The Meat Business

The theme running through this collection of essays is that food quality and human health, the welfare of animals and the methods of farming, and the quality of the environment, go hand-in-hand. This theme continues along the lines that the present system is harmful to them all and to our ability to generate enough good food for the whole world. The contributors to the volume offer alternatives - for more humane and moderate methods of farming which produce enough nourishing food without damaging the environment it depends on.

Abstract: Intended to encourage and promote a consumer compaign for "Real Meat", this book discloses a researched look at the meat business. Stock-farming techniques, slaughterhouse secrets, tenderization procedures, dye usage, and other methods employed to disguise inferior meat products comprise some of the issues addressed. The use of hazardous drugs, hormones, and tricks of packaging are topics also addressed. Tables illustrating regulatory standards and other meat-related data are included.

"In The Meat Racket, investigative reporter Christopher Leonard delivers the first-ever account of how a handful of companies have seized the nation's meat supply. He shows how they built a system that puts farmers on the edge of bankruptcy, charges high prices to consumers, and returns the industry to the shape it had in the 1900s before the meat monopolists were broken up. At the dawn of the 21st century, the greatest capitalist country in the world has an oligarchy controlling much of the food we eat and a high-tech sharecropping system to make that possible. These companies are even able to raise meat prices for consumers while pushing down the price they pay to farmers. We know that it takes big companies to bring meat to the American table. What The Meat Racket shows is that this industrial system is rigged against all of us."--Publisher information.

Focusing on the interactions of producers, sellers and consumers of meat across the world, from the nineteenth century onwards, Richard Perren provides a comprehensive analysis of how an efficient meat exporting industry was built. The study utilises the government reports and papers issued by all countries involved in the meat trade, including North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and Britain.

There are various innovations and new technologies being produced in the energy, transportation, and building industries to combat climate change and improve environmental performance, but another way to combat this is examining the world’s food resources. Currently, there are global challenges associated with livestock and meat consumption, giving way to resource scarcity and the inability to sustain animal agriculture. Environmental, Health, and Business Opportunities in the New Meat Alternatives Market is a pivotal reference source that provides vital research on the development of plant-based foods and nutritional outcomes. Through analyzing innovative and disruptive trends in the food industry, it presents opportunities utilizing meat alternatives to create a more engaged consumer, a stronger economy, and a better environment. Highlighting topics such as meat consumption, nutrition, health, and gender perspectives, this book is ideally designed for policymakers, economists, health professionals, nutritionists, technology developers, academicians, and graduate-level students.

Originally published in 1999. The theme running through this collection of essays is that food quality and human health, the welfare of animals and the methods of farming, and the quality of the environment, go hand-in-hand. This theme continues along the lines that the present system is harmful to them all and to our ability to generate enough good food for the whole world. The contributors to the volume offer alternatives - for more humane and moderate methods of farming which produce enough nourishing food without damaging the environment it depends on.

The growth of the global meat industry and the implications for climate change, food insecurity, workers' rights, the treatment of animals, and other issues. Global meat production and consumption have risen sharply and steadily over the past five decades, with per capita meat consumption almost doubling since 1960. The expanding global meat industry, meanwhile, driven by new trade policies and fueled by government subsidies, is dominated by just a few corporate giants. Industrial farming—the intensive production of animals and fish—has spread across the globe. Millions of acres of land are now used for pastures, feed crops, and animal waste reservoirs. Drawing on concrete examples, the contributors to Global Meat explore the implications of the rise of a global meat industry for a range of social and environmental issues, including climate change, clean water supplies, hunger, workers' rights, and the treatment of animals. Three themes emerge from their discussions: the role of government and corporations in shaping the structure of the global meat industry; the paradox of simultaneous rising meat production and greater food insecurity; and the industry's contribution to social and environmental injustice. Contributors address such specific topics as the dramatic increase in pork production and consumption in China; land management by small-scale cattle farmers in the Amazon; the effect on the climate of rising greenhouse gas emissions from cattle raised for meat; and the tensions between economic development and animal welfare. Contributors Conner Bailey, Robert M. Chiles, Celize Christy, Riva C. H. Denny, Carrie Freshour, Philip H. Howard, Elizabeth Ransom, Tom Rudel, Mindi Schneider, Nhuong Tran, Bill Winders