Meat, and Food Incorporated

In the new documentary Food, Inc., The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is back with a vengeance.  

In the past there were hundreds if not thousands of slaughterhouses across the U.S.  Nowadays there are only a handful.  

So what, right?  Well, how do you want your hamburger?  All coming from one cow or pieced together from possibly hundreds, some of which might have been deformed or diseased before slaughter, and lets not forget the dreaded mad cow disease.  Also, pretty much all of them were covered in excrement.  Actually don’t worry about that part, they get boiled after being killed to clean their hides of hair and everything else.  So a few get to the boiling part still alive, so what, right?  We can’t waste good meat.

Well, lets forget about that part for a while, aren’t we supposed to be worried more about global warming than other issues?  The economy, maybe?  We’ve certainly learned that too much carbon dioxide is a contributer to global warming overall, but is it the largest contributer?  No.

Methane gas is roughly twenty-one times worse.  More and more of it is released from the glaciers and static ice formations around the world each year that it gets warmer, but that’s not the largest contributer to global warming either.  Meat is.

Cattle farming, adding up all of the various resources that go into it, including a massive chunk of our corn crop, not only takes a way a huge chunk of the worlds drinkable water supply, it also produces 18+% of the global warming gases released each year.  I’m fairly certain that’s more than all the cars in America combined could ever produce.

Not only that, is it really safe or responsible as human beings to allow the methods now used for growing chickens roughly twice as fast, so fast their legs often do not develop fast enough to support their own weight, or to mechanize and mass produce beef (i.e. production line slaughter)?

Also, what is happening with the farmers producing these animals?  Well, they are heavily indebted to the major companies that produce the final products, particularly mass chicken farmers.  As someone who spent much of my childhood on my grandfather’s farm, I firmly believe that farming is a sacred profession that everyone else in the world depends on, and they should all be treated as such.  I’ve seen slaughter of animals firsthand, and there is a humane way to do it, if there is such a thing.  

That’s not really the point, though.  The point is America has become the most voracious carnivores in all the history of humanity, consuming more meat than has ever been consumed before.  Do we really need all that?  Is mass production of meat really safe or healthy for anybody who consumes it in the long term?  These haunting questions and more are discussed in the documentary Food, Inc..

So are there any answers to this problem?  Yes.  Buy meat locally, and buy organic if that’s not possible.  In most places in the U.S., there is a farm nearby that sells their meat on the spot, ready to go into your freezer.  Aside from that, personally I’ve had venison in my freezer more than once in my lifetime.  Wild caught, just like those catchy phrases on salmon packaging.  

Despite all this, meat will still be consumed, of course.  I merely suggest you try slaughtering your own animal for once, and if you can deal with doing that once, please, eat all the meat you want.  I’m not suggesting we stop entirely, that’s silly, just have a look at the documentary Food, Inc. and vote with your meat purchases whenever you can.  If you’re jobless in this jobless economy, consider acting as a freelance delivery service from local farms to customers who don’t have time from their busy lives to go out to the farm all the time.  

Whatever we as consumers choose, has to be acceded to by industry and the market in the long run.  It’s as simple as that.