the greatest GHG emitters and that the livestock sector contributes the least (out of seven) (ibid: 18). This lack of public awareness, according to Bailey et al., is reflected in the lack of climate change discourse directed towards the livestock sector and therefore inhibits action on behalf of the public, government and industry (ibid). Closing this awareness gap is therefore perhaps the most important step in halting the environmental damage. 

The concern for the sustainability of our planet and the desire to take steps to reduce contribution to and further limit detrimental emissions has grown significantly in the last decade upon reports of the climate change ‘tipping point’ (Bailey et al., 2014). Public awareness of human carbon footprint and influence on global warming grew from publication of the UN climate change conferences and through documentary films such as Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth (2006). These publications and this documentary specifically, for which Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, on the one hand furthered public knowledge that humans contribute to climate change, and on the other curated the information to tell a very specific story. We are reaching a ‘true planetary emergency’, Gore explains to the audience after thoroughly convincing the viewer that global warming exists, an event which ‘is really not a political issue, so much as a moral one’ (Gore, 2006). The general public’s collective understanding of climate change is built around the emphasis Gore places as rooted in oil, gas and coal production, and summed up perfectly in a interview with the Guardian last year in which Gore believes the driving industrial forces, Chevron, Exxon and BP, are using earth’s ‘atmosphere as an open sewer’ (Confino, 2015:1). 

In response to Gore’s campaign, legislation to ‘cap and trade’ CO2 emissions through initiatives such as taking 5­minute showers, changing to more efficient light bulbs, and driving a hybrid car were promoted as techniques to curb individual’s foot prints and subsequent protests over Tar Sands oil extraction became popular acts of environmental activism (Oppenlander, 2013). Whether purposefully or as a consequence of misunderstanding, the message of reducing GHG emissions and therefore climate change, although important, was directed towards inanimate objects (cars, planes and buildings) despite the smaller contribution these factors play in the total emitters. Taxes on ‘gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, incentives for oil and gas drilling, nuclear power plant construction, [and] carbon capture’ were implemented and investment in renewable energy was increased significantly (ibid, 56). 

The current environmental repercussions and, by a greater extent, the future sustainability and food security challenges projected to incur as the global taste for animal products converge with the Western model, seems indisputable at this point. The question then becomes: what are the options? Suggestions of how to feed the growing meat­centered world and how to raise consumers’ awareness of the relationship between livestock production and environmental degradation will follow in the next chapter. 

Considering the Alternatives 

The previous two chapters have explored the culture of meat consumption and to what extent this model of consumption, soon to be the global standard, will not only exceed earth's physical capacity but will continue to cause irreversible environmental degradation. In the last few years, as awareness of the environmental contribution of large scale animal agriculture has became more mainstream, movement away from factory farms and towards more slowly raised free range and grass­-fed animals has begun to gain in popularity. Therefore, this next section will explore the effectiveness of this solution. 

While for many the mere suggestion of eliminating animal from our diets is a laughing matter, for others the suggestion of not doing so causes the opposite reaction. While the need for a countermeasure to the ferocity of meat consumption is conclusive for those aware of the environmental situation soon to ensue, the form which this should take is by no means as clear. A solution years in the pipeline will also be explored, which utilizes the greatest technology available today, and may provide a palatable option to this dilemma: animal­-less meats. 

Grass­fed Solution?

Institutions and communities based around these ‘locally grown’, ‘cage­free’, ‘sustainably sourced’, ‘pastured’, and ‘farm­to­table’ food ideals have surged in the last decade in direct opposition to the traditional industrialised food­production system (Oppenlander, 2013). Food writers such as Michael Pollan, social organisers such as Slow Food Org., farmers such as Joel Salatin and diets such as Paleo have become the faces of these ideals and movements (ibid). Not only do these movements and leaders offer an avenue to still consume the highly prized animal but they also provide a theoretically sustainable and morally superior option. 

Individuals following the ‘Paleo Diet’ epitomise the slow food, grass­fed, organic animal market. Robb Wolf, one of the pioneers of the Paleo movement suggests that 3­6 ounces of animal protein (with an emphasis on beef) or 3­5 eggs, as well as 1 or 2 tablespoons of butter or lard should be consumed at each meal (Kubal, Wolf, and Rodgers, 2016). All animal protein and products need to be grass­fed, organic and free­range, Wolf and many other leading voices of the community suggest (ibid). While the exact meaning of these words changes depending on the context and voice of authority and the human health benefit being emphasised, such as the vastly ‘superior omega­3 to omega­6 ratio’ with these foods (Noël, 2010:21), the even more environmentally damaging nature of these diets remain constant. 

For the strengths of these non­industrial alternative production methods, the suggestion that this substitution is all that is needed to halt the environmental degradation is far from accurate. Judith Capper, professor of Animal Science at Washington State University, published a report comparing the energy input and varying environmental impacts of conventional, natural and grass­fed beef production systems (2012). She determined that conventional beef production (finished in feedlots with growth­enhancing technology) requires significantly less land, water and fossil fuels, and has a lower carbon footprint than either natural (feedlot finished with no growth­enhancing technology) or grass­fed (forage­fed, no growth­enhancing technology) systems. She explains that while CAFOs arguably provide a worse quality of life for the cow itself, the efficiency of the fattening or finishing process produces far less emissions per cow just on the basis of time spent alive to create gases; the intensively raised cow eats 2,800 pounds of corn to gain 1,000 pounds in a few months, versus a grass­fed cow who lives on pasture twice as long, whilst continuing to emit GHG emissions (Palmer, 2010). 

The recent condemnation of conventionally CAFO­produced meat and the subsequent upsurge of the seemingly more environmentally sustainable grass­fed organically produced meat, as this last section has shown, is ground in inaccuracies. Failure to see the likeness between the idolised organic grass­fed steak and the scorned McDonald’s hamburger, for the middle classes, shapes the conversation in one direction and prevents any substantial reduction of consumption. The act of assuming that the essential problem (if one exists at all) lies within industrial meat production, directs the conversation conveniently away from the problem itself and provides a favorable solution to the middle class consumer. 

In response to this clear relationship between meat consumption, GHG emissions and the subsequent environmental degradation, many food ­focused, animal protection and environmental non­governmental organisations (NGOs) have begun modifying their messages (Laestadius et al., 2014). In their meta­analysis, Laestadius et al. revealed that overall NGOs’ messages are now advocating for the ‘modest reductions in meat consumption [and] increase [in] the proportion of meat consumed from grass­fed ruminant animals’ (ibid: 85). 

Moderation of meat consumption, if any, whether advocated by the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (USDA, 2016) nutritionists or food writers, lies in the vague idea that we should ‘eat less’ or enjoy it in moderation. Consumer pressure and individuals like Michael Pollan have encouraged the move away from conventional farming practices and towards small farming operations, and some have even encouraged ‘less’ consumption. However, this lack of quantification allows for stagnation as what ‘less’ is in comparison to is undefined and therefore leaves space for individual manipulation and relative modification. In light of this, in an attempt at placing a quantification on the ‘less’ suggestion, perhaps the inverse of the ‘Meatless Monday’ movement, which promotes not consuming meat once a week (Lerner, 2003), needs to be reasonably re­written as Meat ­only on Monday. 

Cultured Meat 

In August 2013, Professor Mark Post of the University of Maastricht cooked the first cell­cultured hamburger live on air in London (Jha, 2013). Post, whose primary research is engineering skeletal muscle tissue for use in human arterial grafting, has applied this medical technology over the last five years to cultured meat for human consumption (Datar, 2015). Using the same techniques, his team of researchers harmlessly biopsied cells from a cow’s muscle which were then cultured to grow and form 20,000 muscle fibres to form the world's first lab grown hamburger (Rushe, 2016). While in an early estimate Post revealed that an ‘early retail price could be set at $29.50 per pound, but as production scales up [...] that price could come down to approximately $3.60 per pound’ (Rushe, 2016: 3). 

The 20th century capitalist society characterised by the Fordist means of production and technological advancements has created an ever­increasing efficiency and control (Parsons, 1991). The contemporary commercial animal factories are economies of scale which use ‘high­density, hyper­confinement methods [... and] automated processes’ where animals are bred and artificially manipulated to reach slaughtering weight much quicker than ever before (Simon, 2013: 216). The efficiency and productivity of these techniques are noteworthy: egg production per hen has doubled in the last century and milk from dairy cows has tripled, as have speed of growth and weight of chickens (Roberts, 2000). If the end result is to produce a piece of meat trimmed of fat, skin, bones and anything that resembles the animal, then why does it need to be produced from the whole organism? 

Cellular agriculture is based on finding a solution to this problem, logically turning the production line on its head, building from the smallest unit of life and growing up to produce an identical piece of meat while avoiding the issues, i.e land use, environmental degradation as well as the less desirable and unintentional fat, bones and skin. While this stem­cell meat may be too big of a philosophical hurdle or too reminiscent of ‘frankenfood’ (Miller and Conko, 2004) to be palatable just yet, there are other alternatives. 

Plant Based Meat 

The Not Company (Not Co.), a food­tech startup comprised of a biochemist, an engineer, a research associate and an artificially intelligent computer called Giuseppe based in Santiago, Chile, endeavour to take the place of the local animal food producers (Muchnick, 2016). While there have been many meat­replacement products and mainstream producers such as Alpro and Silk for decades, this new wave of animal replacement takes a different angle with a more intricate social understanding of what consumers and humans want. 

These new alternative ­meat producers, with companies such as Beyond Meat, Impossible Foods, Hamilton Creek, Not Co. and many others are not reformulating the seemingly old­school tofu or tempeh,but are building a piece of meat directly from plants. The aim of these highly environmentally motivated companies is to precisely replace animal protein with plant alternates and make every lipid and amino acid identical to its animal form with indistinguishable taste, smell, and texture and to make a burger that bleeds and sizzles. Beyond Meat founder Ethan Brown is committed to ‘re­creating a piece of meat from plant inputs’ that is also nutritionally improved: ‘our meat has more iron than steak, more protein than beef, more omega­3s than fish, more calcium than milk, and more antioxidants than blueberries’ (Brown, quoted in Leschin­Hoar, 2015). 

By using a bottom­up approach, the individual biochemists (or in Not Co.’s case, a highly trained computer) apply the most current understandings of molecular and human behaviour to input an array of various plant sources to determine which fits best. The Not Co. have a different business model than the other multinational­focused startups mentioned above, as their ambition is to provide a plant­based meat for the local Chilean populations (Muchnick, 2016). These new not­meats ask the consumer to reconsider and re­define meat as a product of its scientific architecture and not the source of where it came from: this is the task. These new animal­less meats perhaps provide the only best­of­both­worlds solutions whereby we can have our culturally sensitive steak while conserving the planet too. 

Given the longevity of eating meat in human history and the almost religious status ingrained into the Western context, the abundance of its consumption and the breadth of its consequences should be of no surprise. If human proclivity to consume animal were as it is framed, a simple and innocuous act of pleasure, free of consequences, then perhaps there would be no stimulus for this paper. This, unfortunately, is not the case. 

In modernity, especially in the West, to live without quotidian consumption of meat is considered a state of imposed deprivation, an entrenched belief system which, as explored, has the most adverse consequences for every being on this planet and the earth itself. Unintentionally, we have created a world soon to be unfit for our inhabitance, as the very thing that made us human will be the very thing holding us back from our ability to thrive on the planet. Feeding the world, physically and sustainably, is a complex problem, one which cannot and must not rest on the laurels of history and tradition: to accomplish this, the meat­eating ‘culture­coated veil [must] [...] be peeled off’ (Oppenlander, 2013, 286), and the invisibility of the system of production and its unintended consequences must be made visible. 

As global populations inherit the Westerner’s food practices, demand for meat and the subsequent unintended environmental consequences will dramatically increase and questions of how to physically and sustainably feed the world will continue to arise. In light of this, modification of the zeitgeist model of meat­eating culture is not only warranted but necessary. Through exploration of the culture of eating animal and its environmental consequences, it is clear that the solution lies in a culturally sensitive multi­dimensional approach that reflects the intricate cultural layers of meat consumption. Possible steps towards a sustainable food future include: raising public awareness of the mystified food chains and environmental impacts of livestock production, diversifying protein inputs of what constitutes meat (animal, vegetable or cultured) by broadening the protein barrier to include plant­based sources and redirecting government policy towards encouraging animal­less consumption, whether in the form of placing a tax on animal or redirecting livestock subsidies to animal­less food producers. 

Bibliography is available on request