After Meat

This chapter describes a future scenario in which humankind abruptly stops eating animals. Its purpose is to explore the impacts of animal agriculture using a fictional device. Several ways, in which the end of meat might happen are suggested, including a virulent global human epidemic originating from the meat supply. The ensuing state of the world is examined along six axes: animals, the environment, human health, the economy, food, and society. Because of the enormous scale of animal agriculture today, a sudden end to meat would cause massive upheavals across all of these domains. However, it is predicted that positive gains would be significant, outweighing negative outcomes.

Meat Myths and Marketing

This chapter explores how marketing uses the creation and perpetuation of myths to reinforce demand for meat amongst mainstream consumers. It explores advertising misinformation including with regards the place of meat in our culture, its nutritional value, its association with affluence, masculinity and the benefits of small-scale production. The power of marketing is within the context of whether marketing has a role to play in decreasing rather than perpetuating meat-consumption.

Sustainable Food Consumption

It is difficult to separate western consumerism from excessive meat consumption and through globalization this culture is spreading through the planet to traditional places, such as Bangladesh and the Indian subcontinent. The chapter argues that the socio-economic and planetary cost of increasing meat consumption is clearly untenable and initiating a process that restores natural resources is imperative. A major objective of this chapter is to raise awareness about the consequences from unsustainable meat production and consumption and the negative implication from a Western type of diet. Drawing on the spiritual messages from the Baul philosophers, it makes the case that preserving traditional flexitarianism, defined here as meat in the absence of any other food options or rare ceremonial meat consumption, is essential for the health of the planet and its inhabitants.

The Future of Antibiotics and Meat

This chapter discusses antibiotic use in the livestock industry and potential ramifications for human health. Antibiotics are routinely administered to food animals, primarily at sub-therapeutic levels. The extensive use of antibiotics in global animal husbandry in quantities greater than used for humans is creating antibiotic resistance. There is evidence that antibiotic resistant organisms emerging in food animals transfer to humans through the food chain, environmental contamination, direct association with animals or through mobile resistant genetic elements resulting in co-resistance to other antibiotics. No new classes of antibiotics have been developed since the 1980s. Intensifying use of existing antibiotics for meat production poses new challenges for treating humans, needs to be taken seriously and dealt with urgently. This chapter argues that reduced meat consumption is an under-considered but essential part in any suite of solutions aimed at preserving the use of antibiotics for human treatment.

Red Meat and Health

Despite its nutritional benefits, there is an increasing body of evidence to suggest that regular consumption of red meat may negatively impact health and disease risk, including the risk of most common chronic diseases. This chapter reviews the current evidence linking red and processed meat intakes with chronic disease, obesity and mortality risks and discusses possible mechanisms to explain these associations. Research on the health benefits of diets low in red meat, including vegetarian, vegan, Mediterranean and other plant-based diets, is also reviewed.

Improving the Understanding of Climate Change Factors with Images

In Australia, the public got its first mass marketing about climate change and the measures that would be required to avoid it, by TV images of black balloons and Professor Tim Flannery turning off light switches. Journalistic coverage has been similarly dominated by household electricity. More technical literature is generally dominated by the concept of “carbon dioxide equivalence” (CO2eq) as spelled out in the Kyoto protocol. This concept isn't used in climate models because it makes no physical sense. The use of CO2eq and the focus on household electricity has lead to a profound mismatch between the causal factors as understood by climate scientists and causal factors as perceived by the public. “The public” here isn't just the general public, but people of many backgrounds with a strong interest in climate change but without the deep knowledge of professional climate scientists. We need images consistent with climate models, which accurately rank the causes of climate change and guide proposed actions. Such images point to meat as a key focal issue.

Livestock and Climate Change

A global shift away from diets dominated by meat, dairy and eggs to mainly plant-based diets is as necessary in mitigating anthropogenic climate change as the shift away from fossil fuels. Yet a large awareness gap exists about animal agriculture's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. Recent studies in Australia and the United States show this issue is represented in less than 1 percent of all newspaper articles about climate change. This chapter examines the opportunities and barriers in addressing the livestock sector's impact on climate change. Policy recommendations in the literature are compared with the responses of governments, industry and the NGO sector. Australia's unique socioeconomic and cultural ties to livestock production and the consumption of animal products represent a significant barrier to demand-side mitigation. An analysis of newspaper articles mentioning animal agriculture's link to climate change in The Sydney Morning Herald between 2006 and 2014 provides insights into the facilitation and shaping of public awareness on the issue to date. The findings can inform strategies to increase future media coverage and encourage a more engaged discourse on demand-side mitigation.

Impact of Meat Consumption on the Health of People, the Animals They Eat, and the Earth's Resources

Food consumption has both direct, immediate impacts and longer-lasting effects on human health and wellbeing. This chapter considers the evidence behind the impact of animal foods on human health. It also reviews the impact of intensive animal production on the health and wellbeing of the animals themselves, including their breeding and conditions in which they are reared. The potential for factory farms to contribute to the global threat of antibiotic resistance and to be the breeding ground for a viral pandemic is also considered. Intensive animal farming is further adversely affecting the earth's resources of cereals, soy and water. The conclusion is that there is overwhelming evidence for a reduction in consumption of animal products on the grounds of health, the use of the earth's precious resources and the wellbeing of the animals consumed for food.

The Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Various Dietary Practices and Intervention Possibilities to Reduce This Impact

This chapter examines the link between dietary choices and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and possible interventions to reduce this impact. The connections between climate change, food systems and public health are explored. It is shown that there is variance in the impact of different food types on GHG emissions, with animal products having the greatest impact. The role of food system activities in the production of GHG emissions is also explored. Dietary choices and GHG emissions are examined using case studies from a variety of countries. Results show that reduced animal food production has increased potential to reduce GHG emissions compared to technological mitigation or increased productivity measures. Finally, a systems science approach is used to explore possible interventions aimed at reducing consumption of animal products.

Meat Production and Consumption

This chapter presents the results of studies that unveil how meat and other animal derived products are causing severe environmental impacts, social problems and ethical concerns regarding both human and non-human animals. Although there are many ways to tackle the issue a critical non-anthropocentric education that encompasses ethics as a dimension of sustainability, is proposed. Traditional non environmental education often legitimizes values that are averse to an ethic that could be described as correct regarding the relationship between humans and the other animal species and even many educational currents that call themselves “environmental” are guided by a shallow conservationist point of view. Although welfarist practices may in some contexts be of help, the authors propose the animal abolitionist perspective as the unique genuine foundation for education to build this new paradigm.